IMSA: Corvette DPs lead opening COTA practice

Corvette Daytona Prototypes led a Bowtie 1-2-3 during the opening IMSA practice session at a sweltering Circuit of The Americas on Thursday morning. Action Express Racing's Joao Barbosa led the WeatherTech SportsCar championship field with a lap of 1m58.813s and was followed by the sister No. 31 AXR Corvette DP (-0.105) and Wayne Taylor Racing's No. 10 machine (-0.515).

The fastest P2 car belonged to Michael Shank Racing's Ligier JS P2-Honda (-0.576).

In PC, the No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports entry (2m01.131s) was fastest as the No. 8 Starworks motorsports PC (-0.701) and No. 88 stablemate completed the top three (-1.038).

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On the GT front, Ford Chip Ganassi Racing's No. 66 (2m04.638s) posted a nice lap to pace GT Le Mans. The No. 911 Porsche North America Porsche 911 RSR was second (-0.275) and the No. 67 FCGR Ford GT was third (-0.364).

GT Daytona featured the No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M6 GT3 (2m08.075s) atop the class as the No. 33 Riley Motorsports Dodge Viper GT3-R (-0.041) almost matched the BMW and the No. 63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 GT3 (-0.560) trailed by a wider margin.

The most surprising aspect of the opening session came courtesy of the No. 55 Mazda Prototype, which suffered a front brake master cylinder failure entering Turn 1 just two minutes into the 60-minute outing. With the car's front brakes locked, the turbocharged four-cylinder prototype would not roll, which led to a 27-minute red flag as safety crews tried to extricate the car. The SpeedSource Mazda team was eventually brought in to help, but with the time loss, IMSA added 15 minutes to the end of the session.

UP NEXT: Free practice 2, 5:35 p.m. ET.