[h=2]IMSA: Mazda tops third COTA session[/h] Friday, 16 September 2016
Marshall Pruett (words and image)
The P2 cars pushed back for the first time during this week's Lone Star Le Mans event at circuit of The Americas as Mazda Racing's No. 70 Mazda Prototype recorded the fastest lap of the session on Friday (1m58.033s) with Joel Miller behind the wheel.
Following Thursday's dominance by Corvette DPs in IMSA's WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, the top three looked rather different, with Wayne Taylor Racing's No. 10 Corvette DP (-0.131s) serving as the only interloper between the Mazda and Michael Shank Racing's No. 60 Ligier JS P2-Honda in third (-0.279s).
The same high heat and decent humidity met the IMSA series Friday morning, but its four classes were spared to some degree by heavier cloud cover. Those clouds likely contributed to an uptick in speeds across all four classes as the No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports PC (2m00.238s), No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTE (2m03.380s) and the No. 23 Alex Job Racing/Team Seattle Porsche 911 GT3 R (2m07.116s) eclipsed the best laps produced on Thursday.
Although the top lap of the session delivered by Mazda was only marginally ahead of the mark set yesterday, speeds in the other three classes generated lap times nearly one-second faster than Thursday's offerings.