Campbell led the way around the classic 2.238-mile track on the beautiful Monterey peninsula in the one hour, 45-minute practice session, but was chased hard by GTP class rivals Cadillac and Acura.
Campbell lapped the #7 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 in 1m15.903s and then 1m15.493s – making it an early Porsche 1-2 with Nick Tandy’s initial 1m17.142s effort.
Philipp Eng briefly took P2 for BMW with a lap of 1m16.153s, but was beaten by Colin Braun (Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06) with 1m15.716s in the final 10 minutes of the session. Mathieu Jaminet also bested Eng in the #6 Penske Porsche to take P3 with 1m15.745s.
Pipo Derani jumped to P2 in the closing minutes, his 1m15.642s in the Action Express Cadillac V-Series.R just 0.149s off Campbell.
But Campbell wasn’t to be denied, topping both practice sessions so far, ahead of Derani, Braun and Jaminet. Ricky Taylor was only P5 in the Wayne Taylor Racing Acura, but set the overall fastest middle sector time.
The BMW M Hybrid V8s slipped to sixth and seventh, ahead of Sebastien Bourdais in the Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac, that he crashed yesterday. The JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche 963, which is making its debut this weekend, was over 3.5s off the pace.
Ex-F1 racer Giedo van der Garde set the early LMP2 pace at 1m18.615s in the #35 TDS ORECA before former IndyCar racer Ed Jones beat him with 1m17.763s for High Class Racing.
#78 US RaceTronics, Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, GTD: Misha Goikhberg, Loris Spinelli
Photo by: Art Fleischmann
Lamborghini on top in GTD
Frankie Montecalvo set the pace in the GTD-only running at 1m24.319s in his Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F, which was later beaten by Loris Spinelli’s #78 Forte Racing Lamborghini Huracan just as the all-Pro class cars were unleashed.
Alex Riberas was fastest in GTD Pro in the #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage, but his 1m24.285s was over a tenth off Spinelli’s quickest GT time but he was second overall.
There was one red flag during the mid-stages of the session to clear debris on track after Jaminet went off.