VIR IMSA: Vanthoor beats Tandy in all-Porsche FP3 duel

After overnight thunderstorms, the track was wet for the start of this hour-long third practice session of the weekend on Saturday morning. Proving how tricky conditions were, the Corvette of Jan Magnussen went off at Turn 15 on his out lap.

Nick Tandy set the pace by over a second early on in the #911 Porsche 911 RSR, before returning to the pits with the front end of his car coated in grass. Vanthoor then bested him by three tenths on 2m00.631s before the rain intensified once again.

Tandy went out for more runs, but failed to improve on any of them and suffered a couple more grassy offs, as did Vanthoor.

Joey Hand was third quickest in the first of the Ganassi-run Ford GTs, six tenths off the pace but almost a second clear of Connor de Phillippi’s RLL-run BMW M8 GTE. Magnussen recovered to set the fifth-fastest time, ahead of the BMW of John Edwards, who went off at Turn 4.

Oliver Gavin was seventh in the second Chevy, with Ryan Briscoe rounding out of GTLM class, having suffered an off at Turn 14.

#33 Mercedes-AMG Team Riley Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3, GTD: Ben Keating, Jeroen Bleekemolen

Photo by: Scott R LePage / LAT Images

In GT Daytona, Jeroen Bleekemolen was one of the few to improve in the closing stages of the session in his #33 Riley Motorsports-run Mercedes-AMG GT3.

Andy Lally had set the pace for the majority of the session in his #44 Magnus Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 – bouncing back from a troubled Friday which ended prematurely when he went off at the final corner. After teammate John Potter took over today, he had an off of his own at the same turn.

Richard Heistand was third fastest in class in his AIM-Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F.

Sunday’s weather forecast predicts a mainly dry event.

Session results:

Cla	Num	Driver	Chassis	Time	Gap
1	912	Earl Bamber Laurens Vanthoor	Porsche 911 RSR	2'00.631
2	911	Patrick Pilet Nick Tandy	Porsche 911 RSR	2'00.938	0.307
3	66	Joey Hand Dirk Muller	Ford GT	2'01.262	0.631
4	25	Tom Blomqvist Connor de Phillippi	BMW M8 GTE	2'02.258	1.627
5	3	Jan Magnussen Antonio Garcia	Corvette C7.R	2'02.468	1.837
6	24	Jesse Krohn John Edwards	BMW M8 GTE	2'02.619	1.988
7	4	Oliver Gavin Tommy Milner	Corvette C7.R	2'02.660	2.029
8	67	Ryan Briscoe Richard Westbrook	Ford GT	2'03.197	2.566
9	33	Ben Keating Jeroen Bleekemolen	Mercedes-AMG GT3	2'03.544	2.913
10	44	John Potter Andy Lally	Lamborghini Huracan GT3	2'03.784	3.153
11	14	Richard Heistand Jack Hawksworth	Lexus RC F GT3	2'04.732	4.101
12	63	Cooper MacNeil Toni Vilander	Ferrari 488 GT3	2'04.968	4.337
13	48	Bryan Sellers Corey Lewis	Lamborghini Huracan GT3	2'05.057	4.426
14	96	Bill Auberlen Robby Foley	BMW M6 GT3	2'05.584	4.953
15	9	Scott Hargrove Zacharie Robichon	Porsche 911 GT3 R	2'06.235	5.604
16	12	Frankie Montecalvo Townsend Bell	Lexus RC F GT3	2'06.251	5.620
17	76	Paul Holton Matt Plumb	McLaren 720S GT3	2'06.583	5.952
18	57	Katherine Legge Alice Powell	Acura NSX GT3	2'07.241	6.610
19	86	Mario Farnbacher Trent Hindman	Acura NSX GT3	2'08.005	7.374
20	74	Gar Robinson Lawson Aschenbach	Mercedes-AMG	2'09.481	8.850
View full results