Another fastest lap from Andrea Caldarelli. 1:45.3. That is also the best lap turned by the #48 car during the race thus far. So, the #48 Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini, is absolutely flying at the moment. Caldarelli's lead has grown to 56.5 seconds. We hear the engine note of the 4.2 liter flat six in the middle of the new Porsche 911 RSR-19. Laurens Vanthoor is just pounding over the curbs as he continues to chase Jesse Krohn. Oh boy. We have a report that the race stewards have dinged Chris Miller for speeding in the pit lane, as he is currently driving car #85, the yellow "Banana Boat" Cadillac for JDC-Miller Motorsports. 30 clicks over the speed limit! Yikes! That's going to be a damper for the bright yellow racer. Meanwhile, the Porsche has the braking, but the BMW has the traction out of the corner. #911, Nick Tandy is 10.7 seconds behind. He is chasing after his sister car, and putting daylight between himself and Antonio Garcia aboard the #3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R.
It's gone out from 5.8 seconds to 6.5 seconds, the gap, which has shrunken from eleven seconds. Antonio Garcia is in NASCAR turn one and two, and the Corvette still has the Bunsen burners in the tailpipe. It's a brand new double overhead came, flat plane crank, normally aspirated V8 rather than the old pushrod, solid lifter unit. Vanthoor and Krohn have both been lightning quick. At Le Mans, you can be 4.5 miles apart racing as hard as if you are door to door. They've been a few tenths apart, but leaving nothing on the table. Vanthoor knows where the strengths of the BMW are. Matthieu Jaminet squares off the second horseshoe. Vanthoor does that less so. The Porsche loses time through NASCAR turns three and four.
The Porsche's steering wheel has 16 different control surfaces on it, much like a Prototype wheel. It's got all the usual settings on it, including different traction control settings and how much slip angle you can dial into the car, with the wheels. Four rotary controls as well, for the steering yoke. It does have paddle shift on it. There is another set of paddles as well for brake bias. No big lever or knob on the dashboard. The Porsche boys have a lot of freedom to change their brake bias on the track in real time. Tiny, incremental differences are the difference between winning and losing. You've got to adjust the car, be in tune with the car, no matter what car, what brand you drive for.
The Porsche instruction booklet to run the steering wheel alone, is 40 pages worth of information. Yes, there will be a written test, so study up on what the wheel's functions are, lads. Know where the car is ineffective or effective, so you can adjust on the fly while you are driving the car. There's so much more to driving these cars. You have to be a driver, but also, technically minded, and know what your setup on the car is. We can see another battle brewing on the banking. It's a DPi car and an LMP2 car. It is the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac, for Action Express, putting a move on one of the five Oreca LMP2 cars in the field. The #31 of Felipe Nasr laps past the #81 DragonSpeed LMP2. Nasr has 15 seconds in hand over the next DPi car, the #77 Mazda currently in the hands of Tristan Nunez.
Laurens Vanthoor is still second in GTLM followed by his team mate. The gap in GTLM between the top four is very close, about 17 seconds. Laurens Vanthoor is bridging the gap between himself, Nick Tandy, and the Antonio Garcia driven, sole remaining Corvette. Alessandro Pier Guidi is just behind, almost a lap or so, in the #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTE. Now, Colton Herta at the wheel of the beleaguered #25 BMW Team RLL BMW M8 GTE, he is still several laps in-arrears. That car had several maladies early on in the motor race and he's 13 laps behind the Ferrari. The #14 GT Daytona class AVS Lexus RC F GT3 gives way for the leaders in GTLM to continue their battle.
In the #14 now, Jack Hawksworth, the British driver who is experienced in both IndyCar and in sports cars. The BMW and Porsche scrap is what we are watching because it is the most fascinating battle on the road at the moment. There's a good 8/10ths of a second between the BMW and the Porsche at this stage. The brake bias and the fuel loads changing, can affect the amount of porpoising we've seen from the Porsche. We look ahead, to next week, and the Bathurst 12 Hours. Stay tuned for that. Once again, ACO, FIA, and IMSA have a common platform, but not a single spec automobile, thank goodness.
It will be very similar to DPi with styling and engine choices. The key is, a commercially available LMP2 spec chassis. The Acura, the Cadillac, they have the same style. A cracking example of this, would be the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the late 1990s. That is when yours truly started watching and observing Le Mans races at the dawn of the old American Le Mans Series. Companies like BMW, Toyota, Audi, and Mercedes Benz all had cars with styling cues that clearly came from their road cars, the production based cars they built on their assembly lines around the world. The Porsche 911 GT1 would never have been built, if Porsche had not swapped iterations. With Porsche, there is a difference between models and iterations.
The 993 with an air cooled motor, was being replaced by water cooling in the 996 model with headlights that looked like a fried egg. The 911 GT1 and 911 GT1 Evo, had that front end. Yours truly saw a non evo 911 GT1 race in Minneapolis, back in 1998. So I remember that car well. They built a supercar for road use, Porsche did, using the headlights, the sub frame and the rear lights. Type 996 was being introduced as a new car back in 1998 or '99. The 993 was an evolution of the previous version, the 964. The 996 was a whole different kettle of fish, with a water cooled motor. Laurens Vanthoor hasn't stopped. Vanthoor has to be calling on the radio, "pit lane, can I go to military settings for me power? I want 105% power. I need to bring some more power!"
The pit lane reply, "just keep racing and focus, Laurens. You have enough power." Laurens then mutters to himself, "no I don't. Ugh! OK, fine." The GT1 911 competed with the CLK GTR Mercedes, the Toyota GT One. Those cars looked fabulous. Plus, we had the Dauer 962 Porsche, convincing the powers that be in France they were producing a road going 962 and they did. Pit stop time now for the #6 Acura. Simon Pagenaud looks to be getting behind the wheel. You need about 15 minutes to acclimatize to your surroundings before you get into the car. Crouch down, stretch out, crouch down, stretch out, close your eyes, adjust your helmet, visualize the track, and then get your gloves on. Make sure to put your balaclava on first and put your radio earpieces in. Actually, put the earpieces in first, then balaclava, then helmet.
So, we resume the GTLM scrap and it's as hot as ever! Vanthoor is really applying the blowtorch to Krohn now. He's got that big BMW in his sights. The BMW goes cleaner into turn six. They have the #55 Mazda making a pass. Ryan Hunter-Reay at the wheel of that red rocket ship at the moment. In GTLM, the two leaders have done 20 laps on their fuel stints, and I cannot be sure if this is their distance or the overall leader's distance, but it looks like 537 laps, 1,912 miles have been completed thus far in the race. The BMW squirms under braking and Vanthoor can take a wider line into the corner.
Dane Cameron says that there isn't much adjusting in the car, but the Acura is still bottoming out. It's really difficult to drive. The driver's can't stand dealing with it and are knackered, so they are taking shorter stints for obvious reasons. Cameron says that the car was driving very well at first, and now, it is bouncing like a Pogo stick all around the track. Maybe there's a broken damper on the suspension and there's no real chance to fix it during the motor race. Maybe if the temperature rises it will recede. The Acura will just have to sort it out. Meanwhile, GTLM is a war zone right now. This is mano e mano. One on one, between the Porsche and the BMW. It's Laurens Vanthoor vs. Jesse Krohn.
Vanthoor tries and tries but the BMW has the inside line! He can't quite make it and the Finn in the BMW holds him off. The BMW was struggling under braking at turn one on the road course as Renger van der Zande moves by. Well, it could have been van der Zande, or, Sebastien Bourdais in the #5 machine. It appears on camera that the Porsche's front end is washing out, but the back end, the tail is loose into the braking zone. The last time through turn one, Krohn was struggling, but then, Vanthoor also lost speed. Jordan Taylor is now at the wheel of the #3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R, going three wide with the Porsche and the BMW, on cold tires no less! Holy cow! I can't go left, I can't go right. I have to get my ears boxed!
In the Acura, the drivers have to shorten their stints because of the splitter issue. What will happen to the car in post-race scrutineering? That's going to be a mystery that we won't know for another seven and a half hours. The longitudinal movement is the porpoising. We are indeed in the middle of "zombie land" right now. You can see the crewmen for the different teams, kitted up in their gear, but they are fast asleep wherever they can be. In chairs, or on the garage floor. It's time for the mechanics to catch some well deserved zed's. Pit stop time again, for the leader in GT Daytona. It's Andrea Caldarelli in the Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini. Madison Snow should be the next driver into the #48.
Andrea Caldarelli did a double stint and lowered his fast lap twice. Madison Snow is surely in the car now, after the pit stop. Mirko Bortolotti, second in GT Daytona, has also pitted. Spencer Pumpelly and Patrick Long, follow. Laurens Vanthoor swung past Madison Snow on the right, and poor old Madison Snow nearly gets the nose chopped off that Lamborghini as he's on cold tires, trying to get grip, and he's sandwiched right in the middle of this spectacular fight we are still seeing with GTLM and the Porsche vs. BMW stories that continues having chapters added to it as we speak, right in front of our eyes. The BMW is really strong out of turn six. So, Jesse Krohn inches away. Vanthoor must be going bonkers, trying to get closer to the BMW. The Porsche could go faster on the infield, but no so much on the banking and the straightaways.
Now then, it's pit stop time for the second place Cadillac, with Sebastien Bourdais behind the wheel. Those are our old pals from JDC-Miller Motorsports, continuing to keep up the pressure on race leader Renger van der Zande in the #10 WTR Konica Minolta Cadillac. There are prototypes needing to get by. So, the Porsche might have a chance. Krohn is actually keeping an LMP2 car behind the BMW. Laurens Vanthoor is close. The Porsche might be stronger than the BMW. Watch for what happens from the Bus Stop, to NASCAR turns three and four. Ah! A GTD Lamborghini in the way and the BMW finds clear air, sprinting away. There was nothing in it in the Bus Stop and now Krohn is in the pit lane.
Vanthoor is close to his pit stop as well. Laurens Vanthoor can go a bit longer. He has to fly, putting in a corker of a lap. Ah. He's right behind Renger van der Zande in the race leading Cadillac. But he has to run the lap of his life now that Jesse Krohn is in the lane. Was there a driver change at BMW? They have tires, and now, they are doing a brake change on that car, too. There's pressurized oil being added to the car. Jesse Krohn probably had fading brakes. It's odd that GT Le Mans cars would need a brake change now. But, they must, at this stage. 90 seconds for fuel, tires, and brakes? Yikes. Does the Porsche need to change brakes? The BMW will have the stopping power, but they've lost time.
Porsche thinks they are good to the finish on the rotors they started on. Porsche #912 stays on the track and we have the race leader, in the lane. Renger van der Zande is pitting now. BMW Team RLL went 29 laps on it's most recent stint. 30 laps also for the Porsche. 29-30 lap stints. So, the #912 Porsche is in the lane, too. All four tires and refueling. No brake change for the Porsche yet. Cleaning the grill and the windscreen, and it's back on track. Same for the #10 Cadillac. The race leading DPi car is back on track, with Renger van der Zande still at the wheel or so it appears. No driver change. van der Zande stays at the wheel but has new boots on the car. Not sure if they were brand new.
Remember, the DPi teams only have 38 sets of tires in total. Loic Duval remains second and he has taken over the #5 Cadillac from Sebastien Bourdais. 580 laps, 2,065 miles, in the books. The leader has already made 28 pit stops and if they've changed on every pit stop, they only have ten sets to go. Now, Kamui Kobayashi did have a penalty yesterday, but that was it. They short fueled the #10 car to be ahead at six hours for points and so did the #31. Ricky Taylor has locked in fastest first sector for the rebuilt #7 Acura. We've got other quick sector times in GTD as well with Lamborghini and Audi. Laurens Vanthoor resumed in the lead in GTLM. Nick Tandy is now second behind his team mate. Tandy has cheweed away the gap down to 10.7 seconds from an original gap of 21 seconds. Tandy stopped six laps before his team mate.
Jordan Taylor has taken third spot in class in the sole remaining Chevrolet Corvette C8.R. The brake change for the #24 BMW M8 GTE was required, but that has now put the BMW Team RLL boys behind the eight ball. Renger van der Zande has some daylight between himself in the lead of the motor race, and any lapped traffic. Are the teams allowed to use pre-bedded in pads and discs? Yes. You want to match the pads and the discs with these carbon brakes. I think the GTLM cars do use some other material for the brakes that is not steel. It used to be steel, but now it is either carbon or some other new age material for rotors and pads. It would be worthwhile to bed a second set of pads onto the front discs.
The rear discs just don't wear as much. The brakes are all carbon. Daytona, despite the speed on the banking, is pretty torturous on brakes especially through the chicane and the infield road course, the twisty bits as we road racing diehards call them. It may be an odd time to change brakes 2/3rds into the race, but if the driver's call on the radio and saying they have dud brakes, then you want to change them. Jesse Krohn has clocked in the fastest lap of the motor race in GTLM so far at 1:42.6 and he's a second or so ahead of Laurens Vanthoor. We've watched Kyle Busch and we know he's a great stock car driver, a great NASCAR driver. "Rowdy", his nickname, is becoming a very good sports car driver. He's very calm and truly enjoying himself. He uses all four fingers on the paddles to change gear.
Maybe he's getting used to how paddle shift works. There's nothing worse than a set of paddles that have no tactile feedback in them. NASCAR drivers can do more than turn left. Keep in mind, he's coming out of a big, heavy stock car, at 3,500lbs. with mega horsepower (between 650 and 800 horsepower), and no traction control, ABS, and a four speed stick shift transmission, into a slightly lighter Lexus GT Daytona car with less power, but with traction control and ABS. The car has two pedals, and a paddle shifted gearbox. You have to left foot brake in a sports car and maybe the stock car guys only do that when they run the road course events at Sonoma, Watkins Glen, and on the new road course at Charlotte Motor Speedway that is somewhat similar to the layout here at Daytona but on a smaller track.
With the #911 Porsche, Nick Tandy has four tires. He runs a 1:43.1 and is a tenth quicker than Laurens Vanthoor, but Jordan Taylor is closing up. Felipe Fraga has the sixth placed car in GT Daytona in the #74 74 Ranch Resort Riley Motorsports Mercedes AMG GT3. The car has a rear view mirror, but, it also has a camera that shows you where your competitors are. It'll adjust so the headlights don't blind the camera and tell you where your competitor's car is, such as a DPi car with it's headlights on, bearing down on you. There's an arrow that grows larger if the car is going to pass you. That's video game technology now being used in real life.
People wonder about the #31 Whelen Cadillac. It was dropping away, and is now only a lap down to the leaders. 587 laps (2,090 miles). Felipe Nasr is at the wheel of the #31 Whelen Cadillac, and he's done 586 laps, so is a lap behind. He's just off the lead lap. The leader has been out for seven or so laps. There's about seven or eight laps difference between pit stops. Townsend Bell is in the #12 AVS Lexus. Both NBC Sports commentators, A.J. Allmendinger and Townsend Bell are indeed in the race right now for their respective teams./ Chris Miller brings the #85 JDC-Miller Cadillac to the pit lane. Nick Tandy is picking up his pace as Jordan Taylor draws closer. It's 2.8 seconds between the Corvette and the Porsche.
Madison Snow leads GTD ahead of Mirko Bortolotti, Andy Lally, Klaus Bachler, and others. Lamborghini, Audi, Lamborghini, Porsche. Sven Mueller has the #54 Black Swan Porsche 911 GT3R still running in GT Daytona and still in the fight and of course Wright Motorsports donated them a spare chassis after their primary car was wrecked in Thursday morning practice. We have a report Ryan Hunter-Reay aboard the #55 Mazda is in the pit lane for service. He is indeed. In and out, very quickly indeed as we are approaching the end of the 17th hour of racing. Hunter-Reay is a lap behind Acura #6 with the continual porpoising issues.
The Lexus RC F GT3 is a big car, and so the braking has to be arrested so it doesn't slide and it's a big car. Tristan Nunez pits the #77 white Mazda from third overall. Kyle Busch has to hold off the challenge from James Calado aboard the #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTE in GTLM. He's around 90 seconds behind the class leading BMW. All four GTLM brands are still represented. Vanthoor leads Tandy, then comes Taylor and Calado. Jordan Taylor is chasing Nick Tandy as Madison Snow and Mirko Bortolotti run 1-2 in GTD followed by the #44 GRT Magnus Lamborghini, the Flex Box car. Andy Lally at the controls. Klaus Bachler is fourth, Felipe Fraga, fifth in the Mercedes with the thundering 6.2 liter V8.
Townsend Bell is driving the #12 AVS Lexus, the sister car to Kyle Busch. There is a giant amber arrow telling drivers to turn left onto the road course. Vanthoor, Tandy, Taylor, the top three in GTLM. The V10 powered cars are running really well in GT Daytona and then a rear engine Porsche with Klaus Bachler, the 28 year old Austrian. He raced at the 24 Hours of Portimao in Portugal last year, for a different championship, and really made people go, "wow, who is this bloke? He's fast!" The different championship mentioned is called the 24 Hour Series. Renger van der Zande now leads by a minute and eleven seconds.
He needs 30 second stretched out over Loic Duval in the #5 JDC-Miller Cadillac, to be on his own lap in the lead of the motor race, as the #12 AIM Vasser Sullivan Lexus pits. More oil being added into the car under pressure. Tires on. It's down off the air jacks, and awaiting the exit. This is a long fuel fill. The RC F is used in Super GT in Japan which is another whole different formula. It's a coupe/sedan, very much like the BMW M8 in GTLM. It looks boxier than a Lamborghini or an Audi but the Lexus is a competitive car. There's no doubt of that. The overall leader is about to lap James Calado another time that is charging toward the BMW leading GTLM. The 13 hours and 21 minutes of darkness is rapidly coming to an end as we complete another hour of racing here at the Rolex 24.
Stay tuned. More to come.
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