After three hours of racing, the #01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R continues to lead the 62nd annual Rolex 24 at Daytona.
Scott Dixon currently has a manageable lead of around two seconds to Jack Aitken in the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac.
As the American marque continues to lead the way, the two Porsche Penske Motorsport 963s continue to run third and fourth with Dane Cameron in the #7 ahead of Mathieu Jaminet in the #6.
Of note, the #40 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 is running on a different pit strategy to the GTP leaders. It stayed out during the last Full Course Yellow while the rest of the pack went in to replenish their virtual fuel tanks.
Also, gentleman driver Ben Keating has begun his first stint aboard the #85 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche.
To Keating’s delight, the #2 United Autosports USA ORECA 07 currently leads the LMP2 class, with his co-driver Pato O’Ward leading the class, 15 seconds ahead of the #81 DragonSpeed ORECA of Sebastian Alvarez.
In GTD Pro, Alexander Sims is due a pit stop past the top of the hour but he is running up front aboard the #3 Pratt Miller Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R, ahead of the #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo.
And in GTD, it’s business as usual as the #12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3, now piloted by Parker Thompson, is leading the way and challenging Sims for the ‘outright’ GTD lead.
Racing resumed at 13 minutes past the hour following the clean-up for Steven Thomas’ earlier crash. The #40 WTRAndretti Acura’s strategy put it out front, and Louis Deletraz was able to keep the red and black Acura out front until his most recent stop.
The #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus returned to the race after over an hours’ worth of repairs thanks to the steadfast work of their mechanics.
Part of the rear decklid of the #64 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang GT3 began to peel off as Chris Mies was mixing it up and trying to gain ground in GTD Pro, but it hasn’t been troubling the German’s form.
Two early GTD contenders have digested significant penalties: The #34 Conquest Racing Ferrari and #80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG both received 60-second penalty stops for running the red light at the exit of pit lane.
There was also some tough news for fans of the #33 Sean Creech Motorsports Ligier JS P217, which lost a lap after Dr. Lance Willsey spun off at turn two – but he has gotten going again.
Unsurprisingly, the #11 TDS Racing ORECA LMP2 is listed as the first official retirement of the race after Thomas’ accident.
Feature image © Michael L. Levitt / IMSA
