Mowlem fastest in ALMS warm-up

With its KERS-related issue fully sorted from Friday, Johnny Mowlem set the fastest time in Saturday morning’s 30-minute warm-up for the Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. The British driver posted a lap of 1:37.308 (83.537 mph) in Corsa Motorsports hybrid-powered Ginetta-Zytek 09HS prototype, the first such achievement for a hybrid vehicle in the American Le Mans Series.

Mowlem, who is driving with Stefan Johansson, made the most of a wet session that ended under grey skies but no rain. The hybrid missed qualifying Friday and will start from the rear of the grid for the afternoon’s race.

Lowe’s Fernandez Racing’s Adrian Fernandez, who won in CART at Mid-Ohio in 1998, turned in a lap of 1:37.885 (83.044 mph) to place second overall and first in P2. Fernandez, who watched teammate Luis Diaz claim the LMP2 pole in qualifying Friday, leads the P2 championship with Diaz over Dyson Racing.

Farnbacher Loles Racing Wolf Henzler was third overall and first in GT2. Henzler, driving with Martin Ragginger the team’s Porsche 911 GT3 RSR, posted a best time of 1:4.471 (78.561 mph). Henzler was 1.4 seconds quicker better than the second-place GT2 car – Panoz Team PTG’s Ian James in the Panoz Esperante GTLM that he is sharing with Dominik Farnbacher.

Team Cytosport’s Klaus Graf was the next quickest driver and second in P2. His best time in the team’s Porsche RS Spyder was 1:47.333 (75.344 mph).

The quickest Challenge class driver was Wesley Hoaglund in one of Gruppe Orange’s Porsche 911 GT3 Cup entries. A winner with Bob Faieta at Lime Rock, his last lap was a 2:00.356 (67.540 mph).