Franchitti tops ALMS warm-up

It’s raceday on the Monterey Peninsula. Marino Franchitti put in the fastest time in a 20-minute warm-up for today’s American Le Mans Series Monterey presented by Patr¢n with a lap of 1:17.190 in Patr¢n Highcroft Racing’s HPD ARX-01c. He will drive with David Brabham and Simon Pagenaud with the car starting from the rear of the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca grid.

The top three cars were within 0.550 seconds. Dyson Racing’s Andy Meyrick sat second in the pole-winning Mazda-powered Lola B09/86 coupe. He was 0.096 seconds better than Drayson Racing’s Emanuele Pirro in the closed-top Lola-Judd prototype.

Tom Sutherland went quickest on the final lap in LMP Challenge with a lap of 1:21.030 in Genoa Racing’s ORECA FLM09. Level 5’s two entries were within 1.034 seconds, led by Burt Frisselle in the No. 95 entry.

Flying Lizard Motorsports’ Patrick Long was the fastest GT driver at 1:27.608 in the Porsche 911 GT3 RSR that he will drive with fellow Porsche factory driver Jörg Bergmeister. Long went 0.281 seconds faster than Risi Competizione’s Gianmaria Bruni – in the class pole-winning Ferrari F430 GT – and another 0.126 seconds better than Johannes van Overbeek in one of Extreme Speed Motorsports’ Ferraris.

Andy Lally went quickest in GT Challenge for TRG with a lap of 1:28.416. The Long Beach pole-winner’s best time was 0.264 seconds quicker than Orbit Racing’s Bryce Miller. Velox Motorsports’ Lawson Aschenbach was another 0.101 seconds back.

The six-hour race starts at 2:30 p.m. PT with live video coverage available at americanlemans.com/live.