MSR Acura leads the way again in second IMSA practice at Indy

The No. 60 Acura Meyer Shank Racing ARX-06 remains the fastest car through two practice sessions at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, again courtesy of Tom Blomqvist.

With qualifying on the horizon this afternoon, Tom Blomqvist set the fastest time in Practice 2 for the No. 60 Acura. He was the first GTP driver to set a time under one minute, 16 seconds, recording a 1m15.714s.

Blomqvist took the top time from Ricky Taylor, who set a 1m16.297s in the blue No. 10 Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing V-Series.R before being usurped by Blomqvist. Acura MSR’s No. 93 ARX-06 was third fastest in the hands of Nick Yelloly with a 1m16.352s.

In a strong fourth was the No. 63 Lamborghini Squadra Corse SC63, and who but Romain Grosjean set the time of 1m16.481s, putting him and the Riley-run SC63 ahead of both BMWs, both factory Porsche Penskes, and two of the three Cadillacs.

Rounding out the top five was the No. 24 Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8 of Dries Vanthoor, who left it until late to show his pace.

GTP championship leader Matt Campbell was sixth fastest in the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963, but late in the session with 20 minutes to go, Campbell was tagged from behind by the No. 8 Tower Motorsports ORECA LMP2 of Sébastien Bourdais. The impact damaged the right rear of the Porsche and sent carbon fiber debris spilling out onto the track, which brought out a red flag.

As a consequence, Bourdais’ co-driver John Farano will lose his fastest lap in qualifying this afternoon, as Bourdais was judged to be at fault for the incident which brought out the red flag.

AF Corse’s bright blue No. 88 ORECA 07-Gibson set the fastest time in LMP2; Nicklas Nielsen grabbed the top time just a little over halfway into the session with a 1m16.989s. He took it from Hunter McElrea in the No. 11 TDS Racing ORECA, who was second fastest.

Just behind him, making his IMSA LMP2 debut, was the former Williams F1 team driver Logan Sargeant in the No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports car, who has been quickly getting up to speed. Tom Dillmann was fourth in the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition car.

Once again, the fastest GT time was set by a GTD class Aston Martin Vantage GT3 EVO. This time it was by the No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin. Casper Stevenson took the No. 27 car to the top with a 1m23.624s.

His counterpart in GTD PRO was Albert Costa, who was fastest in his class driving the No. 81 DragonSpeed Ferrari 296 GT3 with a 1m23.720s.

The rest of the top three in GTD PRO featured Christopher Mies in the No. 65 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang GT3, who was second ahead of the championship-leading No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Z06 GT3.R of Alexander Sims.

A pack of quick GTD cars separated Sims from teammate Tommy Milner in the sister No. 4 Corvette. Those GTD leaders included Danny Formal, already a winner this weekend, in second aboard the rebuilt No. 45 Wayne Taylor Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2. In third was Manny Franco in the No. 34 Conquest Racing Ferrari, and in fourth was the No. 023 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari of Onofrio Triarsi.

The session ended with a three-car, three-class accident down Hulman Boulevard. The No. 63 Lamborghini SC63, now being driven by Edoardo Mortara, was going three-wide into Turn 7 when he collided with the No. 18 Era Motorsport ORECA LMP2 of Tobias Lütke. The ORECA then careened into the No. 13 AWA Racing Corvette of Matthew Bell and both cars went off, with Lütke going into the tire barrier. The No. 63 Lamborghini will lose its quickest lap in qualifying for causing the incident.

Qualifying for the TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks starts this afternoon at 3:15pm ET, airing in the U.S. on Peacock and in over 230 other countries around the world on the official IMSA YouTube channel and IMSA.TV.

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