Race Director Beaux Barfield mentioned in the morning driver's briefing that few Full Course Yellow's were going to be expected in this race due to the small field. Therefore, sweepers and the track crews would be dispatched at certain times to clean up the debris, the tire clag and marbles off the racing surface. Acura #7 comes back to the pit lane. Race Control is sorting things out. Therwe was a penalty assessed to the #98 Aston Martin. Pit stop time for the #14 AVS Lexus and Kyle Busch has taken a very short stint and is out of the car. Who is next in the car? Busch did a 19 lap stint. The vast majority of the GT Daytona cars are now back on the lead lap. Yours truly is unsure who took over the #14 car. Was it Parker Chase, Jack Hawksworth, or Michael De Quesada? I don't know.
There were nine cars on the lead lap in GT Daytona, and now the vast majority of the field is on the lead lap. DragonSpeed has been able to leapfrog the PR1/Mathiasen car and get back on the lead lap as the #8 Tower Motorsports By Starworks entry got the wave around and was also able to get back onto the lead lap. Now, the #25 BMW M8 GTE is stopped out on course off of NASCAR turn two, and it looks as if he is doing a Control Alt Delete to recycle the car. The two Porsche's leapfrogged the #24 BMW in GTLM as the #24 needed more fuel than did the Porsche's. The #3 Corvette is in fourth, followed by the #25 BMW which continues to have issues on the backstretch, up on the banking. It appears as though that BMW is dead in the water.
Recycle it again. Bruno Spengler is at the controls. It is back under it's own steam. No it isn't. He's still having issues with the car as Kyle Busch and Jack Hawksworth are discussing things in the Lexus pit. We are going to continue under Full Course Yellow due to the troubles with the BMW. It's not lights out and away we go. With the BMW, it's lights out and nobody home at this moment. The engine has fired up, but it will cut out or go into limp home mode. Now, keep the car on the pit lane speed limiter and motor around the speedway. He's on the backstretch, on the apronn. Is it stopping again? 15 cars on the lead lap in GT Daytona at the moment.
Meanwhile, the BMW has made it to the pit lane and is headed back to the garage. We will likely be able to go back to green here pretty soon. Stand by for our first restart of this 2020 Rolex 24 with 18 hours and 53 minutes on the board. Simon Pagenaud in the #6 Acura is the leader, with the #31 car of Filipe Albuquerque in second spot. Olivier Pla wants by for second in the #77 Mazda. Loic Duval holds fourth place aboard the #5 Cadillac, the Mustang Sampling JDC-Miller machine. The battle is on between a couple Ferrari's in the GT ranks as well as the #63 WeatherTech Scuderia Corsa Ferrari has the #62 GTLM Risi Competizione Ferrari all over the tail of that car.
The #62 Ferrari is being hotly pursued as well by the #4 silver and yellow Chevrolet Corvette C8.R. The #16 blue and black Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R is in there, and we watch the Risi Ferrari also making a pass on the #96 Turner Motorsports BMW M6 GT3 with the Liqui Moly colors. Olivier Pla, meanwhile, is monstering Filipe Albuquerque, and Pla does force Albuquerque into a mistake which is a very rare sight. Albuquerque drifted wide after missing his braking point. Ka and indeed ching, as Olivier Pla punches his ticket to turn on the afterburners and go after race leader Simon Pagenaud in the #6 Penske Acura.
Up through speedway turn three they go. Race Control has slammed a stop + 60 second hold for incident responsibility on the #47 Lamborghini which is a moot point. Pla dives around the outside of Simon Pagenaud, and Pla has surely turned up the wick as Renger van der Zande moves past Loic Duval and the #10 Cadillac makes a move on the #5. Can Olivier Pla break free from the battle between Pagenaud, Albuquerque, and van der Zande? Jesse Krohn in the #24 BMW M8 GTE is working his way through the GTLM field and we have a slow prototype out on course, someplace. Jesse Krohn has lost the GTLM lead.
He has actually had to give way to both the Porsche's and the #3 Corvette. The running order at the sharp end remains Olivier Pla followed by Simon Pagenaud, Filipe Albuquerque, Renger van der Zande, Loic Duval, and more. The #911 Porsche 911 RSR-19 is leading GT Le Mans. Jesse Krohn squeaks ahead of Nick Tandy across the start/finish line and is shown as the leader of the field in class, but Nick Tandy has other ideas. Tandy, moves back ahead of the Finn in the BMW. The two mid engine Corvette C8.R's have a ringside box seat here, Nicky Catsburg at the controls of the #3 and likewise, it's Tommy Milner aboard the #4 entry.
Milner, though, he is sandwiched between Laurens Vanthoor and James Calado who is now driving the #62 Ferrari 488 GTE for Risi Competizione. Mazda, Acura, Cadillac, is the manufacturer's breakdown in DPi. In GTLM, it's BMW, Porsche, Chevrolet. Lamborghini leads GT Daytona, with Corey Lewis at the wheel of the #48 Paul Miller Racing Huracan GT3. The GTLM scrap for the class lead is still hot and heavy! Jesse Krohn pulls ahead in this high speed chess match. Krohn gets around Nick Tandy and the Corvette is third with Nicky Catsburg at the controls.
Aston Martin's John Gaw says that Alex Riberas is a tad shocked, and he was surprised by the Lamborghini which has been given a penalty. Gaw says Heart of Racing might be able to repair the car and that the factory #98 car looks strong at this stage but needs attention in the pit lane. Paul Dalla Lana hurt his leg in a skiing accident in Canada, but, he is surely looking in on his team mates, and Andrew Watson is running very well in the car in a last minute call up. It's his first race in the United States and will race for Aston Martin at Bathurst in the 12 Hours next weekend as well. John Gaw also raced, and did so in Ferrari Challenge.
Aston Martin #23 was committed in the short chute going to the tri oval on the double yellow lines and he didn't know he was under the yellow lines. Kyle Busch says his strategy changed with the yellow flag and the wave by, getting two wave by's and getting tires and fuel and doing a driver change so that Parker Chase can put his drive time in. Busch says he is learning about the car and the styles of his co-drivers. He is learning about the sports car and transferring that to his NASCAR driving. Busch of course is the defending champion in the NASCAR Monster Energy Cup series. Busch says the ABS and the traction control are what he is getting used to.
Busch also makes a great point that the tires for a sports car are completely different than those used in NASCAR. Meanwhile, a battle is brewing, look, between the #6 Acura and the #31 Cadillac. Traffic ahead, as the party is also joined in by the #10 Cadillac. Oh, these blokes ahead are having a little party, and they didn't invite me! The DPi drivers are working their way through a melange of GTLM and GTD production based cars. Loic Duval is another star driver who is not far away from this clutch of his fellow DPi competitors. Filipe Albuquerque gets trapped on the banking by a GTD Porsche and continues on his way.
Weave left, weave right. If you are a GTD car, keep to the low line, and the #54 Black Swan Porsche with it's driver Sven Mueller, did exactly that. Mueller is sharing that Porsche with Tim Pappas, the team owner at Black Swan Racing, Jeroen Bleekemolen, (the rapid Dutchman), and Trenton Estep. The fastest car on track right now is the #85 JDC-Miller Cadillac, the "Banana Boat", with Mattheus Leist at the wheel of it. Leist had a bit of a jumble on his hands because he got pointed by the safety car to get back on the lead lap, and then made a pit stop. He realized he was off sequence on fuel. The pit stop did put Leist back in sequence. However, because of the confusion, he had to resume at the tail end of the field and is playing catch up as we speak.
We await to hear the official news of why the #9 Pfaff Porsche was trundling around slowly earlier on. It lost spots. But, look at that, Lars Kern has managed to claw his way back into the GT Daytona picture as we approach quarter distance here at the Rolex 24 in a shade over another half hour. Kern is just half a second away from the leader of the GT Daytona class, which remains Corey Lewis at the wheel of the #48 Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini. Second on the restart, the #57 Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3, now with the Portuguese GT ace Alvaro Parente behind the wheel. Parente has lost a few places in class to both the aforementioned Lars Kern, and to the #63 Scuderia Corsa WeatherTech Ferrari, currently in the hands of Toni Vilander, yet another flying Finn in this motor race.
All of the GTD cars are on the lead lap and yes, we have a melange of brands represented. Acura, Audi, Lexus, Ferrari, Porsche, Aston Martin, BMW, Mercedes,and Lamborghini. You name it, it's in GT Daytona. Yes, I have listed all the GTD brands, thanks to the handy race program, and there are a total of nine brands represented in GTD. We do another distance check. The leaders have now run 187 laps, 666 miles. After that scrum for the lead in GTLM, BMW and Jesse Krohn remain at the top of the shop. Nick Tandy runs second for Porsche with Nicky Catsburg third in the Corvette. Laurens Vanthoor is next in line in GTLM in the sister #912 Porsche 911 RSR-19. The sister Corvette, the #4 car and the #62 Ferrari are next in line while the #25 BMW which had Bruno Spengler at the controls, still in the garage being repaired.
PR1/Mathiasen leads in LMP2 and their #52 car has Gabriel Aubry at the wheel of it after Ben Keating put in some mega stints earlier on in the day. He is of course driving in two cars in this motor race and currently must be taking time to drive in the #74 Mercedes AMG GT3 he shares with Gar Robinson, Lawson Aschenbach, and Felipe Fraga. John Farano has also made his way past Henrik Hedman in the battle for LMP2. Nic Minassian is a couple laps behind in the #18 Era Motorsports LMP2 entry, and we have another ding dong scrap through the Bus Stop chicane, look. The battle resumes between Action Express and Wayne Taylor Racing. Sven Mueller has gotten around Alvaro Parente.
The order in GT Le Mans remains Krohn, Vanthoor, Catsburg, Vanthoor. Laurens Vanthoor has set the fastest lap of the motor race in class in GTLM thus far. 1:43.181 for Vanthoor. Colton Herta driving for BMW set the lap record in GTLM in last year's race at 1:42.8. Good news for BMW fans as the #25 BMW M8 GTE has come back out of the garage and will rejoin the motor race. We will have to delve in and see why on earth that car was coughing and sputtering earlier on. The #912 Porsche goes into the kink and Renger van der Zande at the wheel of the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Konica Minolta Cadillac just screams past him! Yikes! Did not see that one coming.
Renger van der Zande is the flying Dutchman and he is aiming to make a pass on the banking on the #31 Whelen Cadillac of Filipe Albuquerque. It is WTR vs. Action Express (AXR). Jesse Krohn, in the BMW, leading GTLM has the awareness, the acumen to know two faster cars are coming and he wisely uses the turn signal to point them by as they scream down the back straightaway. Use of the turn indicator in sports car racing is frowned upon because it can go one of two ways. Either you use it, as Krohn did, to point another chap by, or, you use it to point out to another driver that you are holding a position on the road and will not be challenged, and therefore you will hold up a quicker car, but not in this case. Heads up driving by Jesse Krohn. Kudos to you, Sir.
Nicolas Lapierre is ready for a driving stint aboard the #8 Tower Motorsports by Starworks LMP2 car that he will get into, to relieve John Farano. Simon Pagenaud moves ahead of both Filipe Albuquerque and Renger van der Zande. The pressure is on in GTD for the class lead. Corey Lewis has it, and Toni Vilander, wants it. It's the battle of the Italian supercars, Lamborghini vs. Ferrari. The Porsche brigade is also in hot pursuit, with Lars Kern and Sven Muller charging after these two who are at the front of the field in GTD, currently. Jonathan Bomarito manages to work his way past Loic Duval, and so the #55 Mazda passes the #5 Cadillac. All of this on lap 193. 193 laps, 687 miles completed.
We saw the Pfaff Porsche slow down earlier on. They mistakenly took the wave by, and then had to give it back, hence the reason for the car slowing down. No harm, no foul. A bold, yet clean pass, by Cory Lewis on Toni Vilander, and meanwhile, pit lane action, as the #6 Penske Acura is in the box and so is the #31 Cadillac. Acura and AXR Cadillac, both of them were getting towards the end of their fuel stints. Sven Mueller goes around Lars Kern for position in GT Daytona as Renger van der Zande is making a scheduled pit stop, but he leaves his braking to get into pit lane really late. That could have been a hairy situation.
Jonathan Bomarito in the #55 Joest Mazda will move up and slot into second spot behind team mate Olivier Pla aboard the #77 Mazda. Car #10 has done a 20 lap stint, and this car as well as some others, among them the #5 JDC-Miller Cadillac, they were all doing 23 lap fuel stints earlier on. Everyone was on an even keel at the restart though. Simon Pagenaud and Filipe Albuquerque have both made pit stops and so they have the same tires and the same tire temperature at this moment as they battle into turn six, coming back onto the NASCAR banking. Meanwhile, in the lane, we have Jonathan Bomarito in the #55 Mazda.
Albuquerque is diving down the inside of the Acura into the Bus Stop, and he clears the Acura for sixth place. Mazda Team Joest will pull ahead of both the #31 and the #6 car after their pit stop for the #55 entry. In the meantime, Gabriel Aubry will head for the lane from the lead in LMP2. A standard stop for the PR1/Mathiasen crew as Aubry gets fuel and a new set of boots on the car. The pit stop cycle continues and now the #77 Mazda is in the lane for service. The #10 Cadillac could have short filled the fuel tank when they replaced the bodywork. #77 has come in from the lead. New tires, a clean of the windscreen, and fuel. He's back into the race after a 38 second pit stop. Cadillac #10 is now the race leader. The Mazda will come out in second spot.
Renger van der Zande I reckon, leads the motor race. He does indeed. van der Zande made the pass on Filipe Albuquerque. The battles in the GT classes are still hot and heavy as Jesse Krohn leads Nick Tandy, Nicky Catsburg, and Laurens Vanthoor, followed by Tommy Milner. The battle for one piece of tarmac is on between two Porsche's a Corvette, and a BMW. By virtue of pit lane position, Mattheus Leist was classified as the race leader aboard the #85 Cadillac for JDC-Miller Motorsports, scored on lap 197. So, another distance check. 197 laps, 701 miles. Renger van der Zande has made the 25th lead change of the race on lap 198, and his margin has ballooned to 6.4 seconds over the #31 Cadillac and the #77 Mazda has dropped to fourth. Oliver Jarvis is now driving, after Olivier Pla finished his most recent stint.
The fuel was the big deal on that stop, and also, the windscreen was being cleaned thoroughly. 22 drivers from this race will be racing at the Bathurst 12 Hours. Stay tuned for that event. Renger van der Zande has just dialed in a new fast lap of the motor race at 1:35.288. He turns in this new fast lap on lap 199 if you are keeping score at home. 1:35.635 is the best lap of the race so far for the #31 Cadillac, the Action Express Whelen car. Simon Pagenaud is a second slower than is the #31 car, running in third spot at the momnt. Nicky Catsburg goes around Nick Tandy in traffic in the battle for GTLM glory. For the sake of measuring performance potential, it looks like that is why the #10 Cadillac dove for the lane earlier than did their rivals at the #77 Mazda squad.
Renger van der Zande runs wide at turn one! He comes back onto the road, but that was an unexpected error. No panic, and van der Zande continues on the road. It does show he is pushing the car to the limit, even in these early stages of the race. Endurance races are still long, but they are driven as hard as sprint races these days because of the competition and because of the reliability of the cars being what it is. van der Zande had all four brake discs totally lit up, cherry red, headed for the braking zone at turn one on the infield road course.
On lap 201, Oliver Jarvis sets his best lap of the race thus far aboard the #77 Mazda, at 1:35.616. Jarvis lost 13-15 seconds on the pit stop, somehow or other. The team was topping up with fuel, or the hose didn't connect to the tank. Everyone came into the pit lane, nose to tail, but now, as Jeremy Shaw from IMSA Radio points out, there are gaps between the cars of 4-5 seconds. We have two Cadillac's still running up front currently, with the #10 of Renger van der Zande, leading the #31 with Filipe Albuquerque at the wheel of it. The two Porsche's are hunting down the Corvette in GT Le Mans, and Nick Tandy, is going to make a move on Nicky Catsburg, using the #74 Riley Motorsports Mercedes AMG GT3 as a pick.
Three wide, look, as the #77 Mazda effortlessly slides past the two Porsche's on the bottom, down the backstretch. Wow! Nicky Catsburg is not giving up! He goes back around the outside and takes the lead back from the Porsche, declaring, "in your face, Porsche!" So, the new Corvette C8.R once again leads in GTLM. Whoops! We have a spin through the chicane and a car has gone through the grass by the look of it. That's the #88 WRT Speedstar Audi R8. Daniel Morad, the Canadian, is in the car right now and he is running in 20th position in the overall out of the 38 cars still in this race. Again, the smallest field we have seen in Rolex 24 history, but the quality is good. There are some great cars and drivers out there and the racing shows it.
Morad was trying to pass Ben Keating at the wheel of the #74 Mercedes. Ben Keating has come into the pit lane in the orange and blue Mercedes. He's run a 25 lap stint and that's four or five short in GT Daytona. Points for the North American Endurance Cup will be awarded at six hours, 12 hours, and 18 hours. The first 1/3rd of those points are going to be awarded soon. So, slice that pie into thirds. Bill Riley is running the #74 Mercedes. Now, Ben Keating was the one who went through the grass, and yes, there was contact between Keating and Morad. Morad made a late move and Ben Keating never saw him, before... crunch!
Aha. Right on cue, the incident is being reviewed by the IMSA stewards. Oh no! Ladies and gentlemen, the carnage continues! There's a big wreck through turn one on the road course and it's more GT cars in another crackup! That's the #3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R, so that's Nicky Catsburg! The other factory Aston Martin, car #98 is also caught up in this thing. Pedro Lamy, Ross Gunn, Mathias Lauda, and Andrew Watson, the driving quartet in that car. Now, we do not know who is at the wheel of the Aston, currently. That was again, in the transition from the tri oval and turn one. Pedro Lamy, the Portuguese ex Formula 1 driver, he is in the Aston Martin and he is making his way back onto the circuit. The Corvette came back up, on Pedro Lamy, and that wreck could have beeen much worse than it was!
The Corvette of Catsburg just moved into second in GT Le Mans. No action on the #74 and #88 scrum. That was a racing deal. Both went for the same piece of asphalt. Corvette #4 has just made a pit stop for fuel and tires. The #3 pit crew is going to go over the wall. There will be a driver change, tires, and fuel for the #3. No apparent damage on the car and the #24 BMWM8 GTE is also in the lane. There was contact on the right hand side. There's a tiny tire mark. There's no bodywork damage. Barely a scratch. It'll buff out. The wing is still thre, the dive plane. The #98 Aston Martin is in and out of the lane, too.
Jesse Krohn remains at the wheel of the #24 BMW. More bother for the Aston Martin, too, as he's understeered into the pit wall exiting the pit lane in the transition road back to the track. Ross Gunn, the British Aston Martin specialist in the FIA World Endurance Championship, he has taken over the car but had a clatter with the barrier coming out of the lane. He isn't the first driver here at Daytona to do that and he won't be the last. Prodrive Aston Martin's John Gaw won't be happy as Ross Gunn will need further work in the pit lane on that automobile. Now, another motorcar is in the lane and it's the #48 Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 with Corey Lewis driving at the moment.
The top three GT Daytona cars are indeed in the lane. We watch work going on on the #12 AVS Lexus which is having a driver change happen as well. Augusto Farfus was slated to get into the #24 BMW and was suited and booted, but he assisted with changing the data stick out of the car so the engineers can download the information and analyze it to see where their car needs to be for the rest of the motor race insofar as performance. The data stick changes and data collection are of course mandated by IMSA. Now, Nicky Catsburg explains he passed the Aston Martin on the inside and the two of them hit each other. Catsburg avoided the spinning Aston Martin. No worries. Catsburg is pleased with his most recent stint.
Track position is the only thing affected and the car is fine. Nicky Catsburg is very happy to be with Corvette and feels welcomed and at home as a part of the team. While we were hearing Nicky Catsburg's viewpoint on the incident, the #9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche, pitted for routine service and that car is now back up and running, back into the fight, once more.
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