Rolex 24: Hour 10

A brake change for the #5 Cadillac.  The #33 Mercedes is pitting as well.  One of the reasons we are seeing fewer yellows is due to the elimination of the Prototype Challenge class, with mostly amateur drivers that were more prone to making mistakes.  Pit stop time for Corvette including a driver change and a brake change.  Antonio Garcia gets into the car.  Doing this under green will kill your momentum.  So, Corvette and those chaps caught a jolly lucky break.  Credit has to be given to the crew members turning the wrenches and doing the dirty work to service the cars.  They only do a couple of full on brake pad and caliper changes.  Here at Daytona, and also in the summer at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.  This is not a normal occurrence in sports car racing.  The #75 SunEnergy1 team is also doing a brake pad change.

There were no judgment calls on BoP parameters, but it was the fact that fueling was going faster on the Land Audi.  But, now, it appears the Land Audi team will be able to claw some time back.  This was not sandbagging like the Roar test.  So, the boom wasn't lowered as hard as it could have been.  Now, there was a slight incident for Felipe Nasr in the #31 Cadillac.  Nasr speeds up, and he clipped the #48 Lamborghini, and Nasr slid onto the grass on the road course.  Ryan Dalziel is low on the track and he is coming to pit lane.  Wr are back to green flag racing, with Penske running 1-2. Ricky Taylor has laid down the fastest lap in the #6 at 1:37.758.  The track will be pretty dirty off line.  Fernando Alonso is sixth in the overall. 

Alonso is used to having a visual on the steering wheel of a race car, but there are a couple of screens inside the Ligier.  Formula 1 is very technical, monitoring the hybrid systems.  The sports car can be enjoyed for driving purposes.  Trouble for the #58 Wright Motorsports Porsche again.  But the car stays on the road.  Christina Nielsen at then wheel of it, caboose on the field in 50th place.  Felipe Nasr actually has the fastest lap at 1:37.475.  Should have checked.  Yours truly does have timing and scoring in front of me, on an iPad.  Katherine Legge is running very well in the #86 Acura NSX GT3, leading in GT Daytona.

We'll keep following this race through the night.  We'll see you in the morning for more.  For the teams and drivers there will be no rest.  Good night.  We'll see you in the morning.