Teams were greeted with the hottest ambient temperatures of the season in the second practice today at VIRginia International Raceway as Corvette Racing’s Antonio Garcia set a blistering pace to top the timesheet.

The 95 degree (f) ambient temperature is the highest recorded this year. The track temperature of 133 degrees matches the warmest seen earlier this year at at Lime Rock Park.

Garcia set a time of 1:42.623 to beat the challenging Ford duo of Joey Hand and Ryan Briscoe. His margin to second-placed Hand was a mere 0.077 of a second.

“All the work we’ve done between Road America and now definitely has helped,” Garcia said.

“We brought a few things from our Road Atlanta test, and they seemed to work. I’m very happy with that. All the testing we have done has helped and improved things. The new surface here at VIR is very nice. We are already going faster here already than we ever have.

“It’s a nice improvement from last year, even though it is super-hot today. In normal conditions, I would think it would be mega! But for today, I’m very happy with the track and our Corvette. We have some data and other things to analyze, but so far so good.”

Earlier in the session the top five times were set by five different manufacturers.

Ferrari’s Giancarlo Fisichella finished the session fourth fastest ahead of John Edwards’ BMW.

The GT Daytona class was topped in session two by Bryan Sellers aboard his Lamborghini – matching the performance of his teammate Madison Snow who led the opening session.

Jeroen Bleekemolen was second fastest aboard his Dodge Viper.

Cars are back on track tomorrow at 8:00am before qualifying begins at 11:55am.

It's HOT HOT HOT at @VIRnow today. Some of the highest temps we've seen all year in @IMSA. #MichelinVIR ??? pic.twitter.com/DblGqqooiR

— Michelin Alley (@MichelinAlley) August 26, 2016

Checkered flag. Antonio ends the day with the fastest time – 1:42.623 in the No. 3 #Corvette. @olivergavin was P7 at 1:43.8. FP3 at 8a tmrw.

— Corvette Racing (@CorvetteRacing) August 26, 2016

//results.imsa.com/Results/16_2016/16_VIRginia%20International%20Raceway/01_IMSA%20WeatherTech%20SportsCar%20Championship/201608261535_Practice%202/03_Results.PDF