The first practice session for the Tudor United SportsCar Championship was led by the #90 Spirit of Daytona Corvette DP driven by Richard Westbrook, Michael Valiante and 2010 24 Hours of Daytona winner and 2013 DTM champion Mike Rockenfeller. The #90 led a Corvette DP 1-2, with the #5 Action Express Racing entry of Christian Fittipaldi, João Barbosa, Sébastien Bourdais and Burt Frisselle 0.302 seconds back.
The defending Daytona winning #01 Ganassi Racing Ford-Riley of Scott Pruett, Memo Rojas, Jamie McMurry and Sage Karam was third ahead of the #78 Starworks Dinan-Riley of Alex Popow, Scott Mayer, Brandon Hartley, E.J. Viso and Sebastián Saavedra. The #60 Michael Shank Racing Ford-Riley of Oswaldo Negri, John Pew, Justin Wilson and AJ Allmendinger rounded out the top five.
The Gainsco/Bob Stallings Racing Corvette DP (Alex Gurney, Jon Fogerty, Memo Rojas and Darren Law) was sixth ahead of the #9 Corvette DP of Action Express Racing (Burt and Brian Frisselle, Fabien Giroix and John Martin). The #6 Muscle Milk Pickett Racing Oreca-Nissan of Lucas Luhr, Klaus Graf and Alex Brundle was the top LMP2 car in eighth ahead of the #02 Ganassi Ford-Riley (Scott Dixon, Tony Kanaan, Marino Franchitti and Kyle Larson). The #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Corvette DP rounded out the top ten (Wayne, Jordan and Ricky Taylor and Max Angelelli).
Colin Braun led the Prototype Challenge driving the #54 CORE Autosport entry that will be shared with Mike Guasch, Jon Bennett and James Gue.
The #3 Corvette of Jan Magnussen, Antonio García and Ryan Briscoe topped the GTLM class by 0.054 seconds over the #91 SRT Viper of Dominick Farnbacher, Marc Goossens and Ryan Hunter-Reay with the #97 Aston Martin Vantage V8 of Darren Turner, Stefan Mücke, Paul Dalla Lana, Pedro Lamy and Richie Stanaway. The #93 Viper driven by Kuno Wittmer, Jonathan Bomarito and Robert Bell was fourth.
The #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 458 Italia of Matteo Malucelli, Giancarlo Fisichella, Gianmaria Bruni and Olivier Beretta was fifth ahead of the #911 Porsche 911 RSR of Richard Lietz, Nick Tandy and Patrick Pilet. The #57 Krohn Racing Ferrari (Tracy Krohn, Nic Jönnson, Andrea Bertolini and Peter Dumbreck) was seventh ahead of the #56 (Dirk Müller, John Edwards, Dirk Werner and Graham Rahal) and #55 (Andy Priaulx, Bill Auberlen, Joey Hand and Maxime Martin) Rahal-Letterman-Lanigan Racing BMWs.
The #912 Porsche 911 RSR (Patrick Long, Michael Christensen and Jörg Bergmeister) was tenth fastest in GTLM. The #4 Corvette of Tommy Milner, Oliver Gavin and Robin Liddell did not take part in the first session.
Audi started their title defense in GTD on a good note with the #46 Fall-Line Motorsports driven by Charlie Espenlaub, Charles Putman, James Walker and Oliver Jarvis. The surprise of the first session may have been the #81 GB Autosport Porsche 911 GT America of Damien Faulkner, Patrick Huisman and Bob Faieta in second ahead of the #007 TRG Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3 of James Davison, Al Carter, Brandon Davis and David Block in third.
Second practice will take place at 1:15 p.m. ET with qualifying taking place later today from 3:45 p.m. ET to 5:05 p.m. ET. There will be a 90-minute night practice session at 6:30 p.m. ET.
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