We are approaching the end of the 24h of Daytona, the first round of the 2023 IMSA SportsCar Championship which also saw the 20th hour go to the archive.
In Florida the sky is cloudy, but the forecast says it shouldn’t rain until the checkered flag, towards which the Chip Ganassi Racing #01 Cadillac driven by Bourdais/Van Der Zande/Dixon is trying to start, still first in the Class GTP and followed by the Acura #60 driven by Meyer Shank Racing-Curb Agajanian (Blomqvist/Braun/Castroneves/Pagenaud) on which the rear was again topped up with fluid in the last stop.
The V-LMDh #02 of Bamber/Lynn/Westbrook remains third and further behind, which shouldn’t suffer too much given the wide margin it has over the Acura #10 of Wayne Taylor Racing (Taylor/Albuquerque/Delétraz/Hartley ), to maintain fourth place with the #6 Porsche of Team Penske (Jaminet/Tandy/Cameron) behind.
The BMW #24 of Team RLL in the hands of Farfus/Wittmann/Eng/Herta is still in the Top5, sixth and the Cadillac #31 of Action Express Racing (Derani/Sims/Aitken) is still sixth and far away, while it had to return to the pits for a engine problem the #7 Porsche of Christensen/Nasr/Campbell, collapsed again in the standings. Bringing up the rear is always the BMW #25 of De Phillippi/Yelloly/Van Der Linde/Herta.
#04 Crowdstrike Racing by APR ORECA LMP2 07: George Kurtz, Ben Hanley, Matt McMurry, Esteban Gutierrez
Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images
Always a three-way fight in Class LMP2 where the Oreca #04 of Crowdstrike Racing by APR (Kurtz/Hanley/McMurry/Gutiérrez) remains first with the #35 of TDS Racing (Heriau/Van Der Garde/Van Uitert/Pierson) behind by a few seconds ) and the #88 of AF Corse (Perrodo/Nielsen/Vaxivière/Canal).
The #52 of PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports (Keating/Quinn/Chatin/Lapierre) maintains fourth place, while the #55 of Proton Competition (Bruni/Pizzi/Allen/Poordad) took fifth place by overtaking the #51 of Rick Ware Racing (Lux/DeFrancesco/Fittipaldi/Cindric).
The following positions remain unchanged, as the #8 Tower Motorsports (Farano/McLaughlin/Simpson/Newgarden) is still seventh and the #20 High Class Racing (Marciello/Andersen/Jones/Fjordbach) eighth.
The engine problems of the #18 Era Motorsport (Rasmussen/Dalziel/Jarvis/Merriman) have not been resolved, so the car joins the retirement list together with the #11 TDS Racing (Thomas/Veekay/Huffaker/ Jensen).
#17 AWA Duqueine D08: Wayne Boyd, Nico Varrone, Thomas Merrill, Anthony Mantella
Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images
Twist in the LMP3 Class: the Ligier #33 of Sean Creech Motorsport (Barbosa/Pino/Siegel/Willsey) suffered a technical problem and returned to the pits leaving the lead to the Duqueine #17 of AWA (Mantella/Boyd/Varrone/ Merrill).
On the podium was the Ligier #38 of Performance Tech Motorsports (DeAngelis/Allen/Bloum/Shields), since the Duqueine #87 of FastMD Racing (Kanamaru/Serravalle/Boulle/Vance) had to stop due to mechanical problems.
This allows the Duqueine #13 of AWA (Fidani/Bell/Kranz/Kern) and #85 of JDC Miller Motorsports (Bechtolsheimer/Van Der Helm/Mars/Filippi) to gain the Top5 category.
Already known the KOs of the Ligier #74 by Riley (Robinson/Fraga/Burdon/Van Berlo), #43 by MRS GT-Racing (Alvarez/French/De Oliveira/Frost) and #36 by Andretti Autosport (Andretti/Chaves/Dickerson /Lindh).
#3 Corvette Racing Corvette C8.R GTD: Antonio Garcia, Jordan Taylor, Tommy Milner
Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images
In GTD PRO the Corvette #3 (Garcia/Taylor/Milner) takes the lead, placing behind the Mercedes #79 of WeatherTech Racing-Proton (Juncadella/Gounon/Engel/MacNeil) for about ten seconds.
The #14 Lexus of Vasser Sullivan (Hawksworth/Barnicoat/Conway) is still in third position, followed by the #63 Lamborghini of Iron Lynx (Caldarelli/Bortolotti/Grosjean/Pepper) and the #9 Porsche of Pfaff Motorsports (Pilet/Vanthoor/Bachler ) divided by one round.
The BMW #95 of Turner Motorsport (Spengler/Auberlen/Hull/Edwards) continues sixth, seventh we have the Porsche #53 of MDK Motorsports (Kvamme/Estep/Magnussen/Hart), with the Aston Martin #64 of TGM-TF Sport ( Giovanis/H.Plumb/M.Plumb/Trinkler) and #23 of Heart Of Racing (Pittard/Gunn/Riberas) at the back of the group.
The race, on the other hand, lost the Ferrari #62 of Risi Competizione (Pier Guidi/Calado/Serra/Rigon) a few hours ago due to a failure on the floor due to a contact.
#57 Winward Racing Mercedes AMG GT3: Russell Ward, Philip Ellis, Lucas Auer, Indy Dontje
Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images
In the GTD Class, the Mercedes #57 of Winward Racing (Morad/Ellis/Dontje/Ward) leads the Aston Martin #27 of Heart Of Racing (De Angelis/Sorensen/James/Turner), with the Vantage #44 of Magnus Racing (Lally/Potter/Pumpelly/Thiim) rather comfortably third.
Quiet places in the Top5 for the Acura NSX #93 of Racers Edge Motorsports (Harrison/Formal/Marcelli/Briscoe) and the McLaren #70 of Inception Racing (Millroy/Iribe/Schandorff/Kirchhofer), always followed by the Lexus #12 of Vasser Sullivan (Telitz/Montecalvo/Kirkwood/Thompson).
Gradient Racing’s #66 Acura (Miller/Farnbacher/Legge/Monk), Paul Miller Racing’s #1 BMW (Sellers/Snow/Lewis/Martin) and US Racetronics’ #78 Lamborghini (Mapelli/Hites/Spinelli/Goikhberg ) are holding onto the Top10, where the #16 Wright Motorsports Porsche (Hardwick/Heylen/Robichon/Olsen) entered.
A long pit stop caused the Ferrari #21 of AF Corse (Mann/Molina/Pérez Companc/Castellacci) to lose ground, which went down to 14th, giving way to the Lamborghini #19 of Iron Lynx (Schiavoni/Giammaria/Perera/Ineichen), Porsche # 77 by Wright Motorsport (Estre/Hindman/Root/Brynjolfsson) and Ferrari #023 by Triarsi Competizione (Rovera/Triarsi/Bertolini/Scardina).
The #32 Mercedes-AMG of Team Korthoff Motorsports (Grenier/Skeen/Koch/Goetz) is back in action after the problems. It was the protagonist of a couple of outings and is currently 15th.
Out of the Ferrari #47 of Cetilar Racing-AF Corse (Lacorte/Fuoco/Sernagiotto/Balzan), the Mercedes #75 of Sun Energy 1 (Schiller/Stolz/Jefferies/Habul) due to a broken radiator, the Lamborghini #42 of NTE Sport (Megennis/Conwright/Li/Deledda) due to oil pan failure and the #92 Porsche of Kellymoss-Riley (Brule/Udell/Davis/Bleekemolen).
IMSA – 24h di Daytona: Live Timing
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