Bourdais leads Cadillac one-two in first IMSA practice at Road America

In a session interrupted by numerous red flags as drivers tested Road America’s new pavement, Sebastien Bourdais set the benchmark for Cadillac Racing in Friday’s first practice session for the IMSA SportsCar Weekend at Road America. Bourdais turned a 1m49.538s on his final circuit in the No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-Series.R to claim the top spot.

That was only a tick ahead of Pipo Derani, who made it a Cadillac one-two in the No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac, 0.054s off Bourdais’ best. Augusto Farfus did a late 1m49.873s lap in the No. 24 BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8 for third. Filipe Albuquerque (No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport Acura) and Tom Blomqvist (No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06) rounded out the top five. Tijmen van der Helm was the quickest of the Porsche drivers in seventh, with the No. 5 JDC-Miller Motorsports 963 ahead of the factory Porsche Penske Motorsports machines.

The session was interrupted by five red flags, including a couple for significant crashes involving Mathieu Jaminet in the No. 6 PPM 963, and big offs in The Kink for Giedo van der Garde in the No. 35 TDS Racing ORECA LMP2, and Misha Goikhberg in the GTD-class No. 78 Forte Racing by USRT Lamborghini Huracan. David Brule in the No. 92 Kellymoss with Riley had a minor off in Turn 3 to bring out another, and the rear window blew out of the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 to cause a red flag for debris. In all, more than a third of the 90-minute session was lost to stoppages.

Mikkel Jensen led LMP2 for TDS Racing in the No. 11 ORECA, posting a 1m52.812s lap, 0.476s better than Ryan Dalziel in the No. 18 Era Motorsports machine. Ben Hanley was third for Crowdstrike Racing in the No. 04 ORECA.