Report: BMW Dominates Second Practice at Road America; Collision Disrupts Session
Elkhart Lake, WI – The #24 BMW M Hybrid V8 topped the timesheets in the second practice session for the Motul SportsCar Grand Prix at Road America, recording a session-best lap of 1:49.676. The session experienced a significant interruption due to a collision involving Marco Mapelli’s #9 Pfaff Motorsports Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 and Benjamin Pedersen’s #52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA 07, which resulted in barrier damage and a red flag.
Mapelli’s incident occurred as he headed to the pit lane, colliding with Pedersen, which sent the Lamborghini into a concrete barrier. Fortunately, Mapelli emerged unharmed, though the car sustained significant damage, leading to a decision by race Stewards to invalidate Mapelli’s best time for qualifying due to his responsibility in causing the red flag.
Following a 20-minute delay, the session resumed and was led by Nick Yelloly in his #93 Acura, who recorded a commendable lap time of 1:49.682. However, just before the session concluded, Dries Vanthoor in the #24 BMW reclaimed the fastest time by a mere six milliseconds.
Second in the GTP category was the #93 Acura, followed by the #25 BMW M Hybrid V8 driven by Sheldon van der Linde, who became the first driver of the weekend to dip below the 1:50 mark with a time of 1:49.843. The top five was rounded out by Felipe Nasr in the #7 Porsche Penske Motorsports 963 and Jack Aitken in the #31 Cadillac Whelen V-Series.R. Notably, the #23 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie, previously second, finished the session in tenth.
In LMP2, Malthe Jakobsen of Algarve Pro Racing set the fastest class time of 1:52.823, narrowly ahead of Mikkel Jensen of TDS Racing. Jakobsen’s record just edged out Jensen, who trailed by 29 milliseconds. Meanwhile, Dane Cameron secured the third position, and Connor De Phillippi finished fourth for Inter Europol.
Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports demonstrated strong performance in GTD PRO, with Alex Sims driving the #3 Corvette Z06 GT3.R to the top of the class at 2:04.247. He was supported by teammate Tommy Milner in third and the #81 DragonSpeed Ferrari 296 GT3 in second. The #9 Pfaff Lamborghini finished fifth in class.
In GTD, Onofrio Triarsi posted the best time with a lap of 2:04.866 in his #021 Ferrari 296 GT3. Second place went to Danny Formal in the #45 Wayne Taylor Racing Lamborghini, followed by Matthew Bell’s #13 AWA Corvette and Tom Gamble in the #27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin.
Next Steps: Qualifying is scheduled for later today at 4:40 PM CT, where teams will vie for optimal starting positions in tomorrow’s race.
Practice 2 Full Results: [Not included here]
Photos © Jack Webster / Dailysportscar.com
