Lazare Sweeps Practice At NOLA Motorsports Park

Subtitle:Championship Leader Holds Off Schein, Catania

AVONDALE, La. (April 10, 2015) – Continuing his dominance from the opening rounds of the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge USA by Yokohama, Jesse Lazare swept the opening day of practice Friday at NOLA Motorsports Park.

Lazare, from Montreal, posted a top time of 1 minute, 41.458 seconds in his No. 21 Kelly-Moss Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car. His best time was posted in the first session of the day. Lazare opened the season by sweeping both races March 19-20 at Sebring International Raceway.

The second session Friday was delayed and shortened due to a rain delay earlier in the afternoon on the new 2.74-mile, 13-turn road course near New Orleans that is hosting the Indy Grand Prix of Louisiana this weekend.

“We’re lucky IndyCar was ahead of us,” Lazare said. “They dried the track up nice for us. When we got on, the track was about 85 percent dry. Halfway through the session, the track became totally dry.

“Hopefully tomorrow it stays dry, but I think I was one of the only cars to actually do the test (in February at NOLA Motorsports Park) in the rain. So, if it rains I’m in a good situation, and I’m going to try to take advantage. I’m very confident with this team that I’m going to have a good rain car.”

Michael Schein, from New York, captured the second overall position at a time of 1:41.786 in the No. 16 Wright Motorsports entry, also posted in the first practice.

Rookie Lucas Catania, from Cazenovia, New York, jumped up the speed charts in the second practice to finish third overall at 1:41.881 in the No. 26 NGT Motorsport Porsche. Fellow series newcomer Will Hardeman, from Austin, Texas, was fourth overall in his No. 19 WPD/Moorespeed entry at 1:41.920.

Rounding out the overall top five was another new face to the series. Andrew Longe, from Naples, Florida, finished with the fifth quickest time of 1:42.189 in his No. 47 Fall-Line Motorsports entry. It’s also the first season in the series for Fall-Line, a veteran IMSA team.

2014 Platinum Masters champion Kasey Kuhlman, from Cincinnati, finished sixth overall and was the quickest of the Platinum Masters competitors at 1:42.209 in the No. 15 Wright Motorsports Porsche.

New Orleans native David Ducote was the quickest Gold Cup and Gold Masters driver for the day, finishing first in both sessions. His quickest time was 1:43.529 in the No. 6 Kelly-Moss Motorsports entry.

Qualifying takes place from 9:10-9:30 a.m. (CT) Saturday, followed by Round 3 starting at 2:25 p.m. The second race of the weekend is scheduled for 11:45 a.m. Sunday. Both races are 45 minutes.

Live timing for both races is available at scoring.imsa.com, and live text commentary for all sessions can be found on Twitter at @IMSALive.