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Porsche Tops GTP and GTD PRO; Turner BMW Fastest in GTD Friday at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca
May 9, 2025
By David Phillips
IMSA Wire Service
Practice 1 Results
MONTEREY, Calif. – Porsches stand atop the times sheets in two of three categories following today’s practice session for Sunday’s TireRack.com Monterey SportsCar Championship at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, the fourth race weekend of the 2025 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
The No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 led the way in Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) and the No. 77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R topped the Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) class.
A three-time winner in the 2025 WeatherTech Championship, Felipe Nasr posted a best lap of 1 minute, 14.638 seconds (107.944 mph), besting the No. 31 Cadillac Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R of Jack Aitken by 0.312 seconds.
Meanwhile, defending GTD PRO champion Laurin Heinrich hustled the No. 77 AO Porsche – “Roxy” this race – around the 11-turn, 2.238-mile circuit in 1 minute, 21.418 seconds (98.955 mph), some 0.536 quicker than Antonio Garcia’s No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Corvette Z06 GT3.R.
Robby Foley prevented a Porsche monopoly by setting the GTD standard in his No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 EVO. The GTD margins were razor thin as the No. 70 Inception Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 of Frederik Schandorff and the similar No. 023 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari of Riccardo Agostini were both within a tenth of a second of Foley’s 1 minute, 21.920 seconds (98.349 mph).
Although practice produced several off-course excursions, the session was halted by just one red flag when Colin Braun looped the No. 60 Acura Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06 coming down the hill from The Corkscrew to Turn 9, aka Rainey Curve. The GTP Acura speared off to the right side of the track and clouted the concrete barrier and appeared to suffer heavy damage in the process.
But after Braun restarted and drove back to the pits, the Acura MSR mechanics quickly replaced the Acura’s nose section, which enabled Tom Blomqvist to rejoin the session with about 15 minutes remaining. Blomqvist subsequently posted a time within half a second of Braun’s best time.
Because this caused a session stoppage, the No. 60 Acura will automatically forfeit its fastest time in tomorrow afternoon’s qualifying session and will be gridded for Sunday’s race based on its second-best qualifying lap.
The WeatherTech Championship is on track again for second practice, another 90-minute session, Saturday morning at 9:55 a.m. PT and local time, 12:55 p.m. ET. Qualifying is at 3:15 p.m. PT, 6:15 p.m. ET, streaming on Peacock. Sunday’s TireRack.com Monterey SportsCar Championship airs live on NBC at noon PT, 3 p.m. ET, streaming domestically on Peacock and internationally on the IMSA Official YouTube channel.
