Fittipaldi’s Cadillac DPi leads FP1 for Rolex 24

Practice officially opened for the 55th Rolex 24 At Daytona, with Christian Fittipaldi leading a trio of the new Cadillac DPis at the top of the charts in Thursday morning's one-hour session. Fittipaldi paced the field in the No. 5 Action Express Mustang Sampling Cadillac DPi with a lap of 1m38.196s, unofficially eclipsing Alex Gurney's three-year-old Daytona International Speedway Prototype track record (1m38.270s).

"We unrolled exactly the way we were in the Roar, and the car performed exactly the same lap time," Fittipaldi said. "There's a long way to go. The first session means nothing. It's just making sure that everything works, and we don't have everything working right now. Getting it right is the main effort we're putting into the program right now."

Ricky Taylor was 0.796s back in the No. 10 Cadillac (1m38.992s), followed by the No. 31 Cadillac of Eric Curran (1m40.019s). Ben Hanley was fourth and led the LMP2 contingent, running 1m40.356s in the Gibson-powered No. 81 DragonSpeed ORECA.

The No. 68 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT of Olivier Pla (1m44.755s) led GTLM, edging No. 912 Porsche 911 RSR driver Laurens Vanthoor by 0.029s. The top eight competitors were separated by 0.704s.

All 55 entries participated in the uneventful one-hour session held under cloudy skies on the 3.56-mile circuit.

Gustavo Yacaman (1m43.668s) paced the five PC entries as BAR1 Motorsports went 1-2, while defending class champion Alessandro Balzan was fastest of the 27 GTD cars, running 1m47.778s in the No. 63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 GT3.

NEXT UP: FP2, 1:30-2 p.m. ET.