First Hour Completed
Under the best weather to grace Daytona International Speedway all week, Dries Vanthoor led the field of 61 cars to the green flag to start the 63rd annual Rolex 24 At Daytona.
Vanthoor remained out front through the entirety of his opening stint in the No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8, and after the first round of pit stops, he remains out front after the first hour of racing.
Nick Yelloly holds second in the No. 93 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06, 13 seconds behind the younger Vanthoor brother, with Jack Aitken in third aboard the No.31 Cadillac Whelen V-Series.R. Tom Blomqvist has moved up to fourth in the No.60 MSR Acura.
PJ Hyett took the lead in LMP2, taking advantage of a mistake from Ben Keating to move the No. 99 AO Racing ORECA 07 up to the lead.
Keating locked up heading into the West Horseshoe in consecutive laps and conceded not only the lead but second place as well, but he was able to recover and hand off the No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports machine off to co-driver Rodrigo Sales from second place.
But now it’s the No. 88 AF Corse car of Luis Perez Companc in second, followed by Chris Cumming in the Pratt Miller Motorsports No. 73, with Sales in fourth.
It wasn’t the best start for Nick Boulle, who spun around on his own at Turn 2. The reigning Jim Trueman Award winner was able to regroup and has time to get his No. 2 United Autosports USA car back up the class order.
GTD PRO has seen multiple lead changes, from pole sitter Mike Rockenfeller to Dan Harper to Andrea Caldarelli.
Right now the advantage is back in the hands of Harper in the No. 48 Paul Miller Racing BMW, with the Fords of Mike Rockenfeller and Frederic Vervisch in second and third, and
Alexander Sims running fourth in the No. 3 Pratt Miller Corvette.
Caldarelli was leading in the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Lamborghini, but on his first pit stop, the left-front wheel nut wouldn’t come off, and he slipped down the order as mechanics used hammers to pry the tricky wheel off.
Elliott Skeer led GTD from pole in the No. 120 Wright Motorsports Porsche, but now after pit stops and driver changes, it’s the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG that leads, with Russell Ward taking the baton from Ellis, and Adam Adelson taking over the No. 120 Porsche.
Trent Hindman runs third in the No. 45 WTR Lamborghini, followed by Brendan Iribe in the No. 70 Inception Racing Ferrari.
Hour Two
Dries Vanthoor was cruising along with a 25-second lead until an error heading into the pits cost him and BMW M Team RLL the lead of the 63rd Rolex 24 At Daytona.
Thanks to a strategic call from the Acura Meyer Shank Racing crew, IMSA debutant Kakunoshin Ohta is now leading GTP in the No. 93 Acura ARX-06, despite spinning on cold tires during his first out lap of his first stint in America.
He’s ahead of Frederik Vesti, now aboard the No. 31 Cadillac Whelen V-Series.R in second, with Nick Tandy in the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 in third and the No. 5 Proton Competition Porsche in a pleasantly surprising fourth, in the hands of Julien Andlauer.
Vanthoor misjudged his approach into his pit box, and ended up with his left-front quarter panel against the pit wall. Adding insult to injury, the No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8 picked up a drive-through penalty for refueling while the car was on its jacks. That’s left Philipp Eng down the GTP order in 10th.
For fans of the Lamborghini SC63, it’s a bitter and early end for the No. 63’s long-awaited Daytona debut. Mirko Bortolotti drove the No. 63 back to the pits and walked away from the car. The car went behind the wall, into the garage and officially retired with a cooling system issue, as confirmed by a Lamborghini Squadra Corse representative.
The 75 Express Mercedes-AMG GT3 has also suffered a problem just as owner/driver Kenny Habul was bedding in for his first stint, he missed the Bus Stop and the entrance of pit lane with smoke coming off the right-front wheel.
The car has since returned to the race, though it is eight laps down, just after Maro Engel had started the race and driven up to second in GTD PRO.
After the last round of GTD PRO pit stops, Laurin Heinrich leads aboard the No. 77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R but is off-sequence after having to make an unscheduled pit stop in the last hour. An apparent mismatch between IMSA and the team’s energy readings led AO Racing to bring “Rexy” in to fix the issue, which has put Heinrich on the back foot.
The No. 65 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang GT3 of Frederic Vervisch took the lead from the BMW of Dan Harper, and the Ford is still in the ‘net lead’ (second place on the road) in GTD PRO.
Antonio Garcia runs third in the No. 3 Corvette, with Augusto Farfus now aboard the No. 48 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO, after relieving Harper.
Russell Ward has kept the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes up front in GTD, with Adam Adelson running second in the No. 120 Wright Motorsports Porsche, and Misha Goikhberg up into third in the No. 78 Forte Racing Lamborghini.
At this time only the 2 GM Corvette Z06s been running towards the top, the other 3 Corvettes running further back
Standings after 2 hours