Night falls at the 24h of Daytona, where the protagonists of the IMSA SportsCar Championship have reached the middle of the race, still amidst different emotions and controversial facts.
It must always be emphasized that the regulations of the American series, between neutralizations with Full Course Yellow and Safety Car, the possibility of splitting in the groups and rain penalties for infractions during the stops, always keep the show alive and open the possibility of seeing real overtaking to compete the position.
During the fourth hour, an off-track stop at turn 5 due to problems with the gearbox of the BMW #96 triggered the FCY again, while later Simon Pagenaud, intent on taking back the podium with the Acura #60, squeezed the LMP2 in turn 5 #8 of Tower Motorsports driven by John Farano sending it into a spin.
The MSR standard bearer saved himself with a caution, but Scott Dixon, who was behind him, got worse and braked sharply to avoid the crash and was hit by an LMP3, damaging the right rear bodywork and making him lose a position to the #01 Cadillac in favor of Dane Cameron’s #6 Porsche.
Dixon was then recalled to the pits and, although team Ganassi quickly changed the rough side, he lost a lap to the leader. Meanwhile, the #7 Porsche had problems with its batteries and had to stop for a long time in the pits to replace them, slipping far behind and to the bottom of the LMDh-GTP list.
At the seventh hour another FCY due to an accident that occurred at the ‘Bus Stop-Le Mans’ chicane at TDS’s Oreca #11 driven by Steven Thomas; when operations resumed, Helio Castroneves spun in the Acura #60 while he was trying to attack Pipo Derani’s Cadillac #31.
New neutralization in the eighth hour to fix a stack of tires of the protections, while a contact between the Oreca #18 of Era and the Ligier #36 of Andretti made the 07-Gibson spin, with consequent Drive Through imposed on the LMP3.
And speaking of penalties, in recent hours we have seen a flood of them arrive for infringements during the pit stops. Drive Through awarded to LMDh Acura #10 and Cadillac #01 (started while the mechanic still had the fuel filler plugged in, fortunately without consequences for him), Mercedes #79 (twice), Porsche #53, LMP3 #55, #13 and #43 and Lamborghini #19, while Oreca #20 took 60″, as well as LMP3 #17 and BMW #1, 3’20” discounted them in Era with #18 and 10″ in Triarsi (#023) Finally Stop&Go for LMP3 #85 which then had problems and collapsed in the rear.
Last FCY-SC in the 11th hour when Kellymoss with Riley’s #92 Porsche KOed leaving the GTD Class fight. Here they have all been regrouped again questioning everything.
However, the Acura #60 driven by Meyer Shank Racing-Curb Agajanian (Blomqvist/Braun/Castroneves/Pagenaud) seems to have the upper hand, leading the LMDh category in the GTP Class with a good margin of more than 15″ over the Cadillac # Action Express Racing’s No. 31 (Derani/Sims/Aitken), in turn closely followed by Wayne Taylor Racing’s #10 Acura (Taylor/Albuquerque/Delétraz/Hartley) in third.
The #6 Porsche of Team Penske (Jaminet/Tandy/Cameron) is fourth about fifty seconds off the pace, while the Cadillacs of Chip Ganassi Racing are in fifth and sixth position with Bourdais/Van Der Zande/Dixon (#01 ) and Bamber/Lynn/Westbrook (#02), the latter doubled as the BMW #24 of Farfus/Wittmann/Eng/Herta, the only surviving Team RLL M Hybrid V8 after the premature retirement of the #25.
The #7 Porsche of Christensen/Nasr/Campbell accumulated 17 laps down after the long stop in the pits to solve the electrical problem.
In Class LMP2 the Oreca #52 of PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports (Keating/Quinn/Chatin/Lapierre) takes off again on the #55 of Proton Competition (Bruni/Pizzi/Allen/Poordad), while the # 88 of AF Corse with Perrodo/Nielsen/Vaxivière/Canal who are battling with the #35 of TDS Racing (Heriau/Van Der Garde/Van Uitert/Pierson).
Fifth and further behind the aforementioned is the #51 of Rick Ware Racing (Lux/DeFrancesco/Fittipaldi/Cindric), followed by the #04 of Crowdstrike Racing by APR (Kurtz/Hanley/McMurry/Gutiérrez) and the #20 of High Class Racing (Marciello/Andersen/Jones/Fjordbach).
As we said above, the #18 of Era Motorsport (Rasmussen/Dalziel/Jarvis/Merriman) lost a lot of ground, dropping to eighth ahead of the #8 of Tower Motorsports (Farano/McLaughlin/Simpson/Newgarden), now too late to hope for a recovery miraculous. KO the #11 of TDS Racing (Thomas/Veekay/Huffaker/Jensen).
Also in Class LMP3 escape tests for the Ligier #33 of Sean Creech Motorsport (Barbosa/Pino/Siegel/Willsey), which has 20″ to manage on the Duqueine #17 of AWA (Mantella/Boyd/Varrone/Merrill), the only team remained in action after returning to the pits due to problems with little sister #13 (Fidani/Bell/Kranz/Kern).
The #36 Andretti Autosport Ligier (Andretti/Chaves/Dickerson/Lindh) maintains the podium with a good lead on the #43 MRS GT-Racing (Alvarez/French/De Oliveira/Frost).
The #87 Duqueine of FastMD Racing (Kanamaru/Serravalle/Boulle/Vance) rises to the Top5, overtaking the #38 of Performance Tech Motorsports (DeAngelis/Allen/Bloum/Shields), the D08 #85 of JDC Miller Motorsports collapses in the rear ( Bechtolsheimer/Van Der Helm/Mars/Philippi). Outside Riley’s Ligier #74 (Robinson/Fraga/Burdon/Van Berlo).
In GTD PRO the Aston Martin Vantage #23 of Heart Of Racing tries to escape, leaving behind the Mercedes #79 of WeatherTech Racing-Proton and the Lexus #14 of Vasser Sullivan, separated by 5″.
The Lamborghini #63 of Iron Lynx climbs fourth, the Porsche #9 of Pfaff Motorsports finds the Top5 for the first time after the Corvette #3 had a problem with the rear right having to return to the pits to change it and dropped to sixth.
the BMW #95 of Turner Motorsport is seventh with 3 laps down from the lead, followed by the Aston Martin #64 of TGM-TF Sport and the Porsche #53 of MDK Motorsports, while the Ferrari #62 of Risi Competizione slips to last place with 19 laps of gap due to a very long pit stop to solve a problem.
In GTD Class they are all much closer because the #32 Mercedes-AMG of Team Korthoff Motorsports finds itself in the exhausts the #70 McLaren of Inception Racing, which managed to overtake the #27 Aston Martin of Heart Of Racing, the Mercedes #57 by Winward Racing and the #44 Aston Martin by Magnus Racing.
The Lexus #12 of Vasser Sullivan lost ground, now sixth with the Acura NSX #93 of Racers Edge Motorsports and #66 of Gradient Racing behind.
The Top10 is completed by the BMW #1 of Paul Miller Racing and the Lamborghini #78 of US Racetronics, followed by the Ferrari #21 of AF Corse, the Porsche #16 of Wright Motorsports and the Ferrari #013 of Triarsi Competizione.
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