BMW beats Cadillac in FP2 but sister car shunts

BMW’s Philipp Eng set the pace in opening practice for the sixth round of the IMSA SportsCar Championship at Watkins Glen, but the marque’s sister car crashed in the closing moments.

IMSA brings a 56-car field to the classic 3.4-mile road course, which hosted the United States Grand Prix for 20 years, located amid the rolling hills near the Finger Lakes in upstate New York.

Nick Tandy set the early GTP pace with a lap of 1m34.440s in his #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963, a tenth clear of Renger van der Zande’s Chip Ganassi Racing-run Cadillac V-Series.R.

As the session ticked past its one-third point, Tom Blomqvist set the first sub-1m34s lap of the weekend in the Action Express-run Cadillac, lapping in 1m33.968s on his return to the series after being jettisoned from his IndyCar ride with Meyer Shank Racing.

A red flag was required just before the halfway point when Lance Willsey spun his Sean Creech Motorsport Ligier LMP2 car at Turn 9, traveling backwards into the wall.

After the resumption of the session, Friday’s pacesetter Dane Cameron went second fastest with 1m34.374s in the #7 PPM 963, before he was beaten by the #85 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche 963 of third driver Phil Hanson with 1m34.349s.

Van der Zande then took the top spot by 0.01s with 1m33.958s before Eng’s #24 BMW M Hybrid V8 reset the bar with 1m33.725s. Mathieu Jaminet got closest to it in the closing moments in the #6 Porsche, his 1m33.900s within 0.175s.

It wasn’t all good news for the BMW, however, as Connor De Phillippi shunted the #25 sister car to Eng on his last lap of the session at Turn 1.

Van der Zande and Blomqvist placed third and fourth in their Caddys, from Hanson and Cameron.

#74 Riley ORECA LMP2-Gibson: Gar Robinson, Felipe Fraga, Josh Burdon

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

In LMP2, Felipe Fraga’s Riley-run Oreca set the benchmark at 1m35.917s, which he lowered to 1m35.269s. Colin Braun was best of the rest in his Crowdstrike by APR version, who lapped in 1m35.947s.

Daniel Serra set the early GTD Pro pace in Risi Competizione Ferrari 296 with 1m45.010s, which was beaten by Parker Thompson’s pro-am class Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F on 1m44.930s after 30 minutes.

Madison Snow snatched the GTD Pro top spot with 1m44.907s in his Paul Miller Racing BMW M4. That proved to be the fastest time of the session, 0.023s ahead of Thompson, with Serra retaining third.