IMSA: P2s grab initiative in United SportsCar's FP1 at Mosport

Related Stories

The fast, sweeping curves of Canadian Tire Motorsports Park are playing into the hands of the P2 cars, if opening practice for the Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix presented by Hawk Performance is a useful guide. Gustavo Yacaman's 1min10.928sec lap of the 2.459-mile track in Bowmanville, Ont., was top time in a 1-2-3 for the P2 cars, with Extreme Speed Motorsports' Ryan Dalziel and Johannes van Overbeek next up in their HPD ARX-03bs. Yacaman's OAK Racing Nissan-Morgan, which came achingly close to triumph at Watkins Glen two weeks ago, completed 36 laps over the one-hour session, its fastest lap being 124.808mph.

Christian Fittipaldi's Corvette was fastest of the DP cars, the Action Express Racing No. 5 clocking a time almost 0.4sec behind Yacaman's best, but mere hundredths off the ESM pair. The AER car was also a handy couple of tenths faster than the Glen-winning Spirit of Daytona Corvette shared by Richard Westbrook and Michael Valiante. Next up was a bit of a surprise though - the DeltaWing Coupe of Andy Meyrick and Katherine Legge – but biggest props go to the progress being made by Mazda. The SKYACTIV-D Prototype of Joel Miller and Tristan Nunez was just 4.4sec off the leader's pace, and that's a big step forward.

Last year's memorable GTLM battle for honors here at CTMP between American iron, in the form of Chevrolet Corvette and Dodge Viper, looks set to be reprised in 2014, but with an added German twist. The lead SRT Viper and Corvette C7.R, piloted by Marc Goossens and Jan Magnussen respectively, were second and third fastest, again separated by hundredths of a second, but they were bookended by the fast BMW Z4 GTEs of Jonathan Edwards and Andy Priaulx in first and fourth. Fastest of the Porsche 911s, and fifth overall, was the Falken Tire entry of Wolf Henzler/Bryan Sellers.

While GTLM is a close-run thing between various manufacturers, Audi R8s dominated GTD in this session, with Spencer Pumpelly putting the No. 35 Flying Lizard Motorsports entry on top…and then also taking FLM's No. 45 car to P3. Christopher Haase filled the gap with the Paul Miller Racing No. 48 entry.