Action Express Corvettes lead opening Detroit practice
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.).