St. Pete - Friday April 5 Afternoon Practice

2:00 pm - Race control has notified us that the session will not restart and so we are done until qualifying. The cars remain in pit lane, and the drivers are getting out in search of some shade to stay cool before qualifying.

** Reminder - radio broadcast on Race Day. Lizards will be broadcasting our team radio live on raceday during on track sessions. For details, click on the "Follow the Race" tab on the home page.

1:52 pm - Red flag. Looks like the Penske No. 7 and a GT2 Porsche (not a Lizard Porsche) collided on course with significant damage to both cars. Unclear exactly what happened, but appears that the Porsche impacted the tire wall, and the Penske was unable to avoid him on course. Both cars will need to be removed from the course so this will most likely be the end of the practice session.

Up next is qualifying - which, assuming that it is not delayed due to this incident, will be at 2:15 pm

1:48 - Based on weather reports it looks like rain may be possible for tomorrow's race. In the rain, teams will switch from slick tires to grooved rain tires as soon as the track becomes too wet to hold traction on slicks.

1:42 - 20 minutes left - Lizards are 1, 2, and 9 in the session out of 14 GT2 cars.

1:39 - No. 46 pits for driver change from Patrick to Johannes.

1:38 - Darren Law takes over for Seth in the No. 44 and Wolf for Joerg in the No. 45

1:28 - No. 45 is currently P1, No. 46 P 2; and No. 44 13th in the session.

1:15 - Green flag - Stefan Pfeiffer, No. 45 Engineer, has identified the shifting issue (broken shift sensor) - they will run out the practice with it, and repair it prior to qualifying.

1:11 - Red flag. A Dyson prototype has spun on course, managing to avoid impacting the tire barrier wall. Patrick reports a traction issue. All three cars are in the pits.

1:04 - Joerg reports a shifting problem

1:05 pm - Green flag on the session and Seth Neiman (no. 44), Joerg Bergmeister (No. 45) ,and Patrick Pilet (No. 46) are heading out for the session. It's hot and humid here at St. Pete and cloudy skies are threatening rain.

1:00 pm ET - Good afternoon from St. Petersburg, Florida. We are installed in our pits here at the temporary race circuit, readying for our second (and final) practice session of the race weekend. It's a compressed schedule here, and unlike most of our standard races, we have only 2 hours of practice time and a short race day warmup before Saturday's race.

The drivers have been focused this morning on refreshing on the track circuit, and for Seth and Patrick, learning it for the first time. All three cars were out for this morning's session.

This afternoon's practice begins at 1:05 pm and lasts one hour. GT qualifying begins at 2:15 and lasts 30 minutes.

Qualifying is important at every race, and even more so here because the race is very short (1 hour, 55 minutes) compared to our other events. Starting position is key because there are so few passing opportunities on this track.