ROLEX 24: DeltaWing tops sunny final practice

The sun comes out, and suddenly, all is right with the sportscar world. No longer is Dorsey Schroeder and the ancient No. 50 Highway to Help Riley-BMW the fastest Prototype, or the two factory Porsche 911 RSR GT Le Mans cars at the top of the time charts due to the vagaries caused by a soggy track.

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A quick practice Friday morning was the only truly dry session for the 54 entries in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, making it far more important that the usual final test for the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship cars, which usually use the last session as a casual make-sure-nothing-leaks stint.

Well, things are almost normal: At the top of the scoring pylon was the No. 0 DeltaWing, the arrow-shaped oddity from Don Panoz's stable. Driver Katharine Legge knocked out a lap of 1 minute, 38.590 seconds, just ahead of the Shank Racing No. 60 Honda Ligier JS P2 of Olivier Pla. Third was the No. 2 Honda Ligier of Johannes van Overbeek, followed by the resurgent Mazda Prototype, racing for the first time with a competitive (non-diesel) engine, driven by Jonathan Bomarito.

In GT Le Mans, the two new Team RLL BMW M6 GTLM cars were fastest, with the No. 25 of Bill Auberlen edging out the No. 100 of Lucas Luhr. Earl Bamber in the No. 912 Porsche was third quickest.

In Prototype Challenge, Tom Kimber-Smith led the field in the No. 52 Chevrolet-powered Oreca FLM09.

And in GT Daytona, at 22 the largest of the four classes, Jorg Bergmeister in the No. 73 Park Place Porsche GT3 R was fastest, followed by Mirko Bartolotti in one of the five new Lamborghini Huracan GT3 entries, attracted by IMSA's off-season change to Gt3 specifications for all GT Daytona entries.

That's it for the on-track activities for the WeatherTech SportsCar teams until the green flag falls on the 54th Rolex 24 at Daytona Saturday at 2:40 p.m. ET.

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