Four hours remain in the 61st annual Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona. The leading #01 Cadillac Racing V-LMDh has completed 667 laps and leads its class with Scott Dixon piloting the Ganassi-run car.
Dixon stayed on board after taking fuel on his last pit stop, continuing the standard set by teammates Sebastien Bourdais and Renger van der Zande.
The #60 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Acura ARX-06 had to do another oil system flush on their scheduled pit stop with four hours and 12 minutes to go. The car is still running second in the hands of Simon Pagenaud, but has now dropped to just over 50 seconds behind the yellow and black Cadillac on the track. There’s another 31 second buffer to the third-place #02 Cadillac Racing V-LMDh, currently piloted by Alex Lynn.
Despite similar oil system issues to the #60 MSR Acura, the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport Acura is still within two laps of the overall lead in fourth, followed by Nick Tandy in the #6 Porsche Penske Motorsports 963 in fifth, four laps off the lead. Colton Herta is now aboard the #24 BMW M Team RLL Hybrid V8, in sixth, then Pipo Derani is seventh in the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac, trying to recover from his incident earlier in the race with a GTD car.
Just as they had made their way through the LMP2 field and into eighth overall, the #7 Penske Porsche suffered another issue with five hours and 30 minutes to go – after a battery problem last night, they now had to contend with engine cooling issues that set them back another half an hour in the garage. An hour later, they were back in the garage with the engine cover off during a pit stop. The combined strifes have put the #7 Porsche back in 16th overall, 37 laps down.
The #25 BMW is still circulating even after a spectacular off track moment from Sheldon van der Linde at turn one. They’re close to a point where they can start overtaking GTD cars in the overall order.
The battle for the lead across all GTD cars is still being fought by the #57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3, and the #27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 – but it’s now Winward Racing, in their backup car, who has a decided advantage.
Heart of Racing Team, already with their GTD Pro class #23 Aston Martin down the order after a suspension issue, must have felt sick when they saw Marco Sorensen come to a stop on the backstretch in the #27 car. An electrical problem forced Sorensen to do a quick reset, and he continued, but dropped to more than 30 seconds behind the leading #57 Winward Mercedes. At the 20 hour mark the #27 Aston Martin of Darren Turner was scored as the class leader but is off sequence, so Philip Ellis in the #57 Mercedes should be considered the class leader.
Corvette Racing have retaken the lead in GTD Pro, third among all GTDs. Jordan Taylor has a ten second advantage in the #3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R GTD, followed by Daniel Juncadella in the #79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes in second.
Ben Barnicoat has the aged, but viable, #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 running third in GTD Pro; Spencer Pumpelly is third in GTD “classic” aboard the #44 Magnus Racing Aston Martin.
A difficult first Daytona 24 Hours for the Iron Dames continued when Rahel Frey brought their magenta #83 Lamborghini into the garage. They returned to the track after 35 minutes in repairs, then immediately went back behind the wall. Persistent issues with the throttle have been a pain point for them – this time it was an issue with the throttle actuator.
CrowdStrike Racing with APR have picked up momentum and are beginning to take the initiative in LMP2. Ben Hanley is currently driving their #04 Oreca LMP2 07 and runs eighth overall, 11 seconds ahead of the trailing #35 TDS Racing Oreca of Giedo van der Garde in second, with Matthieu Vaxiviere eight seconds back in third place driving the #88 AF Corse Oreca.
Nicolas Lapierre has handed the wheel of the #52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca off to Alex Quinn just before the top of the hour to continue their fight back from a 60 second penalty stop. Rick Ware Racing’s hopes of a podium in LMP2 took a hit when their #51 Oreca picked up a left front puncture, Pietro Fittipaldi now runs sixth in his class.
Just after completing 19 hours of racing, the LMP3 battle took a major swing as super-sub Nolan Siegel couldn’t get the leading #33 Sean Creech Motorsports Ligier out of first gear. The engine cover came off the Ligier and mechanics began working to repair the issue, all while Thomas Merrill drove into the class lead aboard the #17 AWA Duquiene.
After 35 minutes worth of repairs, the #33 Ligier returned to the race, but had fallen 17 laps in arrears of the #17 Duquiene, which is now leading LMP3 by eight laps from the #38 Performance Tech Motorsports Ligier in second, and the #33 Ligier is now third.
FastMD Racing’s #87 Duquiene has also been in the garage with a gearbox issue since before the end of the 18th hour.
