LONG BEACH, Calif. – Today, on April 17th, practice began for the 2026 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach and its top three competing series.
In the first practice for the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship, where both Grand Touring Protypes (GTP) and slower Daytonas (GTD) compete on track at the same time, the #5 JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche 963 set the fastest time for the GTPs. Driven by Laurin Heinrich and Tijmen van der Helm, the former set a 96.734 MPH average around the 1.968 technical street circuit.
For the GTD class (which takes stock car models and upgrades them to international Grand Touring race standards) the #13 Autosport Corvette Z06 GT3.R driven by Orey Fidani and Matthew Bell was the class of the morning practice, with Bell touring the temporary facilities at 89.425 MPH. They were followed in second by Jack Hawksworth and Frankie Montecalvo, driving the #89 Vasser Sulivan Racing Lexus RC F GT3.
Times were tight and look to be continually close over the weekend. With the tight nature of Long Beach’s streets, qualifying and practice mean even more than usual.
For the Porsche Carrera Cup of North America, another competing series, the top 3 were separated by less than two tenths of a second. Tyler Maxson led the first practice averaging 88.007 MPH in his Topp Racing Porsche 911 GT3 992.2, the only driver to clear that 88 MPH average. He was closely followed in second by Tom Sargent and Cole Kleck in third.
Qualifying takes place this evening for IMSA alongside the first practice for the NTT Indycar Series, the headliner event for the weekend. Formula Drift and Super Trucks compete afterwards.
Full practice results published by IMSA can be found here.
Stay tuned for more.
