Tristan Vautier stayed in it at the start when he ran into the Nissan DPi. The #90 Cadillac didn't get much damage. But the Nissan had a gearbox issue. The #90 Vector Blue Cadillac has a little St. Patrick's Day green on it. Now, the #54 CORE Autosport Oreca is in the lane to change a door that was damaged. The doors are so lightweight, they floex a little bit. The windscreens are already really full of grit, sand, and other things. Nicky Catsburg runs wide as Eric Curran is now leading this race over Graham Rahal in the #7 Acura. James Calado continues to lead GT Le Mans in the Ferrari, this time over Laurens Vanthoor in the #912 Porsche. Sheldon van der Linde in the #29 Land Motorsports Audi is still leading GT Daytona.
Toni Vilander, actually might be driving the #62 Ferrari 488 GTE. They want to get the handling right on that car. Gianmaria Bruni is driving the #912 Porsche at this moment. It isn't Laurens Vanthoor. Eric Curran in the #31 Cadillac leads overall at this moment. Someone ran wide in turn one and kicked up dust. All that dust gets into the engine, and the filters. Not good. Toni Vilander leads in GT Le Mans in the Ferrari. Different temperatures and different surfaces. Constant duty cycles for the different parts of the car, and also, for the drivers. Sebring is the ultimate seven post shaker rig with the driver strapped into the seat.
There are bumps, plus a big crown in the middle of the road. Gianmaria Bruni and Fred Makowiecki are running very well for Porsche. Meanwhile, C.J. Wilson and the #36 team running their Acura NSX GT3, are doing very well. Kuno Wittmer, Marc Miller, and Till Bechtolsheimer share the car. For C.J. Wilson, who used to be a baseball player, he is now in motorsports. He is also driving in the Porsche GT3 Cup here in IMSA. Sheldon van der Linde holds a 12 second advantage over the #48 Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini, with Corey Lewis still driving. There is a scrap afoot between the Matt McMurry driven #90 Cadillac, and the #7 Acura ARX-05 DPi of Ricky Taylor.
Corey Lewis continues to give the #48 Lamborghini a very good run. Lamborghini Motorsport boss Giorgio Sanna is still very proud of their successful win at the Rolex 24 two months ago. Ooh. The skid plate hits the deck on the bottom of the car, into turn one. You move a half a foot and hit a bump at this place, not even knowing it. Corey Lewis leads GT Daytona at this stage. Eric Curran leads Prototype and in GT Le Mans, it is a 1-2 for Porsche.
Scuderia Corsa has their championship winning Ferrari immortalized as a LEGO set. Meanwhile it could be game over for the #3 Corvette C-7-R-. They've won this race before in GT Le Mans, but not today. The #22 ESM Nissan has been leading, with Johannes van Overbeek, and now, that car pits and will have a driver change. Ditto for the #90 Cadillac of Matt McMurry. They needed to pit before their fuel tank ran dry. Jordan Taylor in the #10 Cadillac has taken over the overall lead briefly, with the two Mazda RT24P's in second and third in the overall. Jordan Taylor comes to pit lane for scheduled service, and will stay in the car.
Ryan Hunter-Reay is again, the third driver. Now, the car was pushing water out the vents for the radiators. Let's hope that this shorter stroke 5.5 liter V8 does not overheat. They had to go to the garage area abd Taylor touches the #36 Acura into the corner! Oh, wait. It was the #44 Magnus Racing Audi R8. Ooh! Harry scary there. Look out for body damage. nTaylor was really squirming around. There are three different medium compound tires Michelin are using for the GT Le Mans cars. 80 laps, 300 miles, now done and dusted. Mazda, BMW, and Audi, are your respective class leading manufacturers.
We're coming to the last quarter or so of the race's third hour. It looks like the #44 Audi R8 was the car that swept into the side of the Cadillac. Everyone seems to be ratcheting up their performance. No action taken by Race Control. It's a shared responsibility incident. There was also an incident with the aforementioned #36 Acura and the #52 Ligier of PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports with Gustavo Yacaman at the wheel of it. Yacaman is team mate with fellow Colombian Sebastian Saavedra who was mentioned earlier, and Mexico's Roberto Gonzalez.
Meanwhile, Jan Magnussen has brought the #3 Corvette C-7-R- back on track. They had an alternator issue which is now fixed. The hours are flying by. The third hour will be done and dusted in eight minutes or so. Corvette has won at Sebring now, 11 times. The bar gets raised every year. The same was true with Audi in the LMP1 days so many years ago. Pit stop time for the #86 Acura NSX GT3. Katherine Legge, sharing with Alvaro Parente, and Trent Hindman. Hindman is at the controls, chasing the Honda America Racing Team Acura NSX GT3.
The CJ Wilson Acura had more contact, in the pit lane. That was an unsafe release, and damage for the #36 with either Kuno Wittmer, or one of the other drivers at the controls. Back to the HART entry, that one is shared by Chad Gilsinger, Ryan Eversley, and Tom Dyer. Three of those "Sneaky Silver" drivers.
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