Felipe Nasr continues to lead at Daytona for Porsche, with under 2 hours to go in the 24 American endurance classic.
However, Cadillac’s Tom Blomqvist, in the #31 Action Express Cadillac V-Series.R, is slowly catching the Kiwi, with the 10 second gap very gradually coming down, to just over 8. Blomqvist, a winner of this event the past two years running, is gunning for a third consecutive win, in his attempt to make it three out of three at Daytona.
Nasr’s teammate Matt Cambpell extended a gap of 10 seconds out over the Cadillac, but Blomqvist was able to shave a couple of seconds off this gap. A slightly faster pitstop for Action Express also shaved a second or so off, leaving the gap at just over 7 seconds, with this toing and froing according to traffic.
Louis Deletraz is third, in the #40 Acura ARX-06, around 30 seconds off the lead.
Gianmaria Bruni is fourth, over a minute behind Campbell, with the Italian driving the #5 Proton Competition Porsche 963. The other customer Porsche is fifth, the #85 JDC-Miller Porsche 963, with GTP newcomer Phil Hanson at the wheel.
Kevin Estre, who was lying third in the sister factory #6 Porsche 963, exited the pits midway through the 21st hour, immediately locking up on his new cold tyres. The Frenchman slid off onto the grass, and had to reverse back to get return safely to the track, losing him a good 30 seconds or more in the process. He dropped way back and the car now lies sixth in the hands of Nick Tandy.
The BMWs have been beset by multiple issues and lie seventh and eighth, Jesse Krohn in the #24 BMW M Hybrid V8 leading teammate Conor de Phillippi onboard the sister #25 BMW.
In LMP2, 17-year-old Connor Zilisch leads for Era Motorsport, in the #18 Oreca 07-Gibson. He has almost eight seconds on last year’s overall winner Colin Braun, in the #04 Crowdstrike by APR Oreca, while Pietro Fittipaldi is third in the #52 Inter Europol Oreca, a further 32 seconds off the lead.
Alessandro Pier Guidi leads GTD Pro, onboard the #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3. The Italian’s nearest competitor was, until very recently as of writing, Bryan Sellers in the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 Gt3, while Porsche’s Michael Christensen, in the #77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3.R.
However, Sellers has just pitted the BMW and handed the car over to BMW factory driver Sheldon van der Linde, slipping to third behind Christensen as a result, although Christensen is also due to a stop sooner rather than later.
The car has then been beset by further issues, with the wheel not secured correctly to the hub at the stop, the South African had to re-pit for the issue to be addressed, losing them valuable time to AO Racing and Risi Competizione. It then left the pits and immediately went onto the grass, losing even more time. However, van der Linde continued at the end of the lap, technically still third but below the GTD frontrunners.
GTD is lead by Philip Ellis in the #57 Winward Racing Mercedes AMG GT3. Second is Aaron Telitz in the #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3, with Kei Cozzolino third in the #21 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3.
