New Acura leads the way at Sebring

De Ferran Motorsports driver Simon Pagenaud, who will again share the car with team boss Gil de Ferran, lapped in 1:45.503 to beat the second-placed Highcroft Acura ARX-02a by 2.506 seconds.

The Fernandez Racing LMP2 Acura was third-fastest.

With Audi - who will participate in the Sebring 12 Hours but not the rest of the ALMS calendar - not debuting their new car until the week of the season-opener and Dyson's new Lola-Mazda not scheduled to run until Wednesday, the Acuras were the only prototypes in action on the first day.

Pagenaud's session-topping time was around two seconds off the pace seen at Sebring last year, although the Acura teams have been keen to emphasise that the new car is in the early stages of its development.

The majority of the test participants were GT2 teams. The Flying Lizard Porsches were fastest, with the Seth Neiman, Darren Law, Johannes van Overbeek, Patrick Long and Jorg Bergmeister leading the way, but the LG Riley-Corvette and the Robertson Doran-Ford were little more than a second off the pace in third and fourth places, just ahead of the Rahal-Letterman BMW M3.