An off-road excursion through the kink for Alex Riberas in the #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin. He may have suspension trouble having come off the banking and into turn one. That had to be a punctured Michelin tire. For Ross Gunn, and David Pittard they will be very disappointed and so will Alex Riberas. They are losing gobs of time. Work to do as the #23 car is dropping down the order, like a stone. We are about to end the 16th hour and it will be written into the book. Chopping and changing all over and especially in GTP and GT Daytona. 523 laps completed by Sebastien Bourdais leading by 24 seconds over Tom Blomqvist. 1,862 miles is the distance so far. Only three GTP cars on the lead lap. Brendon Hartley has now taken over the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura from Filipe Albuquerque.
In LMP2, TDS car #35 leads with Giedo van der Garde over Esteban Guttieriez, Matthiu Vaxivierie, Devlin DeFrancesco, and Alex Quinn. The #7 Porsche and the #31 Cadillac will have to catch up as best they can. In LMP2 it is Nico Pino leading Nico Varrone by 12 seconds while the other cars are down the order in the class. In GTD Pro it is Jules Gounon leading Jack Hawksworth and Tommy Milner. Mercedes, Lexus, Corvette, while the others are losing time. In the GTD class it is Indy Dontje ahead of Darren Turner, Maximilian Goetz, and Ryan Briscoe. Three GTP cars remaining on the lead lap. Bourdais, Blomqvist and Westbrook with Augusto Farfus in the BMW M Hybrid a lap down in fourth place.
The GTP cars are so new, and we have seen a lot of problems and could still see more. None of these teams are totally out of contention just yet. There was a spindle failure on the left rear of the #23 Aston Martin Vantage GT3. It is hopefully a freak incident. Aston Martin have done thousands and thousands of miles with their GT3 car. Ian James is really giving it over to Darren Turner, Marco Sorensen, and Roman De Angelis as the #57 Winward Racing Mercedes AMG GT3 just made a scheduled pit stop. Bourdais and Westbrook should be on the same pit schedule and Bourdais hits the lane. Naturally aspirated 5.5-liter V8 for the Cadillac's.
A driver change, under green flag conditions. Bourdais won the Rolex 24 in 2014, ironically, with Action Express. Renger van der Zande will take over the #01 Chip Ganassi Cadillac. Blomqvist in the #60 Acura is back in front and will pit in a few more laps. We might see 800 some odd laps completed. We shall see. 2/3rds of the race is now completed. At the 16-hour mark, we did 525 laps. 765-770 laps may be completed, and it will not be recordbreaking nor will it be an 800+ lap race either. Blomqvist may be on an in lap. No. He is still on the track. He is 66 and a half seconds ahead of Renger van der Zande and the team is hitting their fuel number.
Sunrise is approaching and when the sun comes up everyone knows they are getting close to the end of the motor race. Push it. That is the plan. It is Happy Hour with a cold track and you begin cutting fastest lap totally in zombie land. It is time to go get it. You know you want to win the Rolex watch. We are very nearly through the night. Ideal weather all weekend. It was freezing cold in 2022. We are back with Dave Burns, James Hinchcliffe, and Brian Till in the broadcast booth. We have seen small issues with the GTP cars and thankfully, not too many major troubles.
We have had eight Full Course Yellows. You can get a lap back under yellow. The weather for this race has been very nice. Seven and a half hours to go. The sun is coming soon which is a sign of hope for some. Driver and crew fatigue. The sun reinvigorates and refreshes. The #3 Corvette C8.R is in the pit lane. Sunshine is Mother Nature's coffee, espresso, or Red Bull. Corvette screams out of the pit lane and back on track. The strategy does not change much but it does have to be slightly altered. No tire warmers in the IMSA championships. Glad to have you with us, on this early Sunday morning from Daytona Beach. Grab a coffee, an espresso, a tea, and some breakfast, and join us.
Class leaders are Renger van der Zande in GTP, Esteban Guttierez in LMP2, Joao Barbosa in LMP3, Antonio Garcia in GTD Pro and Indy Dontje in GTD. Canadian driver Indy Dontje is now at the wheel. Actually, I believe he is Dutch born but must be living in Canada and of course the car had a horrid accident in Free Practice for Lucas Auer who suffered an injured back. Daniel Morad came to fill in and the team had to head back to their Houston, Texas shop to get a spare tub. They got it and brought it back pulling two all-nighters. Wow. They are doing it for Lucas Auer. Winward Racing were longtime contenders in Michelin Pilot Challenge and then stepped up to the WeatherTech Championship and won on their first Rolex 24 appearance.
Darren Turner now is right on top of Indy Dontje in GT Daytona. 961 miles in 24 hours from Houston, Texas, to Daytona Beach, Florida. An amateur driver does not make their living racing, but even though they are businesspeople, they know how to drive. They really, really do. The GTD Pro cars used to have more outright lap time but now they are far closer to the GTD cars. All equal GT3 entries. The #78 U.S. Racetronics Lamborghini was just passed in GTD with Loris Spinelli at the wheel of it. Misha Goikhberg, Benja Hites, and Marco Mapelli, his co-drivers. The Michelin tires stay together compared to others and they don't become gigantic sawblades tearing the bodywork, fuel lines, and brake lines to shreds.
Ryan Briscoe and Racer's Edge Motorsports in GTD did a brake change recently and they were P1 in class but now the team is fourth in class with Danny Formal behind the wheel. The #10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport Acura ARX-06 has just pitted. Acura's have been strong. Cadillac leads in the hands of Ganassi Racing with just over seven hours remaining. Tom Blomqvist is beginning to chase down Renger van der Zande at the top of the shop. The pit crew members are getting a few winks at MSR. He had a majorly committed lap to push it to pole at Mosport Park in Canada, a massively fast circuit, last summer. That brought the MSR Acura to the championship in 2022.
We just do not know what the new GTP cars will do. We have to check and see what will happen in future races. Horses for courses, I guess. But believe me, I am not a full believer in that idea. We shall have to see what is going to happen. We are not even at one yet. The race is nearly 17 hours old. In LMP2, true blue, we still see the #04 CrowdStrike Racing with APR entry at the top of the shop with Esteban Guttierez leading the class, former Formula 1 driver. It is easier for the LMP2 boys to get laps back probably than the brand spanking new GTP monster spaceships. Guttierez is running his first Rolex 24.
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