Olivier Pla posted the fastest time during IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship practice on the recently repaved Watkins Glen Int’l on Friday.
Story By: IMSA SERIES MEDIA Photos By: CHRIS BURGESS and JAY FISH / RACERSGUIDE.COM
WATKINS GLEN, NY- July 2, 2016- Finding the repaved 3.4-mile Watkins Glen Int’l to their liking in Friday’s opening practice, IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship competitors unofficially bettered all four class records in preparation for Sunday’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen.
Olivier Pla posted the fastest time of the day, running 1:36.155 (127.2 mph) in the No. 60 Michael Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Curb Records/AERO Honda Ligier JS P2. Co-driver Ozz Negri led the opening session with a lap of 1:36.705 (126.5 mph). John Pew will complete the team’s driver lineup.
Both laps bettered the WeatherTech Championship record of 1:37.902 (125.023 mph), set in 2014 in a Nissan Morgan.
“As soon as I did the track walk with John and Ozz yesterday, I knew I was going to love the track,” Pla said. “It’s a really fast track, and I love tracks with fast corners. You can really feel the G forces in your neck. It makes it fun to drive. We’ll just keep pushing hard. The race will be very tough so we’ll have to be good on strategy and stay out of trouble and if we do that, I think we’ll be good.”
Joey Hand, recent GTE Pro class winner in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, was fastest in the GT Le Mans (GTLM) class with a lap of 1:43.309 (118.4 mph) in the No. 66 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT co-driven by Dirk Mueller. Second was teammate Richard Westbrook, 1:43.377 (118.4 mph) in the No. 67 Ford GT co-driven by Ryan Briscoe.
Defending Sahlen’s Six Hour Prototype Challenge (PC) winner Renger van de Zande led his class with a lap of 1:38.582 (124.1 mph) in the No. 8 Starworks Motorsport ORECA FLM09 co-driven by Alex Popow. Colin Braun was second in the No. 54 CORE autosport Flex Box/Composite Resources ORECA co-driven by Jon Bennett and Mark Wilkins, 1:38.619 (124.1 mph).
Stevenson Motorsports Audis ran 1-2 in GT Daytona (GTD). Robin Liddell clocked the best lap of the day in the opening session, 1:46.147 (115.3 mph) in the No. 6 Stevenson Auto Group Audi R8 LMS GT3 co-driven by Andrew Davis. Lawson Aschenbach led the afternoon session in the team’s No. 9 entry co-driven by Matt Bell, running 1:46.259 (115.1 mph).
Elsewhere, Scott Maxwell mastered a drying track to capture a record-tying 12th career TOTAL Pole Award to lead Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge qualifying for Saturday’s Continental Tire 150.
The Canadian broke the track record in the Grand Sport (GS) class on his final lap, running 2:00.514 (101.5 mph) in the No. 15 Multimatic Motorsports Ford Shelby GT350R-C co-driven by Billy Johnson.
“We had a clear lane at the beginning of the session, but during the first two or three laps you still had to be careful not to hit the water,” said Maxwell after winning his second pole of the season. “Over the 15 minutes that lane widened, allowing you to take more liberties and be aggressive. Then at the end, it was ‘go for it,’ because the other guys were setting fast times. Today, it all worked out for us, even though I thought we’d wind up P2 because of the rain.”
The MINI John Cooper Works team swept the front row in ST qualifying, with Derek Jones capturing his first career TOTAL Pole Award while giving the MINI JCW its first pole position.
