Multiple class sports car racing is a high speed chess game, as has been stated before. Castroneves is pushing at the moment. He passes Curran, and Curran decides not to fight it and let Castroneves by. In GT Le Mans, Dirk Mueller and Jan Magnussen are 1.6 seconds apart. Ben Keating leads Christopher Mies in GT Daytona. Ryan Briscoe is being hounded by Oliver Gavin. Meanwhile, Joey Hand has been passed by Chris Miller in the #99 JDC-Miller "Red Dragon". The Gainsco sponsored car. Meanwhile, Eric Curran is in pit lane. Fuel, tires, and a driver changes. Gabby Chaves was supposed to get into the car, but there was a late change. Now, Felipe Nasr will be at the wheel of it. AXR was using soap and water on the windscreen to clean it. The #5 Cadillac also pits, and so, Filipe Albuquerque is now at the wheel of it. Joey Hand is also in the lane in the #66. Pardon, Dirk Mueller.
Problems for the #73 Park Place Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 shared by Spencer Pumpelly, Tim Pappas, and Wolf Henzler. Colin Braun runs fourth overall as pit stops have begun in the Prototype class. Jordan Taylor says tire management is the key, trying to get to the end. The #10 Cadillac is running sixth in the overall, currently. Corey Lewis leads GT Daytona in the #48 Lamborghini. Pit stop time for the #15 Lexus and Jack Hawksworth gets into the car, taking over from David Heinemeier Hanson. Pit stop time for Jan Magnussen, coming in from the GTLM lead. The driver change has taken place. Marcel Fassler is now into the car. Tommy Milner takes over the sister #4 car.
Corvette will only get better as this motor race continues. The #67 Ford GT is in the lane as well. Ryan Briscoe stays in the car. Briscoe was off the road and over the curbs there, briefly. A few cars have gone off the road, as the #38 car went off, and the #5 Cadillac got off the road in turn one. Filipe Albuquerque was a lucky boy, to not have gone off the road any further. He tagged the back of the #7 Penske Acura. Yikes! Helio Castroneves had a huge slide there as well! Felipe Nasr leads the race, with Helio Castroneves and Lucas di Grassi giving chase. Some of these guys have F1 starts, LMP1 starts, and Formula E championships, specifically, Di Grassi. Marino Franchitti is closing on Ryan Hunter-Reay.
Hunter-Reay is defending. Marino Franchitti has been test driving for Singer, who builds custom Porsche's. He has not run since the 12 Hours of Sebring back in March. The DPi/LMP2 cars suit Franchitti's driving style. Ryan Hunter-Reay is just barely hanging on in front of Franchitti. Riding on board with the Mazda, shows how demanding Road Atlanta is, aboard a Prototype, or even a GT Le Mans car. There was some argy bargy between the Ford GT and the Mazda, earlier. It was a substantial hit.
Dirk Mueller and Ford continue to lead GTLM. Ford GT's run 1-2, and Marcel Fassler, he has run fastest lap at 1:18.6. He is a plug in and play kind of driver, driving both Corvette's this weekend. Bryan Sellers in GTD, has his hands full with Sheldon van der Linde. The underpinnings of the Audi R8 and the Lamborghini Huracan are similar. The V10s, 5.2 liter displacement, really echo around the circuit. A battle ensues too, between BMW and Corvette. If the car is braking well, you are in good shape, but you want to use as little space as possible. Don't go too wide into a corner or off the exit. Tommy Milner is going for it, but Jesse Krohn is keeping him at bay.
There is more banking than you can see on TV, in turn six on the Road Atlanta course. The #31 Cadillac Dpi-V.R pits with no drama. The diving turn used to be diabolical. There was a bridge abutment there, and the fast line was having the right front tire on the curb. The track has changed, to open up the space there, and it make it a lot safer. The leading #7 Acura has made its pit stop for fuel, tires, and a driver change. Helio Castroneves, out, and Graham Rahal, into the car. Rahal is a tall driver, and its hard to get him into the car, but he'll put the welly down.
The Mazda just had a tank slapper. J.C. Perez in the #71 P1 Motorsports Mercedes ran off the road. Now, the #77 Mazda is in the lane as is Pipo Derani. Marino Franchitti now leads. The #71 Mercedes is J.C. Perez, Felipe Fraga, and Maximilian Buhk. Marino Franchitti pits the Mazda for tires and fuel. There is debris on the road, and there is discussion of a Full Course Yellow. The dive plane flew off the #99 car. The #5, wham, hits the piece of debris and clears it out of the way. Tire trouble for the #58 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R. Patrick Long is at the wheel of it, heading for pit lane. Long, sharing with Christina Nielsen and Robert Renauer.
Long does a sterling job to pit the car without putting more damage on the car with the deflated tire. Take extra time to check there is no damage to brake systems or the suspension on the car. There's still six hours left to run.
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