Marco Wittmann led the Rolex 24 at Daytona in the #25 BMW after 20 hours, as dawn broke through the lingering fog that halted the night running.
On the ground in Daytona
With the sun rising, racing was naturally able to continue after the longest-ever Daytona 24 stoppage overnight, but the fog continued to linger, reminiscent of fog in old-time London in a cliched Jack the Ripper story.
The back stretch of the circuit bore the brunt of the thickest fog, as the #7 Porsche Penske of Laurin Heinrich pitted from the lead.
Kevin Magnussen in the #25 BMW soon followed soon, as did Colin Braun in the #60 Acura Meyer Shank, followed by the Taylor brothers – Ricky in the #10 Cadillac Wayne Taylor, Jordan in the sister #40. Jordan emerged ahead.
With the pits all shaken out, Matt Campbell in the #6 Porsche led, with Felipe Nasr second in the #7, but the former car would start suffering from a misbehaving windscreen wiper. Campbell would hand over to Kevin Estre, leaving Marc Wittmann to take over the lead in the #25 BMW.
Jordan Taylor took second, with Will Stevens occupying third place in the #10 Cadillac, but both Porsches swiftly dispatched him, dropping the Englishman to fifth.
Inter Europol looking strong in Daytona LMP2 order
The sunrise stint saw Inter Europol in dreamland, with Nick Cassidy taking the lead in the #343 car, with Tom Dillman in the mix in the #43.
Antonio Felix da Costa took over the wheel of the latter, and, after a night shift of keeping the car on the road amid the nail-growingly-long Full Course Yellow period, wasted no time in getting racey. He took the #99 AO Racing Oreca of Dane Cameron for third, and then took second place when Sebastien Bourdais pitted in the #8 Tower Motorsports, making it an Inter Europol 1-2.
The Portuguese narrowed the gap to Cassidy to under four seconds, before Cassidy pitted, handing over the reins to Nolan Siegel. The American would rejoin in third, with da Costa leading from Cameron.
The Era Motorsport #18 of Logan Sargeant was punted by the #8, no driven by Kyffin Simpson. Sargeant struggled to get the car going again, having had a struggle with a start motor for most of the race. It brought out a brief Full Course Yellow.
In GTD Pro, there was a rare Corvette failure as the #3 of Antonio Garcia crawled back to the pits with a complete right rear suspension. The car re-emerged on track again after 46 minutes.
Harry King was desperate to retain the lead in the #77 Rexy Aston Martin. Ayhancan Guven was on a mission, moving his #911 Manthey Porsche up the field from fourth, and promptly overtook #1 Paul Miller BMW of Max Hesse and Mike Rockenfeller in the #64 Ford Racing.
But a jump start from the FCY proved to be King’s undoing, and was sent to the pits to serve a 60 second penalty, dropping him to 11th. The #4 Corbette of Tommy Milner took the lead, from Guven and Hesse, with Fabian Schiller fourth in the #69 GetSpeed Mercedes car.
Read the previous reports from Daytona here!
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