Image by Jake Galstad/LAT
CORE autosport tops final Roar session
After missing Friday morning’s opening practice for the Roar Before the Rolex 24 while still coming to grips with its new Nissan DPi, CORE autosport ended the test by leading Sunday’s final session.
Loic Duval ran a 1m35.176s in the No. 54 Nissan, edging out Jonathan Bomarito’s No. 55 Mazda DPi, at 1m35.283s.
Timo Bernard came to a stop in the Roar "pole"-winning No. 77 Mazda Team Joest Mazda DPi to bring out a red flag midway through the session, two hours after Oliver Jarvis led qualifying in that car with a lap of 1m33.398s.
Otherwise, the Roar ended on a calm note, with 15 cars participating in the final one-hour practice. Action Express Racing, Acura Team Penske and Wayne Taylor Racing packed early, joined by both Chip Ganassi Fords and the Risi Competizione Ferrari in the GTLM class.
Nicolas Lapierre led LMP2, with a 1m36.188 in the No. 81 DragonSpeed ORECA Gibson, while Antonio Garcia paced GTLM in the pole-winning No. 3 Corvette C7.R, at 1m43.977s.
The GT Daytona class did not participate in Sunday’s Roar testing. Dominik Baumann had the fastest time in the class, 1m45.406s in the No. 71 P1 Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3, but the time was disallowed due to the team using a Gold-rated driver in Saturday’s qualifying session. Trent Hindman was next fastest, 1m45.533 in the No. 86 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Acura NSX GT3; teammate Bia Figueiredo (formerly Ana Beatriz) led qualifying in the team’s No. 57 Acura, 1m45.537s.
Official practice and qualifying for the Rolex 24 will begin on Thursday, Jan. 24, with the race taking the green flag at 2:35 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 26.
J.J. O'Malley
J.J. O’Malley became news editor for Chris Economaki in 1977, launching him on a career covering all facets of motorsports in many capacities. He did public relations at Watkins Glen International for 14 years; followed by four seasons at Homestead-Miami Speedway; news editor at ISC Publications (now Edgeset Marketing); and communications manager for Grand-Am and IMSA. He’s currently completing his 13th book on racing – a history of the Daytona Prototype – in addition to covering events for RACER.com, Edgeset Marketing and Sunday Group Management. O’Malley is an honorary member of the prestigious Road Racing Drivers Club.
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