Action Express Corvettes lead opening Detroit practice

Action Express Racing took the top two positions in Friday morning’s opening practice for the Chevrolet Sports Car Classic presented by the Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers, with Corvettes taking the top four positions in the 90-minute session.

Joao Barbosa turned in an unofficial track record lap of 1:24.999 on the 2.360-mile Raceway at Belle Isle Park, driving the No. 5 Mustang Sampling Corvette DP co-driven by Christian Fittipaldi. Second was Action Express teammate Dane Cameron, running 1:25.041 in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering/Team Fox Corvette DP.

Third for the Bow-Tie Brigade was the points-leading No. 90 VisitFlorida.com Corvette DP driven by Richard Westbrook, 1:25.795, followed by defending Detroit winner Ricky Taylor in the No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP, 1:26.121.

The Prototype Challenge (PC) class, racing for the first time in Detroit, was led by Renger van der Zande, who ran 1:27.668 in the No. 8 Martini ORECA FLM09 co-driven by Mirco Schultis for Starworks Motorsport. He was followed by Colin Braun, who ran 1:27.752 in the No. 54 Flex-Box ORECA co-driven by Jon Bennett, and Bruno Junqueira, running 1:28.135 in the No. 11 AutoMaxUSA ORECA.

Christina Nielsen paced the GT Daytona (GTD) class, running 1:33.117 in the No. 007 Royal Purple/Orion Energy/LaSalle Solutions/PassTime USA Aston Martin Vantage co-driven by James Davison. GTD points leader Christopher Haase was second, running 1:33.179 in the No. 48 Castrol Edge Audi R8 LMS co-driven by Dion von Moltke, and Mario Farnbacher, 1:33.361 in the No. 23 Team Seattle/Heart of Racing Porsche 911 GT America co-driven by Ian James.

The TUDOR Championship will hold a second 90-minute practice session at 1:15 p.m. ET. Qualifying begins at 5:10 p.m (Live, IMSA.com). Saturday’s schedule begins with a warm-up session at 8:15 a.m. Round 5 of the 2015 season takes the green flag at 12:05 p.m. (FOX Sports 2 live at Noon ET, FOX Sports 1 at 2 p.m.).