The Chip Ganassi Racing driver, Sebastien Bourdais, was the fastest in the second and final practice session for the Long Beach Grand Prix. This session, lasting 1 hour and 30 minutes, allowed teams to prepare for qualifying and gather more data for the first sprint race of the 2024 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship calendar. Just like in the first practice, lap times were very close on the challenging street circuit.
During the session, Tijmen van der Helm briefly went off track at Turn 1 in his JDC Miller MotorSports Porsche 963, pushing the limits of his car. After 20 minutes, there was a supposed contact between Jesse Krohn’s BMW RLL M Hybrid V8 and Loris Spinelli’s Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 from Forte Racing at Turn 11, the iconic hairpin at the final corner. However, both drivers continued without major issues.
Several other drivers also explored the run-off areas around the tight corners of the Long Beach circuit. They needed to find the ideal cornering speeds to achieve the fastest lap times. In the end, it was Sebastien Bourdais in the Cadillac V-Series.R #01 who set the fastest lap time, with a 1:11.637, narrowly beating Nick Yelloly’s 1:12.121 in the BMW M Hybrid V8 #25. Pipo Derani, Philipp Eng, and Nick Tandy rounded out the top five.
In the GTD category, Sheena Monk of Gradient Racing had some off-track moments at Turns 1 and 6 in her Acura NSX GT3 #66, but had no contact or damage. Her teammate, Stevan McAleer, led the GTD category with a lap time of 1:18.259, followed by Danny Formal and Albert Costa.
The qualifying is scheduled to start at 5pm local time / 1pm UK time, and will determine the starting grid for Saturday’s race. You can find the full qualifying results from the second practice session of the Long Beach Grand Prix here.
