Aitken tops opening Glen 6 Hours practice for Cadillac

The No. 31 Cadillac Whelen V-Series.R is picking up in Watkins Glen where it left off in Detroit: At the top of the GTP leaderboard in first practice for the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen.

Early in Friday’s 90-minute practice, Jack Aitken set the fastest time at 1m33.846s in the No. 31 Whelen Cadillac, and he’d be the only driver to set a time under one minute, 34 seconds when the checkered flag fell at the end of the 90 minutes.

Second and third in GTP were the two Acura Meyer Shank Racing ARX-06es, headed by the No. 93 Acura of Renger van der Zande which set a late flying lap of 1m34.161s to go up into second, ahead of the No. 60 Acura of defending Watkins Glen winner Tom Blomqvist.

The fastest of the BMW M Team WRT cars was the No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8 of Dries Vanthoor in fourth, and Laurin Heinrich led the Porsche contingent for privateer JDC-Miller MotorSports – sixth place for the No. 5 Porsche 963, one spot behind Ricky Taylor in the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac.

For the first time in over 90 days, the LMP2 class came back to IMSA competition, and AO Racing’s Dane Cameron set the fastest time in the class, turning a 1m35.385s in the No. 99 ORECA 07-Gibson. Cameron’s time was actually three-tenths up on the quickest time set by the No. 23 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie, which was the slowest of the 11 GTP cars.

Behind the reigning LMP2 champion Cameron, two-time Le Mans LMP2 winner Tom Dillmann went second quickest in the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition ORECA, ahead of Mathias Beche, who was third fastest in the No. 11 TDS Racing ORECA, in his return to IMSA.

The No. 22 United Autosports (Paul di Resta) and No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR (George Kurtz) ORECAs rounded out the top five in class; this despite the No. 04 car being delayed for over an hour to sort what was described as a “lubrication issue” in the Daytona-winning car.

Ford Racing’s two factory Mustang GT3s took up spots in the top five in GTD Pro, led by the No. 65 Ford which went fastest in class. It was Christopher Mies who set the top time early on, a 1m46.095s.

Behind it was the No. 59 RLL Team McLaren 720S GT3 Evo of rookie Max Esterson in second, less than a tenth of a second behind Mies.

Harry King was third fastest in the No. 77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R, followed by Ben Barnicoat in the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan/Dreyer & Reinbold Lexus RC F GT3, and then the other Ford Racing entry, the No. 64 (Ben Barker) in fifth.

And in the surprise of the session, the new-look Car Blanche No. 068 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo led all cars in GTD. Less than 48 hours after the sale of the former Van der Steur Racing entry to YRB Racing, Valentin Hasse-Clot took the top spot in the plain white Aston Martin, ending with a best time of 1m44.860s.

Propping up a 1-2 finish for the Aston Martin contingent was Spencer Pumpelly in the No. 44 Magnus Racing “Virtual Energy” Vantage, back for the first time since Daytona.

Antonio Fuoco finished third in the No. 31 AF Corse USA Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo, followed by the No. 80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO (Lin Hodenius), and the No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin (Zacharie Robichon).

Two GTD cars brought out red flags throughout the session. A little past the 20-minute mark, Dillon Machavern spun the No. 28 RS1 Porsche and was beached in the gravel runoff at Turn 10. He’d find a way to drive away under his own power, but only after the red flag and a qualifying penalty to be served tomorrow.

15 minutes later, the No. 45 Wayne Taylor Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 lost power and crawled to a stop between Turns 7 and 8. The car completed only 10 laps and did not resume running after it stopped.

Practice 2 starts Saturday at 10:05am ET, followed by qualifying for the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen at 3:40pm ET.

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