Monterey Sports Car Championships - Live reporting from the VICI Racing pits

7:00 PM The sun is setting very quickly now. The crew have a long evening ahead of them working on the set up and preparing this brand new car, which has been built up at breakneck speed, for the serious action here tomorrow.

6:55 PM Team spirits are high here, as is usual in this team. Roland, Marc and Nicky are on the pitwall and they are all happy with the the progress made so far today. We have a new challenge this weekend and a new variable in the Dunlop tires we are using for the first time, so once again the challenge drives us forward; this team always defines itself on the challenge.

6:50 PM The session is over; the best lap time of the two sessions was set by Marc in 1:25.668 (94.047 mph) on lap 17 of the 42 laps that the #18 car completed here today. Now the team looks towards tomorrow’s program with a quiet optimism after today’s results.

6:25 PM "The car feels good, I’m pleased,” says Nicky, who is out of the car now. “We have a good basis to build on tomorrow, and we’re pointing in the right direction here for sure," he adds.

6:10 PM Nicky's been out in the #18 car. He turns in two flying laps in 1:29.233 and 1:27.758 before pitting after 10 mins for further car checks, returning to the track three minutes later. With the light quickly fading Nicky posts a 1:36.610 (16), 1:27.059 (17), 1:26.517 (19), 1:26.959 (20), 1:26.879 (21), 1:26.565 (23) and a 1:26.266 (25) before pitting after 26 mins to hand the car over to his brother Francesco.

5:35 PM The last hour on track is about to get underway and Technical Director Roland Wall is satisfied with the progress made today. From the pitwall the hugely experienced German motor racing engineer directs the team's operations with the assured composure of a virtuoso.

5:15 PM The first half hour is over and Marc is pretty happy with how the session has gone, “the car is good, it feels a lot more precise on the Dunlops and we were able to run well. We were just getting a feel of the car on this track as it is new, and it was my first time on the track, and it was nice. The track is quite interesting too, it is a lot more narrow than it appears on TV.”

4:45 PM Marc Basseng is strapped in the cockpit as the lights go green at 4:40 PM, and for the first time this year the #18 Porsche 911 GT3 is running on Dunlop tires. The aim of this afternoon’s running is to run the freshly built car in and allow all the drivers, none of whom have driven here before, to acclimatise themselves with the 2.238-mile track.

12:00 PM The #18 car has just passed through Tech ok, and the final preparations are being made as the time counts down to our appearance on track. It's been hectic, and following a string of long nights for the crew we are just about ready for the concluding race of the season. Also squeezed into the all-to-short short time gap since Petit Le Mans was our truck’s journey right across the country from our Miami HQ.

11:15 AM The big change for this race, apart from the new chassis, is that we will be using Dunlop tires for this season-closing race. Everyone is looking forward to seeing how our RSR will perform on these tires and it will be an interesting benchmark for us technically.

10:00 AM One of our key partners this year is Hughes Network Systems, LLC, the global leader in providing broadband satellite networks and services for large enterprises, governments, small businesses, and consumers. HughesNet encompasses all broadband solutions and managed services from Hughes, bridging the best of satellite and terrestrial technologies. Its broadband satellite products are based on global standards approved by the TIA, ETSI and ITU standards organizations, including IPoS/DVB-S2, RSM-A and GMR-1. To date, Hughes has shipped more than 1.5 million systems to customers in over 100 countries. Headquartered outside Washington, D.C., in Germantown, Maryland, USA, Hughes maintains sales and support offices worldwide. Hughes is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hughes Communications, Inc.

9:30 AM The action on track at the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca gets underway today with two Promoter Test Sessions, the first half hour session (4:40 – 5:10 PM) (PT) will be reserved for the GT1 and GT2 cars, while after a half hour break, a full hour (5:40 – 6:40 PM) will be open to all the ALMS classes.

7:30 AM Following a real race against time over the last week-and-a-half we arrived at the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, California for the final appointment of the American Le Mans Series this year, the Monterey Sports Car Championships. It's sunny over Laguna Seca this morning, with the temperatures rising fast.