Tom Blomqvist recorded the fastest lap Friday during the first practice session for the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen at Watkins Glen International.
That was the expected part. The unexpected lies with Sunday’s race and its 48 cars in five classes.
“We expect to be fighting at the very front this weekend,” Blomqvist said. “That’s what we’re aiming for. … But it’s going to be a really difficult race because there’s so many cars. Traffic is insane around here. It’s not easy at all. That’s something we’ll have to manage.”
Driving the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Acura ARX-05 he shares with Oliver Jarvis, Blomqvist was clocked at 1 minute, 31.217 seconds (134.185 mph) around the 11-turn, 3.4-mile course.
Blomqvist’s lap was 0.322 seconds faster than Renger van der Zande, who co-drives the No. 01 Cadillac Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R with Sebastien Bourdais in the Daytona Prototype international (DPi) class of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
In Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2), Mikkel Jensen was clocked at 1:32.629 in the No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA LMP2 07 he co-drives with Ben Keating and Scott Huffaker. The fastest in Le Mans Prototype 3 (LMP3) was Colin Braun, who turned a lap of 1:39.789 in the No. 54 CORE autosport Ligier JS P320 he shares with Jon Bennett and George Kurtz.
Dirk Mueller led the Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) class with a lap of 1:46.197 in the No. 32 Team Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 he co-drives with Stevan McAleer and Mike Skeen.
Alex Riberas led GTD PRO by recording a lap of 1:46.356 in the No. 23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 shared with Ross Gunn.
Qualifying for the race begins at 1:20 p.m. ET Saturday and will be carried live on IMSA.com/TVLive and IMSA Radio.
The race begins Sunday at 10:40 a.m., with flag-to-flag coverage live on Peacock.