Peugeot leads as crash halts practice
Peugeot remained on top in a truncated second practice session for the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta
The session was halted early after Scott Sharp had a ferocious accident in the championship-leading Highcroft Acura.
The American escaped unhurt despite his car tumbling through a violent series of flips and slamming into the wall having clipped Dirk Werner's Farnbacher Loles Porsche, which was about to leave the pit exit but was still on the correct side of the blend line.
The crash also caused damage to the debris fencing, and with this requiring repairs, the officials chose to bring the session to an early end.
Prior to the crash, Franck Montagny had kept the #08 Peugeot in first place ahead of team-mate Pedro Lamy.
The Audis were again third and fourth - Allan McNish 0.8s down on Montagny but 0.6s in front of Marco Werner.
Nicolas Lapierre was fifth for ORECA, with Sharp taking sixth prior to his crash. The De Ferran Acura did not have chance to set a time before the stoppage.
Klaus Graf took the Cytosport Porsche to the head of the LMP2 pack, with the Fernandez Acura second and the #16 Dyson Lola-Mazda third. The sister Dyson car is still awaiting a new engine following a testing failure, but the team hopes it will run in night practice later on today.
The Rahal Letterman BMWs were again one-two in GT2, followed by the Flying Lizard Porsche, while the early end to the session meant underdogs Doran Ford and PTG Panoz stayed in the top five ahead of the Corvettes and Risi Ferrari.
Pos Drivers Cl Car Time 1. Sarrazin/Montagny P1 Peugeot 1m08.217s 2. Minassian/Lamy P1 Peugeot 1m08.553s 3. Capello/McNish P1 Audi 1m09.103s 4. Luhr/Werner P1 Audi 1m09.744s 5. Panis/Lapierre/Dumas P1 ORECA 1m10.746s 6. Brabham/Sharp/Franchitti P1 Acura 1m10.778s 7. Field/Field P1 Lola 1m11.601s 8. Pickett/Graf/Maassen P2 Porsche 1m11.957s 9. Fernandez/Diaz P2 Acura 1m12.532s 10. Drayson/Cocker/Bell P1 Lola 1m13.236s 11. Dyson/Smith P2 Lola-Mazda 1m13.406s 12. Burgess/McMurry/Willman P1 Lola 1m16.212s 13. Hand/Auberlen/Priaulx GT2 BMW 1m21.401s 14. Muller/Milner/Muller GT2 BMW 1m21.676s 15. Bergmeister/Long/Lieb GT2 Porsche 1m21.888s 16. Murry/Robertson/Robertson GT2 Doran Ford 1m21.890s 17. Farnbacher/James GT2 Panoz 1m22.286s 18. Magnussen/O'Connell/Garcia GT2 Corvette 1m22.300s 19. Beretta/Gavin/Fassler GT2 Corvette 1m22.622s 20. Melo/Kaffer/Salo GT2 Ferrari 1m22.695s 21. Sellers/Cicero GT2 Porsche 1m23.121s 22. Feinberg/Hall GT2 Dodge 1m23.267s 23. Sutherland/Drissi/Bell GT2 Riley Corvette 1m24.193s 24. Noda/Balbiani/von Moltke P1 Radical 1m24.356s 25. Law/van Overbeek/Neiman GT2 Porsche 1m25.875s 26. Henzler/Werner GT2 Porsche 1m26.321s
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