The GTD Pro battle is on between the #9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche of Matty Campbell flying around Jordan Taylor and there goes the Lexus! Taylor has a tire down and is in the lane. Tire trouble too for the #9 Porsche. The pit crew at Corvette Racing were not ready. They have to be suited and booted just like the drivers. Now, the #9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche is trundling 'round on a flat left rear tire. Good grief. Matty Campbell crawling around the course. Going onboard, Campbell wants to go downhill and go for the pass at turn ten and, whack. Two hits and the tire is down on the left rear. Taylor sends it on Campbell and tires are flat on both cars after that hip and shoulder. The #9 has been serviced and sent to get a new tire. The wheels were bent on both cars and the left rear Michelin is still debris on the outside of the access road to the pit lane.
Ben Barnicoat leads GTD Pro now over Davide Rigon. Mario Farnbacher now being monstered by Erik Johansson with Mike Skeen and Russell Ward in the Mercedes AMG GT3's for Korthoff Motorsports and Winward Motorsports next up in the order. The points in GTD have Stevan McAleer now leading Roman De Angelis by 42 points and the duo of Ryan Hardwick and Jan Heylen by 95 points. The top four in LMP3 are now Gabby Chaves, Gar Robinson, Nolan Siegel, and Joao Barbosa. Ben Barnicoat as we said is scrapping because Davide Rigon is right on his six. Mikael Grenier and John Edwards next up. So it is Lexus, Ferrari, Mercedes and BMW.
James "Sully" Sullivan who owns the Vasser Sullivan team along with former IndyCar champion Jimmy Vasser, they have been wearing out the splitter and the bottom of the car under compression and over the curbs. Bump stops on the springs, spring rubbers, help control the ride height. The engineers have been making boatloads of adjustments and now the track is a lot cooler. It was steaming hot during testing in the heat of summer here at Road Atlanta a few weeks ago. Ben Barnicoat is having a solid, quiet race thus far with no dramas.
Christian Rasmussen got the phone call to race an LMP2 and he says he is very excited to be here, and they are on the same lap with the leaders in class right now. He believes his stint went very well. The pace between Indy Lights and LMP2 is similar, but the lap times are obtained very differently in an LMP2 car. He is learning how to make the pit stops and driver changes work, being mentored by co-driver Ryan Dalziel. Dalziel and Merriman are 76 points down on the leader in points John Farano and Steven Thomas is in second, 36 points out.
Alex Lynn is hot on Helio Castroneves' heels. A scrap for the lead in GTD as Mario Farnbacher passes Erik Johansson. Farnbacher sharing with Kyffin Simpson and Till Bechtolsheimer. Farnbacher and Bechtolsheimer have been running well and Kyffin Simpson, their co-driver, is another open wheel driver who is also being introduced to sports car racing as Simpson is another Indy Lights regular. Richard Westbrook reeling in Scott Dixon hand over fist. These two were teammates in the GT Le Mans days at Chip Ganassi Racing with the Ford GT program. JDC Miller Motorsports are looking for a win as they have not had one either.
Chip Ganassi wants to win for General Motors and the Petit Le Mans has eluded their team. Chip Ganassi was never superstitious during his racing career, but he just wants to be at the front. Superstitions in racing come and go I guess. But motor racing is really in a good spot. We are on the doorstep of something massive in the world of sports car racing with the new GTP hybrid prototypes. Josh Pierson is now the LMP2 race leader for Win Autosport. A moving LMP3 parking lot in LMP3, look. Gabby Chaves over Nolan Siegel, Joao Barbosa, and George Kurtz along with Felipe Fraga. Yikes! That was close between Fraga and Chaves!
Fraga was off in the dirt! Felipe Fraga is a few laps down trying to gain a championship in LMP3 for co-driver Gar Robinson and he is going to driver's right around Gabby Chaves. Not clear into turn ten and Chaves gets nudged out of the way with one of the DPi cars going by. Mike Skeen in the #32 Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes pushing like crazy to stay out of the way. Anders Fjordbach was also moving around that scrap as Richard Westbrook has now finished his stints and here is the #31 in the lane as well. George Kurtz is off the road into the gravel trap at turn six in the #54 LMP3 car for CORE Autosport! This has championship implications in the LMP3 division!
Kurtz has no damage to the car but this is the fifth Full Course Yellow of the day. Jarett Andretti has had quite the weekend. Co-driver Gabby Chaves is giving it 110%. Nothing matters until the night time but this is the most frantic of the four endurance races of the season . The Andretti Autosport team was quick in LMP3 in night practice. They had a massive accident in Free Practice, flying through the air. Yellows breed yellows and we saw the top four DPi cars in the pit lane, the #10, #60, #01, and #02. Dixon, Jarvis, Hunter-Reay, Hartley. Mike Conway stayed out in the #31 Whelen Cadillac and now is second behind Loic Duval in the #5 JDC-Miller Motorsports Cadillac. The Michelin Endurance Cup points for the endurance championship will he handed out the end of this hour as the GT Daytona cars are in.
Mike Skeen is having trouble with windscreen tearoffs. To the lane, the #66 Gradient Racing Acura and the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW in GT Daytona. At Lexus, the #14 car has not had the pace of free practice but they are still in it and the #12 is in as well. Corvette Racing have also made their pit stop. If there is pit overlap from the transition lane to the fast lane, you must go behind them like merging on the freeway. The #32 Mercedes had only one windscreen tear off caught in the windshield wiper. Wayne Taylor Racing have moved ahead of Meyer Shank Racing. The GTD class had five eligible cars for the title and these are winner take all scenarios for many. No worries for Corvette Racing after the shemozzle with the Pfaff Motorsports Porsche a wee while ago.
The training required for these races can be done through things like marathons. Race car drivers are true athletes for sure. Not everyone is running marathons but everyone is working out and adhering to a diet, hydrating before races. It is brutal to be racing like this. The body fat percentage of drivers today is in the single digits, but you have to find a medium between body fat and muscle. You need endurance and stamina. Green flag. Loic Duval leads the motor race over Mike Conway, Brendon Hartley, and Oliver Jarvis. The top two stayed out. 140 or so laps now completed. Scott Dixon still at the wheel of #01 as Anders Fjordbach is pinged aboard the #20 High Class Racing LMP2 Oreca for removing pit equipment from the pit box.
Scott Dixon running fifth in class. Jarvis running behind Hartley. Jarvis knows he was taken advantage of by the #10 entry earlier in the season. The GTD scrap is between Toni Vilander and Jordan Pepper. Ferrari vs. McLaren. This is the GT Daytona lead battle. The #70, Brendon Iribe pulled a double stint, and he is on his way to Barcelona racing in the GT World Challenge Europe series in Barcelona, Spain. Vilander, Pepper, Johansson, Dinan, Telitz, the top five in GTD. A penalty being served by Anders Fjordbach as we speak. Drive through penalty and it is now complete.
Maximilian Goetz is chasing the GTD class Ferrari #47 for Cetilar Racing with Italians Roberto Lacorte and Giorgio Sernagiotto, and Belgian driver Ulysse de Pauw. If you fail to adhere to the Michelin tires operational requirements on tire pressures, you shall be penalized, and it just happened to the #01 Cadillac. A tire builds pressure as it heats up. Start low and the teams flirt with the edge to run to the lowest pressure possible as the sidewall of the tire is part of the suspension components on the car, but the pressure deal is a safety issue first and foremost. As the weather cools, it is even more tempting to futz with tire pressures.
You don't want a tire failure. But if a tire failed due to being underinflated, that is on a team for making that mistake. The turn three curbs and the turn five curbs, if you pound these curbs enough when the tires are completely loaded then the sidewalls are weakened and the higher pressure on a weakened slidewall, the tire will go pop for sure. Brendon Hartley efficiently moves through traffic and Oliver Jarvis does not and so, Ryan Hunter-Reay in the #02 Ganassi Racing Cadillac, they are pushing hard. Loose in and push off sucks but it is better than push in and loose off. Perfect balance is hard to find. The car is perfect if driven correctly.
The #81 DragonSpeed LMP2 car is in and Juan Pablo Montoya is back into the car after Henrik Hedman finishes his stint. Juan Pablo Montoya slightly stalled the car but is now back on track. Mike Conway is now two seconds behind Loic Duval at the top of the shop. Toni Vilander meanwhile still has a mirror full of Jordan Pepper's McLaren. You cannot afford to let up or to make any mistakes. Ferrari will have a new car next year too as the 296 GT3 replaces the 488 GT3. McLaren #70 won in GTD on the road at Mid-Ohio but then were disqualified later on for a fuel issue. Pepper has newer tires than Vilander and Erik Johansson and the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 is on a totally different strategy.
Four hours remaining, you have to reverse engineer the race but a Full Course Yellow will throw a monkey into the wrench, honestly. You need to be prepared and have contingencies for different plans used through the race. I mean the plans are from A to Z. Barnicoat in the Lexus turned in on the LMP2 car or so I think. Yikes. That was a sticky situation. Felipe Fraga continues chasing down Gabby Chaves for the LMP3 lead with Nolan Siegel and Joao Barbosa down the order in the class. Kay van Berlo says he was able to create a lead gap in LMP3 and the quickness of the car makes it effective. Gar Robinson and Felipe Fraga are both pushing hard. So far so good nearly four hours into this race.
van Berlo knows how quick he wants to be.
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