It is late at night in Daytona, where we arrived at the 15th hour of 24 which makes up the first round of the IMSA SportsCar Championship.
In the past 180 ‘there have been no major interruptions, apart from a Full Course Yellow decreed at the 13th hour for the off-track of the Lamborghini # 71 of T3 Motorsport North America, which then managed to get back into action.
Once again this allowed the teams to make their respective stops and the group to compact, but some still had their problems.
This is the case of the Cadillacs of Ally Racing / AXR and Chip Ganassi Racing, now out of the fight for success after long stops in their respective garages.
Johnson / Lopez / Kobayashi / Rockenfeller’s # 48 collided with a GTD coming out of turn 2 during a lap, causing damage to the right rear that was repaired to send the car back into the race, but only at the 15th hour. .
In CGR, the # 01 of Bourdais / Van Der Zande / Dixon / Palou suffered an alternator failure and is currently sunk in the rear, still being in the hands of the technicians.
Still some penalties to report, with Drive Through imposed to Forty7 # 7, United # 22 and T3 # 71 for infringement at the pit stop, to NTE # 42 for a contact with Cetilar’s Ferrari, to Proton # 15 for hindering a rival, and the PR1 # 11 and BMW-RLL # 24 for speed in the pit lane not respected, as well as a Stop & Go of 60 “given to Team TMG # 64 for exiting the pit lane in red.
They have raised the white flag High Class Racing, Turner Motorsport, at Crucial they are instead trying to repair the McLaren # 59, while there is trouble for the Lamborghinis of Carbahn-Peregrine # 39 and TR3 # 63, still in the pits.
As we said, in the DPi Class in fact only five cars remained in contention for the record. The Cadillac # 02 of Chip Ganassi Racing (Magnussen / Bamber / Lynn / Ericsson) had managed to stretch on the # 31 of Action Express Racing (Derani / Nunez / Conway) for about half a minute, but had a momentary problem stopping in the second sector during the 15th hour and was paraded by all rivals.
Second is the Acura # 10 of Wayne Taylor Racing (Stevens / Rossi / Taylor / Albuquerque), in full battle with the Cadillac # 5 of JDC-Miller Motorsports (Duval / Keating / Westbrook / Vautier) and the Acura # 60 of Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian (Jarvis / Blomqvist / Castroneves / Pagenaud).
In Class LMP2 it is the Oreca 07-Gibson # 29 of Racing Team Nederland (Van Eerd / VeeKay / Murry / Van Der Garde) to have climbed to the first place with 15 “on the # 8 of Tower Motorsport (Andrade / Delétraz / Farano / Habsburg ), which has as many on the # 81 of DragonSpeed (Herta / Lux / DeFrancesco / O’Ward), which keeps the # 69 of G-Drive by APR at a safe distance (Van Der Helm / Ghiotto / Allen / Falb).
In the Top5 there is also the # 51 of PR1 Mathiasen (Lapierre / Keating / Huffaker / Jensen), while with several laps of delay remains the # 68 of G-Drive by APR (Rasmussen / Heriau / Jones / Rast), the # 22 by United Autosports (Owen / Smith / McGuire / Hanson), # 11 by PR1 Mathiasen (Tincknell / Bomarito / Pierson / Thomas) and # 18 by Era (Dalziel / Merriman / Chatin / Tilley), back in action after the accident of the first hour.
Among the LMP3s, the Ligier # 74 of Riley Motorsports (Fraga / Robinson / Van Berlo / Cooper) continues its ride with a good advantage over the # 54 of the Core (Jonsson / Kurtz / Braun / Bennett) and the # 36 of the Andretti (Burdon) / Andretti / Lindh / Chaves).
The Duqueine # 13 of Awa (Fidani / Wittmer / Kern / Bell) and the Ligier # 33 of Sean Creech Motorsport (Willsey / Barbosa / Priaulx / Jacobsen) still hope for the podium, while the Duqueine # 7 of Forty7 Motorsports, # 26 and # 6 of Muehlner Motorsports America, and the Ligier # 38 of Performance Tech Motorsports are now too backward to aim for a good result.
The GTD PRO is still in the hands of the # 97 Mercedes of WeatherTech Racing (MacNeil / Juncadella / Engel / Gounon), which however has only 5 “on the Porsche # 9 of Pfaff (Jaminet / Campbell / Nasr). Third is the Porsche # 2 of KCMG (Olsen / Pilet / Vanthoor / Imperatori), chased by the Lexus # 14 of Vasser Sullivan Racing (Barnicoat / Kirkwood / Hawksworth).
Further back, but at the same number of laps, the Mercedes # 15 of Proton USA (Mueller / Assenheimer / Cindric) remains, while the Ferrari # 62 of the Risi Competizione (Calado / Pier Guidi / Rigon / Serra) falls in the standings.
No hope now for Team RLL BMWs and Pratt & Miller Corvettes after their respective problems.
Everything is still very open also as regards the GTD, with the Mercedes # 57 of Winward (Ward / Ellis / Grenier / Auer) ahead of the Porsche # 16 of Wright Motorsports (Hardwick / Robichon / Heylen / Lietz).
Still on the virtual podium the Aston Martin # 44 of Magnus Racing (Potter / Lally / Pumpelly / Adam), threatened by the Acura # 66 of Gradient (Simpson / Bechtolsheimer / Miller / Farnbacher).
At the end of the hour another FCY due to an accident of Forty7 # 7, which caught fire at turn 2 going to the wall. Fortunately, Antoine Doquin who was behind the wheel at the time came out of the wreck unharmed.
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