n the most recent IMSA SportsCar Championship Prototype race last month at Road America, co-drivers Pipo Derani and Johannes van Overbeek drove the No. 22 Nissan DPi to its first victory, leading a 1-3 finish for the team with Ryan Dalziel and Scott Sharp taking third in the No. 2 Tequila Patrón machine, one spot behind runners-up Jordan and Ricky Taylor in the No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R.
Friday afternoon at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, it was Dalziel’s turn. The Scotsman posted a best lap of 1 minute, 18.206 seconds (103.257 mph), topping the time charts on the first day of practice for Sunday’sAMERICA’S TIRE 250, the headline event of the Continental Tire Monterey Grand Prix.
The race will be televised live on FS1 beginning at 5 p.m. ET, with live, flag-to-flag coverage also provided by IMSA Radio on IMSA.com, RadioLeMans.com and SiriusXM Radio.
Dalziel’s best lap was 0.086 seconds quicker than Prototype points leader Ricky Taylor’s 1:18.112 (103.144 mph) in the afternoon session. He thinks there’s more where that came from.
“It’s Day 1 in practice, so I’m sure everybody is holding a little bit back,” Dalziel said. .
“We’re obviously happy to start where we finished the last race. We’ll be happier to reverse the roles and put the 2 car ahead of the 22, but it’s early. The car feels good. It’s not perfect yet.
“It’s hard to have a perfect car at Laguna Seca. We made a good change from Practice 1 to Practice 2. We’ll see what we can do overnight.”
“I think we still have a bit more time in it. I think we had a bit more time also in that lap if we’d have just got a little bit of a cleaner lap. We’re happy with what we’ve got, but there’s a long way to go.”
Derani was third quickest Friday with a best lap of 1:18.449 in the No. 22 Nissan. This weekend’s race is the first at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca for the Tequila Patrón ESM team since van Overbeek led the team to victory alongside co-driver Ed Brown in 2014.