Dumas tops ALMS practice
Dumas set the four fastest times on the day and was 0.627 seconds clear of Dyson Racing’s Guy Smith. He is driving the team’s Mazda-powered Lola coupe with Chris Dyson.
“It was really nice being back in this car," said Dumas, the overall race winner at Mosport in the Porsche with Timo Bernhard in 2007.
“We have a good base for the setup. After we found some good compromises, things started to get better and faster. We made some adjustments with the ride height and didn’t too much with the roll bar. We still have some work to do but so far it is very nice to be back in the car and driving for this team."
Dumas led a group of five LMP drivers within 0.839 seconds of each other. Intersport Racing’s Jon Field was third in class at 1:08.604 (129.036 mph). He is driving the team’s Lola-AER with son Clint.
As tight as things were in LMP, the GT class was even closer. The top eight cars were within a second of each other, led by Risi Competizione’s Toni Vilander in the Ferrari F430 GT that he will drive with Pierre Kaffer. The Finnish star’s best lap was a 1:17.257 (114.584 mph), good enough for a 0.506-second gap back to Jaime Melo in the sister car. He will drive with Gianmaria Bruni.
Corvette Racing’s pairing of Oliver Gavin and Jan Magnussen sat third in class at 1:17.773 (113.824 mph) in their Corvette C6.R. The squad revamped its driver lineup which has put Gavin and Magnussen in the same car in Series competition for the first time since 2006. Johnny O’Connell and Olivier Beretta are in the second Corvette.
In LMPC, Luis Diaz set the fastest time for PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports in the ORECA FLM09 that he will drive with Ricardo Gonzalez. Diaz, who won at Mosport in LMP2 a year ago with Adrian Fernandez, set a best lap of 1:12.202 (122.606 mph) a week after winning the class pole position at Road America.