Halfway home. Endurance points have been awarded for the Michelin Endurance Cup. Filipe Albuquerque is working through traffic. In GTP, the messages are a lot longer because of all the information like having a football coach in your ear for running a plane. Red 32, set, hike. Matt Bell and Garrett Grist running 1-2 in LMP3. So much more information in a GTP car with the steering wheel and the hybrid systems to process and to make the car work. Matty Bell is a shoe behind the wheel. The LMP2 cars are having a hard time getting by some of the LMP3 cars which have more torque from their Nissan V8 engines. They are a truck engine, a 5.6 liter V8 out of a Nissan Titan.
Sebastian Priaulx fifth in GT Daytona in the #80 "Rexy" dinosaur Porsche for AO Racing. You have to understand who is driving the car behind you, the P2 car, the GT Daytona car. The way one driver drives a particular car is different than another and there's smoke pouring from the #3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R! Terminal engine failure! Tommy Milner, Antonio Garcia, and Jordan Taylor. Game over! Full Course Yellow. The motor died. Tommy Milner knew it right away. My gosh. Ron Fellows, Herb Fishel, Doug Fehan, all of them are here.
Reliability trouble for GT cars today are few and far between. The car sounds OK but at the top of the hill the motor was tightening up and getting sick. Didn't hear a lot of metal grinding but the motorwas shutting down and that is a terrible sound for a car or an aircraft. Sometimes engines let go like hearing silverware in a blender or it just seizes up slowly. The end of the day and the end of an era for Corvette Racing with a whole new program for next year. Motorsport is such a rollercoaster of emotions.
Prototype pit stop time as Jenson Button gets into the #5 JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche 963 replacing Tijmen van der Helm. The #7 Posche 963 is in and the #31 Whelen Cadillac has gained places. The #10 Wayne Taylor/Andretti Autosport Acura has also pitted. GTD Pro and GTD pit stops underway. We have seen the #57 Winward Racing Mercedes, the #78 U.S. Racetronics Lamborghini, and the #80 AO Racing dinosaur Porsche now with Sebastian Priaulx at the wheel. Misha Goikhberg and Patrick Liddy are the co-drivers in the #78 entry with Loris Spinelli.
Scott Dixon is now at the wheel of the #01 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac maintaining the lead. Jack Aitken in the #31. Tom Blomqvist in the #60. Gianmaria Bruni is now in the #59 Proton Competition Porsche 963. Be prepared for drivers to pull the pin as we get closer to crunch time. Currently Action Express is leading the points by 11 over the #10 WTR Acura. Green flag. Scott Dixon ahead of Jack Aitken, Ricky Taylor, and Tom Blomqvist. Taylor has a run and gets into turn three too hot. Scott Dixon is running away from everybody.
The weather is warm now and the track temperature is up. Cadillac, Cadillac, Acura, Acura. Jenson Button is now chasing Josef Newgarden in the two Porsche 963's for JDC-Miller and Penske. The Proton Competition Porsche 963 is also back there. Other GTP contenders are currently over 100 points down. We may see a two-horse race depending on how the rest of the race goes. Juncadella leads for Mercedes in GTD Pro and Jan Heylen leads GT Daytona in the #16 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R sharing with Ryan Hardwick and Zacharie Robichon.
Four and a half hours of racing to go. Jan Heylen was a Silver rated amateur driver until people saw his speed. In GT Daytona, Mikael Grenier is driving the #32 Korthoff Preston Mercedes. Trouble for the #12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 with a gearbox issue, with Parker Thompson at the wheel of it sharing with Aaron Telitz and Frankie Montecalvo. Hawksworth, Barnicoat, and Kirkwood, are already out of the motor race. Daniel Juncadella running in front of Franck Perera. In GTP, traffic, Ricky Taylor wants to go three wide, but he decided wisely, discretion is the better part of valor. I wonder if Max Root saw him, and I think he did. Spotters will be in either turn one or turn ten.
The closing rate is unbelievable. Getting traction control to work more progressively, you want a balance. You don't want the thing to not feel intuitive. You want it to work for a driver as Alex Quinn is a few seconds down on Nolan Siegel in the #04 APR/CrowdStrike car in LMP2. The points gap in LMP2 is amazingly close between all three contenders. Three cars within 57 points and only three points between the top two. The LMP2 cars will play a bigger part in the championship again next year, not something we have seen since the 2020 season.
Margins are still extremely close in GTP insofar as points. Jack Aitken still second behind Scott Dixon. The top two are both Cadillac's. Ganassi Racing vs. Whelen Engineering/Action Express. Acura running 3-4 and Porsche's 5-6-7, and the two BMW's. Some symmetry in GTP. Jack Aitken only within two seconds of Scott Dixon. 1.4, the gap is closing a wee bit. With the electronics, drivers can downshift in the middle of the turn. You could never do that with an H pattern gearbox. Are you kidding me?! Jordan Taylor in a bittersweet moment with Corvette Racing. It has been an incredible journey for the past 11 years.
They've won Le Mans, Daytona, and Sebring, and sadly, will not win Petit Le Mans. In GTD Pro, currently, there has been a lead change and Franck Perera has passed by the #79 Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Dani Juncadella in the WeatherTech car. He must be on fuel save. It could be that drivers and data engineers are back timing this race, committing to the strategy and now, the GTP cars slicing and dicing around the GT Daytona cars! Holy smokes! Sebastian Priaulx in the lime green dinosaur APorsche and Gianmaria Bruni also passes. This is a hornet's nest.
The ambient light is beginning to change in twilight between daylight and darkness, two hours away from sunset. Darkness separates everyone and the cars will behave differently. Cold temperatures yield freezing cold tires over the blind entrance to turn three. At night you cannot see anything. Watch the top of the hill over the rise on icy cold front tires. It is going to be a complete madhouse! Think of the new GTP hybrid prototypes. The electronic control on cold tires on an out lap, it will be diabolical with the new moon out there. My gosh! Watch corner number three on the out lap.
No light with a new moon, will be bonkers. The slightest twitch for a championship contender, walking a tightrope, could be disaster. One position will decide the championship between the #31 Cadillac and the #10 Acura. The sun will be right in your face as it sets. Get a clean tear off. My gosh. This is going to be sketchy for a wee while. Ricky Taylor clearing LMP3 traffic. There's spent rubber streaking the windscreen and gearbox oil that has chucked out of the breather lines. The windscreens are completely smudged.
Ricky Taylor is running third right now behind the two Cadillac's and ahead of the #60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura of Tom Blomqvist. Nolan Siegel leads LMP2. Dakota Dickerson is the new LMP3 leader. Sigel said the biggest goal is to put a bow on the 2023 season. Again, 57 points cover the top three. Nolan Siegel won in SRO GT competition at the Indianapolis 8 Hours last weekend in their class. Nathan Toney is Nolan Siegel's Indy Next race engineer but he could be an engineer in IMSA for the next year. The team manager at JR III Bill Glavin is headed to LMP2 and United Autosport next year as the #38 Performance Tech LMP3 car is stuck, Brian Thienes at the wheel of it and he had no idea the Ferrari 296 GT3 was even there.
High sided on the curbs. Full Course Yellow number eight.
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