A significant contender in LMP2 has fallen after Colton Herta’s crash at the West Horseshoe took CrowdStrike Racing by APR out of contention with five hours left at Daytona.
Further inspection when the car was brought back to the pits uncovered a broken rear wishbone. Whether that broken suspension was the cause or the effect of Herta spinning and crashing at the West Horseshoe is yet to be revealed. But it brought out a Full Course Yellow for the first time since sunrise.
Algarve Pro Racing’s crew got the car back out on track about ten minutes ago after rebuilding most of the rear of the car but the #04 machine, a strong contender for the LMP2 win today, is now ten laps down in its class.
The race restarted with five hours and 21 minutes to go, but immediately went back to FCY for a three-car incident in GTD.
Alessandro Pier Guidi in the #21 AF Corse Ferrari and Scott Andrews in the #80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG spun going into turn one, and Pier Guidi crashed into the side of the #78 Forte Racing Lamborghini of Misha Goikhberg.
The Lamborghini was towed away, while the Mercedes and Ferrari both limped back to the pits.
Green flag racing is back underway despite a turn one collision between Filipe Albuquerque (#10 Cadillac) and Marco Wittmann (#25 BMW) that caused a left-rear puncture for the BMW.
Nick Tandy leads in the #7 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963, ahead of team-mate Matt Campbell in the #6 Porsche, and Kevin Magnussen in the #24 RLL BMW M Hybrid V8. Scott Dixon is fourth in the #93 MSR Acura ARX-06 despite just picking up a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pits.
Dane Cameron and AO Racing are fighting at the front of LMP2, Matthieu Vaxiviere is a close second for AF Corse. The #99 leads the #88, with the #8 Tower Motorsports car of Sebastian Alvarez in third and the #18 ERA Motorsport car of Ryan Dalziel in fourth.
Neil Verhagen leads GTD PRO for Paul Miller Racing in the #1 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, from the #4 Corvette of Nico Varrone, the #65 Ford of Dennis Olsen, and the other Corvette, the #3 of Antonio Garcia.
Marvin Kirchhöfer maintains the #13 AWA Corvette’s lead in GTD but he has the Mercedes-AMG of Kenton Koch, the Porsche of Tom Sargent, and the Aston Martin of Zacharie Robichon right behind him.
