We're almost there, starting the 14th hour of this motor race, with good, clean weather. We've had quite the race so far. Was there a driver change for one of the cars? Nope. There wasn't a driver change for the BMW, I think, the #24 BMW. Couldn't figure out what was going on there in the darkness. Pit stop time from the lead in GT Daytona for the #44 GRT Magnus Lamborghini, as Andy Lally is staying behind the wheel. Earl Bamber and Fred Makowiecki are the drivers in the factory Porsche's right now. Lars Kern will be into the lane very soon, Nurburgring expert, and main Porsche test driver. Harrison Newey is aboard the #81 DragonSpeed LMP2 Oreca car, back on the lead lap along with the #52 PR1/Mathiasen car with Nick Boulle at the wheel of it. He's done the lion's share of the night driving and will need a rest fairly soon. Ben Keating might just get back into the #52 car. He will have already completed his driving with the #74 Mercedes.
A bit of a botched pit stop for the #18 Era Motorsports LMP2 car as we watch the #12 AIM Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 also in the lane. Era Motorsports is third in the LMP2 class at the moment. There was some damage to the nose of the #12 car, so, did Shane van Gisbergen get involved in some argy bargy on the road someplace? That's what 200 mile per hour tape is for, to repair damage. Blue sector times, personal best time from Mario Farnbacher at the wheel of the #86 MSR Acura NSX GT3. Farnbacher has his hands full with the #16 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R, Klaus Bachler at the wheel of it. Bachler is faster than Farnbacher, and Bill Auberlen is faster than the two of them. All of those cars are on the lead lap in GTD.
Lars Kern stays in the #9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche, replace data stick, change tires, add fuel. That's the idea. The team practiced their pit stops rather than running laps in FP4 on Friday. Kamui Kobayashi leads Joao Barbosa now by 7.3 seconds. Filipe Albuquerque is third. Nick Boulle leads LMP2. Chaz Mostert and BMW lead Earl Bamber and Fred Makowiecki for Porsche, by 7.8 seconds. Dries Vanthoor leads Marco Mapelli and Cooper MacNeil in GT Daytona. Audi followed by Lamborghini and Ferrari. Corey Lewis has taken over from Bryan Sellers in the #48 Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini as well and Mario Farnbacher still has his hands full with both Klaus Bachler and Bill Auberlen.
Scuderia Corsa has Cooper MacNeil at the wheel of the #63 Ferrari. We are keeping an eye on Michelin Endurance Cup points and the #10 is leading. Here's the order.
1. #10 Kobayashi/Briscoe/van der Zande/Dixon 9 points
2. #5 Barbosa/Duval/Bourdais 7 points
Further down the order, we've got a slew of drivers each on six, five, and four points, very much like the dice game. Cadillac will earn a maximum of ten points on the manufacturer's side. In LMP2, PR1 Mathiasen has all the points in their pocket right now.
1. #52 Boulle/Aubry/Keating/Trummer 10 points
They are followed, again, by a slew of drivers who have seven, six, five and four points. BMW #24 has ten points for each driver. In GTLM, it is the #24 BMW who has ten points for each driver. Porsche's are second and third.
1. #24 Edwards/Mostert/Krohn/Farfus
2. #912 Vanthoor/Bamber/Jaminet
3. #911 Campbell/Tandy/Makowiecki
BMW leads in the manufacturer's cup. Lamborghini is 1-2 in GT Daytona insofar as NAEC points with the #48 ahead of the #44
1. #48 Snow/Sellers/Lewis/Caldarelli
2. #44 Potter/Lally/Pumpelly/Mapelli
3. #63 Balzan/MacNeil/Westphal/Vilander
The #10 Cadillac short filled their car at six hours to gain the points for the NAEC. Action Express has been the team to win the Michelin Endurance Cup. In GTD Riley Motorsports has won a bunch of those trophies. Maybe Riley Motorsports is going for the race win. The #31 Action Express Whelen Cadillac is in the lane, for scheduled service. Filipe Albuquerque is out of the car, and stepping in for the next stint is Mike Conway. Four new Michelin tires, and a windscreen tear off for the #31 car. We've not heard a squeak out of the #19 GEAR Racing Lamborghini. What's going on in their world?
The fuel pump was not working on the #19 car. The car is fixed now and the fuel was taken onboard in the lane, as Rahel Frey, she is at the wheel of it at the moment. The fuel pump packed up and stranded the car on track. Will there be some ideas about what the repair was? We'll be listening for an update from Joe Bradley at IMSA Radio on this one. Kamui Kobayashi is looking to make hay while the moon shines in the dark. Kobayashi just cut a lap at 1:35 dead, 1:35.009. The gap was six seconds or so between he and Joao Barbosa, and it's ballooned to ten seconds by now. Also, Olivier Pla had been ahead of Mike Conway, but Pla has now moved ahead of it's sister car.
Oh dear. The #86 MSR Acura NSX GT3 is in the garage, with Mario Farnbacher at the controls. It has come straight off the track and into it's garage. This car was totally rebuilt after a crash at the Roar Before the Rolex 24. Shinya Michimi, the Japanese driver is at the wheel of it at the moment. The #57 Acura, the sister NSX for Meyer Shank Racing is already a lap down. Not surew who is at the wheel in #57. Juan Pablo Montoya, speaking of Acura, is porpoising on the road as he's driving and he's in the lane now. Are they changing tires? They are taking the nose off the car and will put a new nose on. They are refueling and changing trires as well.
Montoya has fallen off the lead lap. They ned the pace and need it now. It's chilly out there on this early Sunday morning. Juan Pablo Montoya is weaving in the fast lane of the pit lane, to get heat in the tires. It's cold and wet down in the lane at the moment. Yours truly, is from Minnesota, and so I am used to cold. But, I wonder, for the life of me, how Floridians can stand a damp cold, and that's what you get if you come to Daytona. If you come to the Rolex 24 to watch, I'd advise going back to your hotel room during the overnight hours and watch it on TV. It's not too useful to freeze yourself watching the cars circulate in the dead of night at, as it is now, 20 minutes past 4AM.
The #10 Cadillac is readying for a pit stop at the moment with new Michelin tires. Chaps in the U.K. are still watching this motor race and we've got a bunch of people still at the track watching, too. We await Kamui Kobayashi's arrival to th lane. Is there a better way to spend a Saturday night or the wee hours of Sunday morning? I don't think so. We've got just five cars on the lead lap. The three main Cadillac's have had the pac all night, the #10, #5, and #31. We've run 464 laps, 1,652 miles, as the #10 machine hits the lane. Kamui Kobayashi has run 23 laps. Joao Barbosa is next, followed by Mike Conway.
No driver change in the #10. Fuel, tires, and pull a tear off off the windscreen. The fuel is still going in as the car has come down off the air jacks and now Kobayashi is away. There was some tire pick up moved out of the wheel well. The Cadillac's seem to be going at least a lap or so more than the Mazda's and/or the Acura's as we have nearly run 13 and a half hours. Ah. The #86 Acura has a broken splitter. So many cars have broken their splitters on the curbs in the Bus Stop chicane. The #55 Mazda gets back on the lead lap, going around the #10 Cadillac. Harry Tincknell at the controls of the red Mazda. During the few Full Course Yellow periods we've had, the marshals have been inspecting the damage to the curbs in the Bus Stop, particularly on corner exit back onto the banking.
If those curbs break, there's be a higher propensity for punctures. The #6 Acura changed a right side tire when they were working on the front splitter on the Acura. Dries Vanthoor's lead in GT Daytona over Marco Mapelli has ballooned to 34.5 seconds. Corey Lewis runs third in class at the moment. Chaz Mostert continues in the lead in GT Le Mans and he's had a consistent margin over the Porsche's in GTLM for a wee while. That being said, Nicky Catsburg has made a move on Fred Makowiecki. Did the #911 car change brakes on the most recent pit stop? The #3 Corvette C8.R has worked it's way back to third in class, after running fifth for a long time and they are 16 seconds ahead of the #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari. Catsburg is running in the 1:43 range (1:43.7), while Makowiecki can only muster a best lap at this point, in the 1:45 bracket.
Nicky Catsburg finished second in class in the 2016 Rolex 24. He also finished second at the 24 Hours of the Nurburgring in 2017, second overall, and also second overall in the Spa 24 Hours at the mighty Spa Francorchamps circuit, these races, being run by different championships which are set up, almost exclusively for GT3 cars. Catsburg wants to win a 24 hour race and wants to do it here. This race means a lot for the team he's driving for, Corvette Racing, who have won this race overall before. That overall crown for Corvette, came way back in 2001. Back then, the cars were very different.
Meanwhile, Mike Conway has done eight laps in his stint. But, he is working on gaining on the second place car, his former team mate, Joao Barbosa. Conway is absolutely screaming around Daytona International Speedway! He's blitzing it at the moment. He's run purple (fastest of all) in sector one, and set a personal best sector time in sector two! Jeepers creepers! He's put the pedal to the metal right now, has the Brit, racing here for Cadillac and Action Express in the Rolex 24, outside of his other commitment to sports car racing with the Toyota LMP1 program in the World Endurance Championship. Three wide on the front straight! Conway on the top and his lap time has been compromised. 1:36 dead for Conway. There was a GT Daytona car on the low groove, the #74 Riley Motorsports Mercedes AMG GT3.
Then came the #25 BMW M8 GTE, the white car, that was the meat in the sandwich. So, you had a GTD car as the bottom bun, the GTLM BMW as the sausage, and Cadillac DPi as the top bun. A lengthy pit stop for the #8 Tower Motorsport by Starworks Oreca LMP2 car. What could the matter be in that camp? The car has had the front nose off of it, and we don't know what the trouble is at the moment. We'll have to find out from team boss, Peter Baron. Something might need fixing in the ducting section behind the nose. The car might just be going behind the wall. Baron says that the car has been porpoising and maybe something broke on the floor, or a locating pin on the front nose has been broken.
Safety is the key deal with this repair. At high speeds, the car is bouncing up and down and the driver's just can't see with that buffeting situation. New car gremlins. Baron is a veteran of sports car racing, and he and the Starworks team will be sure they will be fixing the car. Porpoising is an aerodynamic default where the car has downforce, pressing it on the deck, then it loses the downforce, and it goes up and down, bouncing up and down like a Pogo stick. That Pogo stick action is a real big issue. There's damage causing that aerodynamic imbalance. This is a problem that the Formula 1 teams experienced during the 1980s with the first ground effects cars in the sport, and has also been a big deal in sports car racing with the more aerodynamic machines, beginning in the 1980s with Group C and the GTP cars in IMSA, and now, still existing with the major ground effects and aerodynamics for all four classes today, but especially the DPi and the LMP2 cars.
It is no surprise that the GT Le Mans and GT Daytona cars, are also very aero dependent, and so they too, might be dealing with porpoising problems. Most notably, the new Porsche 911 RSR-19's have been porpoising a lot during entry into the first turn on the infield road course. The #8 car is back in the garage. Peter Baron copied his go kart livery. He said, to a question on Twitter, "I never copied anyone else's paint job design. I just went for the cheapest design possible and so that's why it's on our car." Ah. Racing team owners and drivers have stories to tell. That's for sure. The gap from first to second is 9.3 seconds. It's 11.7 seconds now between Joao Barbosa and Mike Conway, the former team mates at Action Express.
On the most recent pit stop, the #77 Mazda underwent a driver change. Olivier Pla finished his stint, and so Oliver Jarvis is now at the controls of the white Mazda, the crystal pearlescent white car as opposed to the red car. But, he is falling behind. Jarvis will have to book it if he wants to catch up, even to his team mate. The GTLM lap record for the Rolex 24 is 1:42.908. Daniel Serra almost matched it. Ah. He did. He did match the lap record. Excuse me for almost making an error there. The Spaniard, is flying, the son of former Formula 1 driver, Chico Serra. The fastest GTLM lap was cut 20 or so laps ago by Nicky Catsburg at 1:42.683. It's a new lap record! The fast laps are coming even still in the darkness before the sun rises.
There are fewer distractions in the darkness than there would be otherwise in the daytime. There was a close shave there, between Harry Tincknell in the #55 Mazda and the #9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche, Lars Kern, the Nurburgring maestro, at the controls right now. Kamui Kobayashi continues to lead this motor race over Joao Barbosa, Mike Conway, Oliver Jarvis, and Harry Tincknell. Tincknell has to drive defensively but also smartly. Don't do anything silly. Don't screw up, or you could be out of work and looking for another drive. Tincknell has a yellow card. Don't get a red card, as you would in soccer for a flagrant foul. This is for any driver on any team. You just have to keep your wits about you.
Mike Conway just cut a 1:35.6 and Joao Barbosa is also cutting some very quick laps. Conway is catching Barbosa. These blokes are in former team cars of course as we've documented so often throughout this race. Mike Conway and Joao Barbosa were team mates at last year's Petit Le Mans of course. Handle the battle as a game of chess with a grand master. No hint of sunrise yet, but no clouds either. We're nearly to the end of 14 hours of motor racing at 3:20 A.M. Yours truly is lightly sleeping in the hotel now, keeping an eye on the race, well, maybe just sleeping. The #18 Era Motorsports LMP2 car is still dealing with an issue? Well, no. It's scheduled pit work. They've done a full fuel stint and now, they've done fuel and tires. No worries. That was a scheduled stop indeed.
So, a check on the intervals for the race lead reveals, Kamui Kobayashi leads Joao Barbosa by eleven and a half seconds.
Meanwhile, the GT Le Mans scrap is still on. The burner is at a boil at the moment, look, as the gap between Chaz Mostert in the BMW #24 and Earl Bamber in the Porsche #912 begins to shrink. 5.2 seconds, and it's come down a few tenths over the last half dozen odd laps. Nicky Catsburg is in Bamber's wheel tracks as well, and Fred Makowiecki is catching the Corvette. We have pit action in GTD with the #63 Scuderia Corsa WeatherTech Ferrari 488 GT3. Cooper MacNeil still at the wheel of it. He will do a double stint. Cooper MacNeil dominated the two Ferrari Challenge races here at Daytona, races that yours truly did not see.
The #86 MSR Acura NSX GT3 is back on track after the front splitter was changed, and we've seen pit work done (scheduled), for the much delayed #7 Acura ARX-05 from Team Penske. The #47 PPM Lamborghini and #74 Riley Motorsports Mercedes AMG GT3 both pit, and one of those cars has run cleanly, while the other car, the Lamborghini has had a fraught race thus far. Felipe Fraga is at the controls of the #74. Jeroen Bleekemolen is in the #54 Black Swan Porsche even though he ran for Bill Riley in a GT4 Mercedes in Michelin Pilot Challenge. Again, a race you shall hear about soon.
The #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTE for service. Daniel Serra stays aboard. Chaz Mostert will pit soon, but he's still got his hands full with Earl Bamber. Fuel and tires for the #3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R. This scheduled stop for the Corvette boys also includes a driver change, and Antonio Garcia takes over the wheel of it. The team needs the data stick so they can deliver it to IMSA before the deadline. They have a perfect stop, very nearly. Connor De Philippi says the cold temperatures have affected the BMW. But, as the track rubbers in, the traction is improving. They've had traction concerns, but not now. They are having to be careful (the drivers), on their out laps. The #25 BMW is going to do what they can to help their sister car go for the GTLM victory.
We're getting close to 3:30 A.M. Eastern Time in Daytona Beach, Florida. Fueling is what takes the most time on pit stops, so tire changes are feasible. We've got at least three maybe four hours of darkness still to go. Kamui Kobayashi is still flying and he's turned another purple sector in sector one. We are on course for record distance in this motor race. 480 laps, 1,709 miles completed thus far in the 58th running of the Rolex 24. We are watching the #12 AVS Lexus RC F GT3, pursue the #96 BMW M6 GT3. Shane van Gisbergen vs. Bill Auberlen. Marco Mapelli continues to lead GTD aboard the #44 GRT Magnus Lamborghini Huracan GT3.
GT Daytona teams are also taking pit stops right now. Dries Vanthoor, currently at the wheel of the #88 WRT Speedstar Audi R8 is in the lane for service, from the lead. Marco Mapelli stays on track. Corey Lewis in the #48 Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini does take the opportunity to pit. He actually leapfrogs some of his competitors. Now, the #55 Mazda is in the lane, and Lars Kern aboard the #9 Pfaff Porsche has taken over third place in GTD. The Mazda has the windscreen cleaned. Many of these cars got sandblasted and loaded with grime even after the race began in bright sunshine, yesterday. Harry Tincknell stays in the car, as Tincknell is pushing, pushing, pushing, to stay on the lead lap.
Kamui Kobayashi aboard the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac, the glossy black car with Konica Minolta sponsorship, they continue to lead the motor race in the overall, and are expected to make a pit stop, fairly soon. BMW #24 in the lane from the GTLM class lead. The BMW will keep on trucking, and it still looks clean and shiny in it's nighttime guise. That car is stealth-like indeed. Matthieu Jaminet is next up in GTLM and he too, came to the pit lane for service aboard the #912 Porsche 911 RSR-19. The current gap between Chaz Mostert and Matthieu Jaminet is 4.5 seconds. The lead margin is quite close even aftrer almost 14 hours of racing. Into the lane, from second overall, is Joao Barbosa in the #5 Mustang Sampling JDC-Miller Cadillac. A full service, for the car, and also, a driver change. Sebastien Bourdais is back into the car for another stint.
Tires and fuel, have been very swiftly executed on that automobile. Sebastien Bourdais will have a minute and a half gap to the next car, the #31 Whelen Cadillac from Action Express Racing, with Mike Conway at the controls. Recall, yours truly, is following AXR and their journey through this motor race, and also, that these two cars, used to be under the same umbrella at AXR and team owner, Bob Johnson. However, now, the #5 is overseen by the JDC-Miller Motorsports team, from Minnesota.
Joao Barbosa says that the race is really challenging. Zero grip on new tires. But, Joao is confident about how the team is doing. It's a long, long way to go, and the GT traffic has been tough to deal with, but the plan is to stay in the hunt. It takes 2-3 laps to bed the tires in but the grip is still extremely hard to find, especially through the International Horseshoe. Pit stop time, in, and out, for the #52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports LMP2 machine as well. Barbosa has had a boatload of experience in this race, as he is now running his 18th Rolex 24. His first race here likely was in the early 2000s, probably in 2006 or so. Barbosa drove for a British team in 2005, Rollcentre Racing, and did both this race, and the other classic 24 hour race, the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France, in June.
The #9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche is in the lane and Lars Kern has done very well not just as a test driver for Porsche, but as a racing driver. He's run here at the Rolex 24 and also at the Nurburgring 24 Hours on the infamous Nordschleife in the Eiffel mountains of Germany. Kern is a veteran test driver of high performance sports cars, around the Nurburgring, mainly Porsche's. So, he's got experience and credentials as a test and racing driver. His stint is finished. He can go get a bite to eat and get some sleep for now. Not sure who the next bloke will be to get into the car. The Pfaff crew has some fascinating race overalls. The top of the suit appears to be a plaid lumberjack shirt and the pants within the racing suit resemble blue jeans. Their race boots also look like tennis shoes, sneakers.
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