In replay, we watch Michael Dinan's incident. He just suddenly spun out. Maybe there was a tire that went down on that BMW M4 GT3. He may have made contact with another car or overcorrected the car and sat right square in the braking zone for turn one. That was a close shave! That is the worst spot to be broadside on the road there. It is absolutely petrifying for a race driver to exprience something like that because you are right at the limit with no control on the grass and the inability to slow the car down hoping and praying it doesn't dig in. This is a short yellow, not a prolonged one. Ricky Taylor has moved around Tom Blomqvist for second place.
Alexander Rossi might just get into the car. Ricky Taylor cannot race four hours in a six hour period of time. Rossi has not driven this race yet. This is his only endurance race of 2022. Everyone is about 2/3rds of the way through their fuel load. Pit lane is closed for any yellow that follows one before it within 15 minutes. Alex Lynn continues to lead in the #02 for Chip Ganassi Racing. In LMP2, Dylan Murry is now racing in the #29 Racing Team Nederland LMP2 entry. He raced with Jim Cox in LMP3 in 2021 and Jim Cox decided he needed a break from racing. Dylan Murry is the son of David Murry, himself a successful sports car racer, who ran at Le Mans with Porsche in 1998. He did so in an old LMP1 open cockpit prototype.
Seb Priaulx leads LMP3 and Scott Andrews leads GT Daytona. Back underway and there was a stack up on the restart. Alex Lynn has had to go to the pit lane for repairs. Is there front end damage to the #10 Acura? The #10 is now in the lead, the three-time and defending champions of the Rolex 24. In replay, we can see contact and there was a flat spot for the tire on the right rear of the Ganassi Cadillac. That is strange. Taylor leads Tom Blomqvist by almost a second. Ricky Taylor, in an onboard replay, he does clip the #02 Cadillac from behind. Lynn is now down a lap and Ricky Taylor is now a lap up, make it, two laps up, so he is back on the same lap.
Tristan Vautier holds third in the #5 Mustang Sampling Cadillac, and now, Alex Lynn will be penalized. He has definitely fluffed it. You cannot decelerate in an acceleration zone. For Turner Motorsports, Michael Dinan though he was hit by one of the Lamborghini's. Race strategist Don Salama, team boss Will Turner, and Bill Auberlen, the driver, sharing an electric blanket. Don Salama, the strategist, is known as "the ice man". Cooper MacNeil has likely finished his work for the evening. Last year, his race was over before the race even started with Kevin Estre in the Porsche 911 RSR-19. Heating the brakes before the restart works, but you have to hold a consistent speed coming to the green flag.
We are nine hours and 17 minutes in. Cooper MacNeil has completed his drive time for both cars in GTD Pro. The Porsche #79 has had electrical woes. He has drive time done for the evening and probably does not need to get back into either car. In the WeatherTech Championship, the team with the sponsor, sees Balance of Performance. So, they are running Porsche and Mercedes to be on the positive end of the Balance of Performance window. But the Porsche is down the order while the Mercedes is still in contention. Two different cars, you have to retrain your brain. The biggest issue is one car has three pedals and the other does not. The Mercedes has a clutch pedal and the Porsche has a hand clutch. The Mercedes has a tad more top end speed.
Declaring before the race for points, Cooper MacNeil will be racing the #79 Porsche 911 GT3R for points for the season. Sports car racing is really being put on the map right now. Cooper MacNeil does not need to worry about driving. Maro Engel is a defending GTD champion in this race with the Mercedes. He has 14 and a half hours to just take it easy now, does Cooper MacNeil. Wow. He has put all of it together in just ten hours. The #59 McLaren is off the road coming into NASCAR turn one, off of turn six on the road course.
We know these are endurance events, but the stints are sprints every single time. Some of our colleagues from NBC Sports will be off for some sleep before we get to the A.M. hours. This is the eighth yellow of the race. 12 total, for last year's race. Again, the Crucial Motorsports #59 McLaren, this car has blown a motor or something because they've spilled a load of fluid all over the road. Not sure where it could have come from. The #70 Inception Racing McLaren is still in this race. Several teams have been able to pit. The #10 and #60 Acura's both came in. Alexander Rossi's first laps have thankfully been under yellow.
WTR will cycle to the front of the queue if everyone or anyone else in the class hits the lane. 14 and a half hours remaining. Pipo Derani hitting the pit lane for AXR almost rams the back of the #5 JDC-Miller Motorsports Cadillac! Yikes! There are limited windscreen tearoffs, while cleaning the windscreen inbetween. Tristan Nunez is now in the #31 car and we have I believe Loic Duval now in the #5 JDC-Miller Motorsports Cadillac. It is time for the GTD Pro cars to pit. Pipo Derani says he is running well on lap times, hitting their marks to get to the end. #31 made a brake change earlier and they got it during a long yellow to sharpen the car up for the second half of the race. So far so good.
Maybe the Action Express car is running a more aggressive brake setup than the Chip Ganassi cars. Jack Roush is one of the six Grand Marshals for this race as we already mentiojned. Alexander Rossi is now in the lead of the motor race. Rossi is up on the button and Tom Blpmqvist is doing his level best to stay in it. Oh no! Tristan Nunez has spun off the road and is trying to get back on the road with cold tires. Nunez is fourth. Tristan Vautier is coming to those Acura's in a hurry. Blomqvist goes inside to take the race lead through the Le Mans chicane.
Getting the power down, Tristan Nunez spins the car. It was a narrow escape for the #01 car of Alex Palou, the main Ganassi Cadillac. When these Michelin tires lose grip, there is nothing forgiving and in yaw, it will spin off the road. Jose Maria Lopez moves ahead of the sister Action Express entry. Jordan Pepper and company in the Inception Racing McLaren are getting somewhere, but they have a cracked gearbox in the McLaren right now that they need to fix. They are up a few laps, then back down, but always in the fight in GTD. Jordan Pepper has also been hands on trying to find a problem and fix it. Pepper was a Bentley factory driver and won the SRO America championship for Lamborghini last year.
Patrick Pilet leads GTD Pro and Luca Ghiotto for G-Drive leads LMP2 presently. We are close to the ten-hour mark watching Felipe Nasr in his first GT race after being in open wheel and prototype cars. Nasr has done a remarkable job adapting. Nasr, Dane Cameron, and Emmanuele Collard are running with Penske in Europe getting ready to return to the 24 Hours of Le Mans next year. Nasr drives the wheels off of a race car. He was in Formula 1 with Sauber and raced for a few years too in DPi with Action Express before changing over to the Porsche team. In GTD Pro and GTD, the cars stay close. Alessandro Pier Guidi is right behind Patrick Pilet. At Le Mans, there are three safety cars that split up the field, but here, you can get back on the lead lap soon.
Drivers are looking to stay on the lead lap earlier on in the motor race. The #54 CORE Autosport entry is doing really well with Jon Bennett, Colin Braun, George Kurtz, and Nic Jonsson. Kurtz is at the wheel. Crowdstrike, the cyber security company, Kurtz was the co-founder of that company and they sponor the Mercedes Formula 1 team as well. Kurtz co-drives with Colin Braun in a different sports car racing series. We are also looking at the #74 Riley Motorsports 74 Ranch Resort car. They are fixing their third Kuerig machine for the coffee. Michael Cooper is at the wheel of the #74 right now. Felipe Fraga, Kai van Berlo, and Gar Robinson are the other drivers.
Connor De Philippi, meanwhile, has a tire down on the #25 BMW M4 GT3. These cars ran in the 24 Hours of Dubai with ST Racing and the M4 GT3. BMW celebrating the 50th anniversary of their M brand this weekend, their performance division. The #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GT3 has a full factory lineup. Alessandro Pier Guidi, Daniel Serra, James Calado, and Davide Rigon. The #12 Lexus RC F GT3 is still running and hanging in there in damage control mode. Frankie Montecalvo and Aaron Telitz will do the full series this year.
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