There were three practice sessions preceding the start of the race on Saturday, two on Friday and one on Saturday. The first two one-hour sessions were on Friday morning and afternoon. The third on Saturday morning lasted an hour.[7]
Practice 1
The first practice session took place at 11:20 am ET on Friday and ended with Jordan Taylor topping the charts for Wayne Taylor Racing, with a lap time of 1:09.443.[8] The PC class was topped by the #38 Performance Tech Motorsports Oreca FLM09 of Patricio O'Ward with a time of 1:12.512.[9]Laurens Vanthoor was fastest in GTLM while Andy Lally set the fastest time in GTD.[9]
The third and final practice session took place at 9:20 am ET on Saturday and ended with Stephen Simpson topping the charts for JDC-Miller MotorSports, with a lap time of 1:09.142.[16]Patricio O'Ward set the fastest time PC by 1.678 seconds ahead of Ryan Lewis in the #20 BAR1 Motorsports entry.[16] The GTLM class was topped by the #911 Porsche GT TeamPorsche 911 RSR of Dirk Werner with a time of 1:14.799.[17]Tristan Vautier was fastest in GTD.[17] The session was red flagged two times. 20 minutes into the session, the #15 3GT RacingLexus RC F GT3 of Jack Hawksworth crashed at turn 3 after going wide, and dipped into the grass launching the car into the tire barriers before becoming airborne. The car suffered heavy damage to the front, but Hawksworth was uninjured and exited his car without external aid.[18] The final stoppage came for debris on the track.[16]
In Saturday afternoon's 90-minute four-group qualifying, each category had separate 15-minute sessions. Regulations stipulated that teams nominate one qualifying driver, with the fastest laps determining each class' starting order. IMSA arranged the grid to put Prototypes ahead of the PC, GTLM and GTD cars.[21][7]
The first was for cars in GTD class. Sage Karam qualified on pole for the class driving the #14 3GT Racing entry, besting Andrew Davis in the #57 Stevenson Motorsports entry.[22]
The second session of qualifying was for cars in the GTLM class. Dirk Werner qualified on pole driving the #911 car for Porsche GT Team, beating Bill Auberlen in the #25 BMW Team RLL entry by less than one tenth of a second.[23]
The third session of qualifying was for cars in the PC class. James French set the fastest time driving the #38 Performance Tech Motorsports entry.[24]
1 The No. 54 CORE Autosport entry was moved to the back of the GTD field entry was moved to the back of the GTD field as per Article 43.6 of the Sporting regulations (Change of starting tires).[21]
2 The No. 15 3GT Racing entry was moved to the back of the GTD field as per Article 43.5 of the Sporting regulations (Change of starting driver).[21]
Race
Post-race
The result kept Jordan Taylor and Ricky Taylor atop the Prototype Drivers' Championship with 226 points, 19 points ahead of fifth-place finishers Barbosa and Fittipaldi.[27] In the PC Drivers' Championship, French and O'Ward extended their points lead to thirty-two points over Yount.[27] In the GTLM Drivers' Championship, Auberlen and Sims advanced from third to second.[27] The result kept Balzan and Nielsen atop the GTD Drivers' Championship while Aschenbach and Davis advanced from seventh to fifth.[27] Cadillac, and Chevrolet continued to top their respective Manufacturers' Championships. Ferrari took the lead of the GTD Manufacturers' Championship while Wayne Taylor Racing, Performance Tech Motorsports, Corvette Racing, and Scuderia Corsa kept their respective advantages in the Teams' Championships with five rounds left in the season.[27]