Albuquerque paces final Sebring practice

Filipe Albuquerque paced the field in the third and final practice session for the IMSA SportsCar Championship runners at Sebring on Thursday night with a 1:47.713 in the No. 10 WTR Cadillac.

The Portuguese racer, who shares his V-Series.R with Will Stevens and Ricky Taylor, ended up 0.041 up on the field in GTP ahead of Qualifying after his early marker, giving the Wayne Taylor Racing team and General Motors a confidence boost ahead of Qualifying. It was a solid flyer, but it wasn’t the best lap of the day, though; that medal goes to Porsche Penske Motorsport’s Felipe Nasr and his 1:47.043 from Practice 2.

BMW Team WRT also showed signs of improvement after sunset. With a 1:47.754 from Sheldon van der Linde, the No. 24 M Hybrid V8 slotted in second. The two Penske Porsches, which set the pace earlier in the day, ended up third and fourth with the No. 7 half a tenth up on the No. 6.

Fifth on the timing screens was occupied by the No. 60 Acura MSR ARX-06, which heads into Qualifying tomorrow with the second fastest lap of the weekend so far from earlier in the day.

Further down the order, the sister No. 93 Acura was eighth quickest and suffered a minor incident when Nick Yelloly reportedly hit the wall at Turn 15, damaging the car’s bodywork.

Inter Europol took its turn at the front in LMP2, with Tom Dillmann setting a 1:50.056 during his extended stint in the No. 43 ORECA. The AO Racing ORECA was fast again and concluded the night second, with the No. 2 Gibson-powered machine from United Autosports completing the top three. All three cars lapped within six tenths of each other.

Vasser Sullivan, searching for more Sebring success this weekend, ended up atop the pile in the GTD classes. Its No. 14 RC F GT3 entered in GTD Pro was the only car to set a sub-two-minute lap, a 1:59.895 by Jack Hawksworth.

Two cars from the GTD division slotted in second and third in the combined rankings. Le Mans winner Antonio Fuoco placed the No. 21 AF Corse Ferrari second with a 2:00.060., and the Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 was third following a 2:00.135 from Scott Andrews.

Elsewhere in the class, a brief spin for Salih Yoluc at Turn 13 in DXDT’s Corvette in the closing stages brought out the session’s only red flag.

Qualifying gets underway Friday at 11:25 local time.

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