Blomqvist leads Acura Meyer Shank 1-2 in opening IMSA practice at IMS

Acura Meyer Shank Racing’s ARX-06es finished 1-2 in the opening practice session at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a good start to the weekend ahead of Sunday’s six-hour Battle on the Bricks.

With less than 20 minutes remaining in the first practice, Tom Blomqvist drove the blue and white No. 60 MSR Acura to the top of the GTP leaderboard with a best lap of 1m16.209s.

That displaced the red No. 93 Acura from the top spot. Nick Yelloly’s 1m16.477s stood as the top time for most of the session, but it was still good enough for second place as the checkered flag fell.

Behind them were a pair of Cadillac V-Series.Rs, then the two BMW M Hybrid V8s. The No. 31 Cadillac Whelen V-Series.R went third quickest in the hands of Jack Aitken with a 1m16.532s. Jordan Taylor was fourth quickest in the No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac.

Sheldon van der Linde was fifth fastest in the No. 25 Team RLL BMW, ahead of teammate Dries Vanthoor in the No. 24 BMW. Near the end of the session, defending Battle on the Bricks race winner Philipp Eng was aboard the No. 24 BMW when he spun off into the gravel at turn four and brought out a red flag to end the session.

It was the last of three red flags which interrupted Practice 1. The first was for a spectacular mechanical failure on the No. 4 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Z06 GT3.R, which required significant clean-up. The cause was determined to be a leak in the oil line.

The second appeared to be from debris after a collision between the No. 11 TDS Racing ORECA LMP2 and No. 21 AF Corse Ferrari 296. The No. 11 TDS ORECA will lose its fastest lap in qualifying for causing the red flag, as will the No. 24 RLL BMW. All three red flags led to the session being extended 10 minutes, ending at 12:55pm.

With a new rear suspension introduced this weekend, the No. 63 Lamborghini Squadra Corse SC63 went eighth fastest behind the No. 10 WTR Cadillac, and the No. 23 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie was ninth, ahead of all three Porsche 963s.

Despite the aforementioned incident, the No. 11 TDS ORECA led LMP2 with the top time, a 1m17.407s set by Mikkel Jensen, who caused the collision with AF Corse’s Lilou Wadoux.

Fellow Danish driver Nicklas Nielsen set the second-quickest time in LMP2 aboard the No. 88 AF Corse ORECA, only 0.007s behind Jensen’s best.

Tom Dillmann, back racing in IMSA for the first time since his accident in CTMP, took the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition ORECA up to third place, followed by Sébastien Bourdais in the No. 8 Tower Motorsports car.

Valentin Hasse-Clot led the way in van der Steur Racing's Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo in GTD. Jake Galstad/IMSA

Over in the GT classes, the fastest time belonged to one of the 19 GTD class cars and not one of their GTD PRO counterparts. It was set by Valentin Hasse-Clot in the No. 19 Van der Steur Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3. The Frenchman set a 1m24.403s to lead his category and all the GT cars.

The quickest time in GTD PRO wasn’t much slower, though – just 0.016s behind was the class-leading No. 81 DragonSpeed Ferrari 296 GT3, driven to its best time by Davide Rigon, who’s back in the car for the first time since Watkins Glen.

Andrea Caldarelli made it an all-Italian top two in GTD PRO, going second-fastest in the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2. Frédéric Vervisch went third in the No. 65 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang GT3. And in fourth was IMSA debutant and Australian Supercars Championship leader Broc Feeney, driving the No. 75 75 Express Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO.

In GTD, the quickest time behind Hasse-Clot was set by Matthew Bell in the No. 13 AWA Corvette (1m24.433s), followed by Frederik Schandorff in the No. 70 Inception Racing Ferrari in third, and Russell Ward in fourth, driving his No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG.

Two cars were sidelined in their garages due to mechanical problems: The No. 74 Riley ORECA LMP2 suffered an oil leak which the team spent much of the session trying to investigate. And the No. 80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG was parked after only five laps.

Practice 2 starts tomorrow at 8:55am ET (local time).

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