Sebastien Bourdais leads the Daytona 24 Hours after an hour, with a big crash for Misha Goikhberg in the #78 Forte Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 at the bus stop putting the race under caution mid way through the first hour.
The race briefly restarted back under green with Ricky Taylor, in the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 leading the restart procedure, but a multi-car accident at the bus stop, plus another accident involving Dennis Andersen in the #20 High Class Racing Oreca 07-Gibson at turn 1 at the restart.
Action Express’s Pipo Derani led from pole and retained the lead at the start, in the #10 Cadillac V-Series-R. Felipe Nasr briefly took second, onboard the #6 Porsche 963, but this was soon wrestled back by Sebastien Bourdais, driving the #01 Cadillac V-Series.R.
Derani and Bourdais began to pull out a gap, but this was curtailed when Goikhberg crashed. Taylor then took the lead in the pitstops, with Wayne Taylor Racing short fueling the car in order to take the lead, with Bourdais second and Nasr third. Polesitter Derani sits fourth, with the race under yellow to clean up the debris from the earlier incident.
When the race went green again, Bourdais took the lead of Taylor with a very good move at turn 1, demoting the Acura to second. Nasr and Derani have also overtaken Taylor since the restart, with Taylor now sitting fourth, in front of #6 Porsche’s Nick Tandy.
The second yellow began at the bus stop, the #11 TDS Racing Oreca 07 of Steven Thomas attempted a move on Andersen, and so the pair had contact and spun together. Joining the duo was Era Motorsport driver Dwight Merriman.
Shortly after, #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3’s Mike Conway, having got into the car, was innocently hit by Anderson who got slightly got onto the grass at Turn 2, and spun whilst in front of the #14.
As a result, Andersen put Conway into the left concrete wall which inflicted further damage to Conway’s Lexus, who was an innocent bystander within the incident. Conway has since been released from the infield care center, as as Goikhberg from his earlier incident.
In LMP2, George Kurtz leads in the #04 Crowdstrike by APR Oreca 07-Gibson, with Nico Pino second in the #2 United Autosports Oreca 07-Gibson and Pietro Fittipaldi third, onboard the #52 Inter Europol Oreca 07-Gibson.
Ben Keating, in a very un-Keating-like fashion, lost places at the start, dropping down to fourth before the yellow. Nick Boulle took the lead in the #52 Inter Europol, but the order was changed on its head as virtually the entire field pitted under yellow.
In GTD, Aaron Telitz leads in the GTD-entered #12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3. Andrea Caldarelli is second in the GTD Pro #19 Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, with Oliver Jarvis second in that class in the #9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3.R. Antonio Garcia sits third in the #3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Z06 GT3.R.
Second in GTD, behind the top 3 GTD Pro cars, is Manny Franco #34 Conquest Racing Ferrari 296 GT3. Third in class is Adam Christodoulou, driving the #80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3.
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