Aussie team leads WeatherTech practice in Texas

The SunEnergy1 team of Australian Kenny Habul and Tristan Vautier was fastest in class in each of the first two practice sessions at the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship round in Texas.

Vautier finished the first session at the top of the GT Daytona class time sheet with a lap of 2:06.491, even after losing his fastest lap due to a track limits violation.

The Frenchman registered a 2:07.155 lap early in the second, hour-long session before handing over to team owner Habul. The time was good enough to hold up as the quickest of the afternoon.

Habul worked his way through the session and made a couple of late changes to the Mercedes AMG before registering his quickest time on the final lap of the session.

“It was great for Tristan to be quickest in both sessions, especially after losing his quickest time in the opening sessions after exceeding the track limits,” said Habul.

“I personally struggled to get the most out of the car in the second session. I need to work on the slower sections of the track to close the gap.

“I will work with Tristan and our engineers overnight and have a really good look at the data before getting a strategy together and re-grouping for tomorrow.”

Continuing a perfect to start the IMSA season, brothers Jordan and Ricky Taylor continued to show the speed that led to outright season-opening wins at Daytona, Sebring and Long Beach.

The #10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R finished each of the day’s two practice sessions at the top of the leaderboard, with Ricky leading the first session and Jordan topping the charts in the second session with the fastest lap of the day, 1:56.595.

The Ford GT 40 of Australian Ryan Briscoe was third in the GTLM class in Practice 1 and eighth in class in Practice 2.

The Advance Auto Parts Sportscar Showdown continues at the Circuit of The Americas with practice and qualifying from Saturday 0900 local time (Sunday 0000 AEST) and a 2hr 40min race on the Sunday.