Ferrari AF Corse’s pair of factory 499P Hypercars finished Friday’s practice running at COTA 1-2 in the times as heat continued to climb trackside and the lap times continued to fall.
Leading the way was the No. 51 Ferrari of last year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans winner, Antonio Giovinazzi, who placed his car atop the time sheets just 10m into the session with a 1m52.268s. A few minutes later, the No. 50 Ferrari of reigning Le Mans champion Antonio Fuoco crossed the line to set a 1m52.320s, good for second place on the board.
The No. 20 Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 showed some speed early on as Robin Frijns set the third-fastest time (1m52.383s), but just before half-time, Sheldon van der Linde was four laps into a stint when he spun exiting Turn 15 and lost his right rear wheel.
The incident brought out a red flag — the only interruption of the session — but a bizarre one for the often beleaguered Bavarian machine which was towed back to the garage otherwise intact.
Alex Lynn was fourth-fastest in the No. 2 Cadillac V-Series.R, which continues to show good one-lap pace around COTA.
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In fifth was AF Corse’s privateer Ferrari, the No. 83 of Robert Kubica, ahead of the No. 8 Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010 Hybrid of Sebastien Buemi in sixth.
The best of the Porsche 963s was not one of the Porsche Penske Motorsport works cars, but rather the No. 12 Hertz Team JOTA car of defending Lone Star Le Mans winner Norman Nato in eighth.
Matt Campbell was only 13th fastest in the No. 5 Penske Porsche but, as the session progressed, long-run development became more of a focus over one-shot speed.
LMGT3 was led by TF Sport with its No. 82 Corvette, its best time a 2m05.630s from Daniel Juncadela
It was tight up top, though, as the two Vista AF Corse Ferraris completed the top three with times in the 2:05s and within 0.1s of the quickest Z06.
NEXT UP: Free practice three, Saturday morning at 11:00 a.m. CT.