We're at half past 9PM now. Sebastien Bourdais will do a double stint. Maybe it could be a triple, because Joey Hand and Dirk Mueller have both done triple stints. More issues for the #46 Ebimotors Lamborghini. It is stopped in the infield grass. Francois Perrodo is at the controls presently. The #31 Cadillac has cut the pit lane entry and gone into the garage. Francois Perrodo is using the grass to get back on the road, when maybe it would be wiser for him to use the apron. He is on the apron now, making his way to pit lane. The tires on the #31 Cadillac are being changed. Lots of action as we enter hour eight. Francois Perrodo does rejoin the race.
The #31 Cadillac can't restart the engine. They will lose laps and maybe stay behind the wall for a bit. The front right corner is being worked on. Mike Conway was driving at the time. Filipe Albuquerque leads Jordan Taylor, Bruno Senna, and Marc Goossens. Then comes Pippo Derani. Toni Vilander leads Scott Dixon, and the Porsche's in GTLM. The #38 car leads Prototype Challenge. Audi's run 1-2 in GTD. The #61 Lamborghini Huracan runs wide at the first horseshoe. Connor De Philippi leads GT Daytona in the #29 Audi over the #57 Stevenson Audi in the hands of Robin Liddell.
De Philippi leads Liddell by nearly half a minute. He is running in the 1:58.5 range. Connor De Philippi was a Porsche junior driver who was then picked up by Audi. He won races in Germany in the ADAC and the VLN championship. Car #31 will return to the race. The right front toe link was broken. It is a close race between the #5 and #10 Cadillac DPi-V-R's. The identical Cadillac is now back in the race. You can make up laps if the caution flags fall your way. #31 is six laps back. The Nissan and the Multimatic Riley are three seconds slower than are the Cadillac's. The Cadillac's are running in the 1:49 range while all the Nissan's and the Riley can muster, are 1:52-1:53 lap times.
The #67 Ford GT pitted. Scott Dixon handed the car to Richard Westbrook. Ferrari still leads GTLM. The two Porsche's just swapped. Kevin Estre leads Patrick Pilet, with Mike Rockenfeller and Augusto Farfus behind, the Corvette #3, and the #24 BMW M6 GT. Sebastien Bourdais is up to sixth, and Richard Westbrook is eighth in class. Sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth, in GTLM, for the Ford's. #38 continues to lead Prototype Challenge ahead of the #20 and #26 cars. Grip at a premium as Jordan Taylor works his way out of the Bus Stop.
222 laps completed. Just short of 800 miles. 790.3 miles, to be exact. The two Starworks PC cars are out. #38 leads Prototype Challenge, in 18th overall. They are leading by a couple laps over car #20, the BAR1 car of Chapman Ducote. Johnny Mowlem is third in the sister BAR1 car #26. Stephane Sarrazin has the #13 Rebellion Oreca Gibson back up to 19th in the overall, and that car is pitting as we speak. Behind the Rebellion car is the #81 Dragonspeed racer, with Nicolas Lapierre continuing to drive. Pit stop time for Filipe Albuquerque.
The #10 Konica Minolta Cadillac stays out an extra lap. The yellow flags have not fallen the way of the #10 car. Whenever a yellow flies, the leader's advantage disappears. A Prototype Challenge car spins in turn one. The #5 Cadillac is trying to find traction. One of the Starworks cars has spun. WTR Cadillac, in the lane. Box, box, box. It is pouring with rain. Jordan Taylor, out. Jeff Gordon, in. He is having his first experience on rain tires, the four-time NASCAR champion. He will be pursued by Filipe Albuquerque. He'll have to get used to how much grip is on the road. Heavy rain continues to fall, as rain in the banking, it sorts out the men from the boys here.
Filipe Albuquerque is going to give Jeff Gordon all he can handle, though. He's right behind him. Gordon allows the #5 by. Albuquerque is into the second part of a double stint. Bruno Senna pits the #22 ESM Nissan. The #57 Stevenson Audi R8 is slow on the apron it appears. The Audi is moving again. Robin Liddell at the wheel of it. He straight lines the chicane. #57 has a flat right rear tire. It could be broken suspension, as well. Another right rear tire puncture. The right side of the car bears the load on the banking and around the entire 3.56 mile combined tri oval and infield road course. #57 rejoins the race. Hard work for the folks at Continental Tire.
#31, the second Action Express Cadillac makes another stop, as the #11 Grasser Lamborghini pits, with Christian Engelhart driving. This is an unscheduled pit stop for #31. Four tires and fuel. They had put slicks on the car. A piece of carbon fiber fell off the car in the lane. The team thought they had a wheel bearing failure. The #81 car has spun. The fireworks light up the night sky over Daytona International Speedway despite all the rain. Robin Liddell says the reason Daytona is such a hard track to get a hold of is because of high loads on the tires on the banking which drains the water well, and then, the flat infield road course, remains wet constantly. This makes tire choice very hard.
Give Jeff Gordon some confidence and he can run in the rain, which he did at the January test, too. This race is coming alive again. Filipe Albuquerque is running in the 1:51.2 range, while Bruno Senna has done a 1:51.8. Jeff Gordon is in the 1:54 bracket. Lots of cars running deep to find grip in the International Horseshoe. The #88 Starworks Prototype Challenge entry is back on track, having fueled up. Connor Daly at the controls. He shares with other drivers we've mention such as James Dayson, Alex Popow, Sean Rayhall, and Scott Mayer. Starworks actually had both of their cars back out on track.
Pit stop for the third place GT Daytona runner, the #33 Mercedes. Colin Braun leads the class now in the #54 CORE Autosport Porsche 911 in GT Daytona. Mark Wilkins has the #93 Acura NSX second in class. Connor De Philippi is next in line in the #29 Audi R8, cycling back up the order. Ben Keating has taken over the #33 Mercedes AMG GT3. Justin Marks is next in the #97 Turner Motorsports BMW M6 GT3 followed by Jack Hawksworth in the sole remaining #15 Lexus RC F GT3. Then comes Christina Nielsen in the #63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari.
Toni Vilander pits the #62 Ferrari, and Patrick Pilet also pits the Porsche. Mike Rockenfeller in the #3 Corvette inherits the GTLM lead. Vilander and Rockenfeller have indeed made their stops. The Ford guys have different strategies compared to Corvette and Ferrari. Corvette #3 is in the pit box. Serviced and sent. The teams make a decision that a driver is waved around if they are ahead of the class leader. One of the Ford GT's pits. The #68 car. When the rain came, the Ford's have struggled. Ferrari and Porsche working well in the rain. The Ford is very aerodynamic, and is dependent on speed. The Ferrari is in third in class. Richard Westbrook has pitted as well.
Check that. He's halfway through his stint while Sebastien Bourdais is 2/3rds of the way through his. The #11 Grasser Lamborghini is in the wars, again. It spins almost entirely through the infield, skipping the road course entirely, spinning down from the entrance of turn one, nearly to the exit of turn six where the road course rejoins the banking. Ezequiel Perez-Companc, at the wheel of it. E.P. Companc, the young Argentinian, is the son of Louis Perez-Companc, an accomplished sports car driver in his own right. No tire problems. E.P. Companc maybe just gave it too much welly into the turn and spun the car.
The #18 DAC Motorsports Lamborghini Huracan GT3 is also still running, with Canadian Emmanuel Annasis at the wheel. Richard Westbrook and Sebastien Bourdais battle for the GTLM lead. Ezequiel Perez-Companc is the nephew, not the son, of Luis Perez-Companc. That is very similar to the Senna family. Bruno Senna is the nephew of the late, great Formula 1 World Champion, Ayrton Senna. The rest of GTLM sees Toni Vilander in the #62 Ferrari, Augusto Farfus in the #19 BMW, Mike Rockenfeller in the #3 Corvette, and then, there's a split actually, between the two factory Porsche's. Porsche is sixth and eighth in class in GTLM. Jeff Gordon is struggling in the wet, and he's losing time to Filipe Albuquerque.
Jeff Gordon is losing 2-3 seconds a lap. He's not as consistent as Filipe Albuquerque. Gordon ran a 1:50 flat. Albuquerque is running in the 1:48 range. Albuquerque completes 239 laps. 239 laps, 850 miles. Dominik Farnbacher replaces Jack Hawksworth in the #15 Lexus RC F GT3, the sole remaining Lexus in the race. The #15 Lexus led in class briefly a while ago. Connor De Philippi has regained the class lead in the #29 Audi over the #54 Porsche of Colin Braun. Graham Rahal is now driving the #93 Acura NSX. Ben Keating is at the wheel of the #33 Mercedes, and Ryan Hunter-Reay, Indy 500 champion, is now in the sister #86 Acura. Justin Marks in the #96 BMW comes next, and the #28 Alegra Motorsports Porsche in the hands of Daniel Morad.
Spin for the #16 Lamborghini. Not sure who is driving. Stay on the lead lap. Don't take risks. Manage the car. That's what you do at this time of night. The #5 Cadillac pitted for a shredded tire. The carcass stayed intact, and thankfully, no damage. Filipe Albuquerque is steaming with anger, as Joao Barbosa takes over the car. Albuquerque just did a three hour stint. His stint was seven laps short, which is probably why he was so mad. Jeff Gordon takes the overall lead in the #10 Cadillac. He's keeping things clean. He's aware of conserving everything on the car. This is the survival stage of the race, without a doubt. Albuquerque ran for three hours and 25 minutes in his most recent stint.
More problems. The #90 car is slow out of the International Horseshoe. Marc Goossens at the wheel of it, and the car is in fourth. He's only run for 18 laps since his most recent pit stop. The #5 Cadillac is in the lane, needing fuel, but more importantly, needing to attend to the damaged right sidepod. They are reinstalling the other rear wing assembly they had with broken taillights. They bolt the wing back on, and are cleaning the windshield. The car needs fuel as well. The taillights are working now. No fuel. Joao Barbosa is cleared to get back into the race. Barbosa loses a lap and runs fourth in the overall, as Bruno Senna regains a lap, but Marc Goossens remains a lap down. Goossens has regained speed. Bruno Senna has set a quick lap time of 1:48.5.
It is still raining, but not as hard. Don't throw caution to the wind in these conditions, though. The rain has been intermittent for a good while now. This race is becoming more of a traditional enduro, because of the new cars and the uncertainty of how reliable they are. Be cautious to keep the reliability up all the way through to the end of 24 hours. To man, the drivers will tell you, the keys here at Daytona, are traffic, and time. That's endurance sports car racing for you. The Land Motorsports Audi, heads for pit lane, and we head for another hour, here at the Rolex 24.
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