A.J. Allmendinger is now closing up on Mike Rockenfeller. Mike Conway does lead over Scott Dixon at this particular moment. Several teams want to have another Full Course Yellow for making changes and repairs to their cars. What will happen in the next 45 minutes? The DPi cars are running like trains and it will get even spicier when the sun rises. The Cadillac's have a major advantage over the Acura's at the moment. Traffic giveth. Traffic taketh away, is the motto in endurance racing. There could have been a slight touch between the #55 Mazda and the #60 Acura. Mike Conway leads Scott Dixon by almost 1.3 seconds. The battle at the front is steaming right along as Scott Dixon catching Mike Conway. Bill Auberlen and Bryan Sellers are in a spot of bother. Auberlen will be penalized, and about 40 minutes ago, there was argy bargy between Klaus Bachler and Bryan Sellers.
Klaus Bachler did take a penalty. Alexander Sims is on his outlap, and we also see Connor De Philippi and James Calado taking stops. Nick Catsburg will have to pit. Now, Kevin Estre has rejoined the race in the much delayed #79 WeatherTech Porsche 911 RSR-19, the WeatherTech car. Mike Conway is running 4/10ths of a second to Scott Dixon, and then to Ricky Taylor. Wow. How do you like these onions, mate? No roughhousing between these blokes. Mike Conway has an advantage, maybe, but Scott Dixon goes to the high side. Conway stays in the lead of the motor race.
Scott Dixon has gone around Mike Conway for the time being. As dawn breaks, the #8 Tower Motorsports LMP2 car has not done a brake change yet. If there is a yellow, that technical servicing of the cars can get done fairly quickly. 59 rookie drivers in this race at the Rolex 24 this year and many drivers will be going for the full season IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship. Mike Conway will hit the pit lane soon. Scott Dixon is still leading. Kamui Kobayashi is going run for an hour and a half then Jimmie Johnson will get in for sunrise. #31 in the pit lane for scheduled service.
Chase Elliott is doing a much better job than he was doing. Is there still damage underneath the car? It seems the damage does not matter anymore because the car is back in the game. Now, the Corvette team cars are still scrapping for the GTLM lead. Alexander Sims leads Nicky Catsburg at this particular moment. Cadillac #01 is now in the pit lane. Five of the teams in this race are running with three driver teams, so their rotation schedules are a tad different and according to the rules you can't run more than four hours in a six hour window.
Connor De Philippi in BMW #25 is catching the Corvette's. BMW took a hit after the Roar qualifying race with 20 kilograms added. Heavier cars are slower. How much downforce do you have? How much power does the motor have? How much weight are you carrying? Now we see some shuffling in DPi with Ricky Taylor moving to the lead over Kamui Kobayashi, Renger van der Zande, and Mike Conway. Nicky Catsburg is in his fourth stint while Alex Sims is in his third. Now, we have Gabriel Aubry leading in LMP2. Paul Loup-Chatin is second. Sunrise is approaching here at Daytona. It won't be long.
Debris in the trio oval is causing another Full Course Yellow from the flag stand. Now, this seems to be some sort of signpost that has been scattered somewhere. At the start, Corvette's and Ferrari's went off the road, and after stopping, of course, Kevin Estre rear ended the car. One of the Mercedes GT3 cars just threaded the needle big style between a couple course vehicles! Pit stop time as well now for the DPi contenders. Several of them just now in and out of the pit lane. Jimmie Johnson is clearly enjoying this motor race, soaking it up, drinking it in.
Chad Knaus is also having a good time as the team manager on the #48 car. But the pit crews will be burned out completely. The yellow flag continues and we should be getting back to green flag racing in short order, hopefully. Many of these yellows have really thrown the rhythm of the race off compared to what yours truly got to witness in person last year. The restart is imminent.
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