Daniel Serra, James Calado, Davide Rigon, and Alessandro Pier Guidi have taken the GTD Pro victory in the 24 Hours of Daytona, driving the #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3.
Serra started the car fifth in class, behind the pole sitter Michael Christensen in the #77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3.R, #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3’s Ben Barnicoat, Antonio Garcia onboard the #3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Corvette Z06 GT3.R and Andrea Caldarelli, driving the #19 Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2.
Risi kept their distance in the opening hours, not threatening the top spots. However, as the race went on, the Ferrari’s pace became apparent. Serra moved the car into second in class in the seventh hour, behind Mike Rockenfeller ijn the #64 Ford Mustang GT3 and ahead of Dirk Mueller in the sister #65 Ford.
There they remained for the next few hours, staying out of trouble, keeping on the class’s lead lap, and remaining in touch with the leaders.
As the race hit the half way mark they took the lead, in front of Garcia’s Corvette teammate Alexander Sims in the #3 Corvette, plus Franck Perera onboard the #19 Iron Lynx Lamborghini.
Late in the race in the 22nd hour, the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3, one of the consistent class frontrunners, had issues in the pits — Sheldon van der Linde took over the car from Bryan Sellers with a full service stop, but had to pit again the following lap as the front right tyre had not been correctly secured to the car. Van der Linde brought it back round, cutting the bus stop chicane.
However, when he came to a stop in the pits, the team’s mechanics could not secure the wheel to the car via the wheel nut, with the nut simply falling off when the gun was released.
Then, even more disastrously, the mechanics could then not remove the gun from the wheel nut, with the gun effectively stuck fast and jammed onto the nut, now ’attached’ to the wheel. It took them a while to release the gun and when van der Linde did return to the track, the front right kept locking, putting them out of contention for the win.
Serra had, meanwhile, built up almost a lap’s lead to Laurin Heinrich’s #77 AO Racing Porsche. However, this got wiped out when the full course caution came out for Parker Thompson’s on-fire Lexus in the pit exit.
When the green came back out, Serra immediately started building the lead back up again, and at the flag the Brazilian had a lead of 34.999 seconds to Heinrich. This saw Heinrich take the second spot on the podium alongside his AO Racing teammates, Sebastien Priaulx and Michael Christensen.
Van der Linde managed to keep the #1 Paul Miller BMW third in class, 2 laps down on Serra and behind the top two GTD finishers, finishing on the podium together with his teammates Bryan Sellers, Madison Snow and Neil Verhagen.
Fourth was Ross Gunn in the #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 EVo, together with teammates Alex Riberas and Mario Farnbacher. Fifth, meanwhile, went to the #3 Corvette of Alexander Sims, Antonio Garcia, and Daniel Juncadella.
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