Sunny conditions over the Laguna Seca circuit on Friday morning, for the Free Practice session for the inaugural Mazda Raceway California 8 Hours. After 90 minutes of track action the #29 Audi Sport Team Land R8 topped the timing sheets, heading an Audi 1-2-3.
Friday 13th sees two sessions for the competitors in the Mazda Raceway California 8 Hours, third round of the 2017 Intercontinental GT Challenge. First up was the Free Practice session, during which the drivers of the 19 cars participating in the 8-hour race tried to get to grips with the 3,602 km Californian racetrack. The session was interrupted only once, after a slight contact between the #117 Rearden Racing Porsche and the #3 TRG Aston Martin.
Early in the session Intercontinental GT Challenge drivers’ standings leader Christopher Haase set what turned out to be the quickest lap time of the whole session. At the wheel of the #29 Audi Sport Team Land R8 Haase set a 1’24.203. Later on during the session his Audi-colleagues Robin Frijns (#11 Belgian Audi Club Team WRT R8) and Markus Winkelhock (#44 Audi Sport Team Magnus R8) managed to enter the top-3, with the #58 Porsche Motorsport North America by Wright Motorsport 911 being the first of the non-Audi cars.
In the GT3 Pro-Am category Dutchman Jeroen Bleekemolen (#54 Black Swan Racing Porsche) proved to be quickest, setting the ninth time overall. In GT4 the crew of #3 TRG Aston Martin recovered well from the earlier incident, to set the fastest time of their category, right behind the MARC Cars competing in the invitational class.
The hour-long Pre-Qualifying session starts at 15.20 local time.