The 15th of the 24h of Daytona is also on file, where the protagonists of the IMSA SportsCar Championship are immersed in the darkness of the American night, still cool with temperatures around 18°C.
Towards the end of the 12th hour there was another Full Course Yellow/Safety Car when the rear of the #43 MRS GT-Racing Ligier caught fire, forcing the car to stop immediately to put out the flames.
Here everyone stopped, but there were problems for the MSR and WTR Acura LMDhs, both with a rear problem due to a leak that led the mechanics to remove the bonnet and work hard to send them back on track, especially the #10 of WTR which even got a 10″ penalty as it returned with the pit lane closed.
New FCY just entered the 15th hour to recover the TGM-TF Sport Aston Martin #64; Matt Plumb crashed at turn 6 and failing to restart, the marshals had to intervene to tow the Vantage and move it to a safe area.
#02 Cadillac Racing Cadillac V-LMDh: Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn, Richard Westbrook
Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images
So far the debut of the Ferrari 296 GT3s has been a disaster, already burdened with a very questionable Balance of Performance that literally makes the Maranello cars ‘paint-stripping’ on the banking books and never dropped below 1’47″2 (against who is managed to break down the 1’46″0).
The #47 of Cetilar Racing already lost due to damage to the floor caused by a contact, and the #62 of Risi Competizione also left the scene for the same reasons, having struggled to reach the Top5 of GTD PRO, while the #21 of AF Corse took a Drive Through when Simon Mann hit the #96 BMW in Turn 2.
The same penalty also applies to Lexus #14, Mercedes #32, BMW #95, Ferrari #023 and LMP3 #38 for infringements recognized during stops, which cost LMP2 #52, LMP3 #85, Aston #44 and Porsche 60″ #53.
#6 Team Penske Porsche 963: Mathieu Jaminet, Nick Tandy, Dane Cameron
Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images
The #6 Porsche of Team Penske (Jaminet/Tandy/Cameron) appeared for the first time at the top of the GTP Class, after the last round of pit stops it overtook the Cadillacs of Chip Ganassi Racing in the hands of Bamber/ Lynn/Westbrook (#02) and Bourdais/Van Der Zande/Dixon (#01) briefly setting sail.
It seems that every neutralization is done on purpose to delay the Acura #60 driven by Meyer Shank Racing-Curb Agajanian (Blomqvist/Braun/Castroneves/Pagenaud), which returned to the front in the 13th hour with a pace superior to its LMDh rivals, but now even dropped to sixth and followed by the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing (Taylor/Albuquerque/Delétraz/Hartley), late after the problems and the penalty described above.
The Cadillac #31 of Action Express Racing (Derani/Sims/Aitken) climbs fourth, followed at a safe distance by the BMW #24 of Farfus/Wittmann/Eng/Herta, always with a slower pace than the other GTP cars, but the positions are in progress given the restart from the last FCY-SC which took place a little while ago.
The Porsche #7 of Christensen/Nasr/Campbell, which is making its way through the LMP2 in the general classification, and the returned BMW #25 of DePhillippi/Yelloly/Van Der Linde/Herta, very last after the problems we had in the first hour and the very long pit stop to sort them out.
#04 Crowdstrike Racing by APR ORECA LMP2 07: George Kurtz, Ben Hanley, Matt McMurry, Esteban Gutierrez
Photo by: Art Fleischmann
Good challenge for the command of the LMP2 Class. A collision cost the Orecas #52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports (Keating/Quinn/Chatin/Lapierre) – which was first – and #51 Rick Ware Racing (Lux/DeFrancesco/Fittipaldi/Cindric), now fourth and fifth respectively .
The #55 Proton Competition (Bruni/Pizzi/Allen/Poordad) also had a close encounter with the #96 BMW going off the track and dropped to eighth.
The #04 of Crowdstrike Racing by APR (Kurtz/Hanley/McMurry/Gutiérrez) is therefore fighting for the lead ahead of the #88 of AF Corse (Perrodo/Nielsen/Vaxivière/Canal) and the #35 of TDS Racing (Heriau/ Van Der Garde/Van Uitert/Pierson).
Sixth was the #20 High Class Racing (Marciello/Andersen/Jones/Fjordbach), furthest away in seventh place was the #18 Era Motorsport (Rasmussen/Dalziel/Jarvis/Merriman) with the #8 Tower Motorsports (Farano/McLaughlin/ Simpson/Newgarden) bringing up the rear. KO the #11 of TDS Racing (Thomas/Veekay/Huffaker/Jensen).
#17 AWA Duqueine D08: Wayne Boyd, Nico Varrone, Thomas Merrill, Anthony Mantella
Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images
In the LMP3 Class, AWA’s Duqueine #17 (Mantella/Boyd/Varrone/Merrill) is still the leader, followed by Sean Creech Motorsport’s Ligier #33 (Barbosa/Pino/Siegel/Willsey), while the podium is completed by FastMD’s Duqueine #87 Racing (Kanamaru/Serravalle/Boulle/Vance) which however has a couple of laps to make up.
Fourth was the Ligier #38 of Performance Tech Motorsports (DeAngelis/Allen/Bloum/Shields), the Duqueine #85 of JDC Miller Motorsports (Bechtolsheimer/Van Der Helm/Mars/Filippi) took the Top5, followed by the returning #13 of AWA( Fidani/Bell/Kranz/Kern) who fixed the problems she ran into.
The already retired Ligier #74 of Riley (Robinson/Fraga/Burdon/Van Berlo) is joined by the #43 of MRS GT-Racing (Alvarez/French/De Oliveira/Frost) and the #36 of Andretti Autosport (Andretti/Chaves /Dickerson/Lindh).
#79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes AMG GT3: Cooper MacNeil, Daniel Juncadella, Jules Gounon, Maro Engel
Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images
In GTD PRO the duel between the Mercedes #79 of WeatherTech Racing-Proton (Juncadella/Gounon/Engel/MacNeil), the Lexus #14 of Vasser Sullivan (Hawksworth/Barnicoat/Conway), the Corvette #3 (Garcia/ Taylor/Milner) and the Heart Of Racing Aston Martin #23 (Pittard/Gunn/Riberas). The AMG overtook the Vantage in the 15th hour, followed by the C8.R after the last round of stops, catching up after the problem with the right rear tire earlier.
The RC F took advantage of the grouping to retake second place behind the Mercedes, while the Vantage lost some ground and is fourth ahead of the #63 Lamborghini of Iron Lynx (Caldarelli/Bortolotti/Grosjean/Pepper).
Sixth was the Porsche #9 of Pfaff Motorsports (Pilet/Vanthoor/Bachler), which for the first time had also tasted the Top5 despite a terrible BoP, followed by the BMW #95 of Turner Motorsport (Spengler/Auberlen/Hull/Edwards) and now the Porsche #53 of MDK Motorsports (Kvamme/Estep/Magnussen/Hart) considering the withdrawal of the Aston Martin #64 of TGM-TF Sport (Giovanis/H.Plumb/M.Plumb/Trinkler) which joins that of the Ferrari #62 by Risi Competizione (Pier Guidi/Calado/Serra/Rigon).
#27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3: Roman De Angelis, Marco Sorensen, Ian James, Darren Turner
Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images
In the GTD Class, the novelties are the Aston Martin #27 of Heart Of Racing (DeAngelis/Sorensen/James/Turner) and the Mercedes #57 of Winward Racing (Morad/Ellis/Dontje/Ward) take the lead, with Aston Martin third Magnus Racing’s #44 (Lally/Potter/Pumpelly/Thiim) passed Team Korthoff Motorsports’ #32 Mercedes-AMG (Grenier/Skeen/Koch/Goetz) until recently as leader.
The Acura NSX #93 of Racers Edge Motorsports (Harrison/Formal/Marcelli/Briscoe) gains the fifth place overtaking the McLaren #70 of Inception Racing (Millroy/Iribe/Schandorff/Kirchhofer), seventh is the Lexus #12 of Vasser Sullivan (Telitz/Montecalvo/Kirkwood/Thompson) always followed by the Acura #66 of Gradient Racing (Miller/Farnbacher/Legge/Monk).
The Top10 is completed by the BMW #1 of Paul Miller Racing (Sellers/Snow/Lewis/Martin) and the Ferrari #21 of AF Corse (Mann/Molina/Pérez Companc/Castellacci) despite the fact that the 296 has served the aforementioned penalty and also had a off-piste previously.
Behind are the US Racetronics Lamborghini #78 (Mapelli/Hites/Spinelli/Goikhberg), the Wright Motorsports Porsche #16 (Hardwick/Heylen/Robichon/Olsen), the Iron Lynx Lamborghini #19 (Schiavoni/Giammaria/Perera /Ineichen) and the Ferrari #023 of Triarsi Competizione (Rovera/Triarsi/Bertolini/Scardina).
The Ferrari #47 of Cetilar Racing-AF Corse (Lacorte/Fuoco/Sernagiotto/Balzan) was off the start, while the Mercedes #75 of Sun Energy 1 (Schiller/Stolz/Jefferies/Habul) was added to the retire list due to breakage of the radiator, the Lamborghini #42 of NTE Sport (Megennis/Conwright/Li/Deledda) and the Porsche #92 of Kellymoss-Riley (Brule/Udell/Davis/Bleekemolen).
IMSA – 24h di Daytona: Live Timing
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