Into the second hour of racing. Still under yellow. Marcus Ericsson a team player in the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura ARX-06 which leads. Ericsson driving for Andretti Autosport in IndyCar. So, he is in the #10 WTR Andretti Acura with Ricky Taylor, Filipe Albuquerque, and Brendon Hartley. We go back to green. It is go time! Bourdais, Nasr, Derani, Deletraz. Derani forces his way in but gets chopped by Felipe Nasr in the Porsche. Nasr to the outside. Porsche and Cadillac. Nasr passes Bourdais for second! This is a sword fight on a tightrope! Wow. Deletraz gives way to Nick Tandy but will draft him back on the straightaway. Everyone looking for the inside line into the Le Mans chicane. This is frantic stuff already. Taylor, Bourdais, Nasr, Derani, and Tandy with Deletraz right there.
Alex Palou visits the Peacock pit box. It is always early but this is clean racing. Alex Palou says he gets too nervous out of the car. Ganassi Racing like all the other top teams, are bullish about their chances. At Action Express, I know we are. Single file in the top of the order in GTP. Alex Palou says the GTP cars are fun to drive but managing traffic is a massive deal. Nick Tandy wants to race Pipo Derani and Pipo Derani says "not now, sunbeam." Wow. A huge wad in the GTD Pro and GTD classes. Nasr and Taylor, Porsche and Acura, fighting as well and Pipo Derani is right there. The talent in this field is amazing, from every type of racing.
Sports cars, IndyCar, Formula 1, NASCAR. You name it. Derani now third. Alex Palou is now a dad. A number of these drivers have kids now, as well as being drivers, they are all dads. We are starting now to see reality, where everyone is on their performance for the lap times and the stint pace. Cadillac at the top of the tree but it is the #01 Ganassi car. Cadillac and Porsche all in the top five. Ganassi, Penske, Action Express, Penske, and JDC-Miller. Nico Pino for United Autosports leads LMP2. Aaron Telitz in GTD Pro for Lexus, and Andrea Caldarelli in the Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 in GT Daytona.
Star drivers from around the world are all here. From all kinds of racing. This is an all-star race. It truly is. A record crowd. I wish I was there. Maybe next year I shall return. Anyhow, as we go on with this motor race, with the full NBC Sports family guiding us through this event. Sebastien Bourdais leading. Pipo Derani from Action Express, he too, is flying. Acura have been at the front as well. They want four wins in a row.
Cadillac looking for their first victory since 2020. Ganassi Racing and Action Express have both won this race before. For Action Express, and my mates on that team, we really want it. Again, we have seen a lot of incidents. We have seen three massive incidents so far and we are just in the second hour. We have seen three LMP2 cars go off the road as well. Pipo Derani and Sebastien Bourdais both think Acura and Porsche will have something. Everything is good with the boys at AXR. They are in good shape and of course, the Ganassi team, our rivals, they have a stacked driver lineup as well.
At Risi Competizione Ferrari with the 296 GT3, they have flown Plummet Airways to the rear of GTD. Their air jack system was not working and the fuel flow rate was too fast and they were penalized. Risi Competizione are confident but they will need to have a look at the air jack system. Pietro Fittipaldi replaced Clement Novalak who was hurt in pit stop practice. Fittipaldi on a new team and is second in class. Vasser Sullivan, last year's IMSA GTD Pro champions. They are rallying around their drivers and working on the car.
You do not give up. You do not throw in the towel. You limit the damage and do everything to get back after it. The ebb and flow of an endurance race is incredible. Pipo Derani third overall and in GTP. Nico Pino at United Autosports leads LMP2. Andrea Caldarelli leads GTD Pro and Aaron Telitz in GTD. Derani goes to the high side nipping past old teammate Felipe Nasr, now racing for Porsche. The Cadillac has great straight line speed. Porsche, Cadillac, BMW, Acura. All four brands are so much more confident.
Last year, it was a discovery mission for everyone and now, these rocketships have set sail. The parts and so on are working. Tuning the cars is what this is all about. These cars are so fast! Over 200 miles an hour. Everyone last year was so ancious and skeptical. But those very same teams now say "no worries. We are in good shape." Dan Goldburg has spun the #22 United Autosport Oreca 07. Jerry Bruckheimer, the legendary Hollywood producer who gave the command to start engines, he did "Days of Thunder" at Daytona in 1990 and now has this new film with Brad Pitt based around F1 but the driver starts in endurance sports car racing.
Bruckheimer also did the movie "Top Gun" about fighter jet pilots. Being a fighter pilot and being a race car driver, are very similar. The #120 Wright Motorsports movie car, a Porsche 911 GT3R (992), with Adam Adelson, Elliott Skeer, Fred Makowiecki, and Jan Heylen. The movie will be out in 2025, so look for it. Pit stop time for the #10 WTR Andretti Acura. Four tires and fuel. They have been running towards the front, and have more weight added to the car as we are just over an hour and a half in. James Hinchcliffe will be taking his first stint soon in the #9 Pfaff Motorsports McLaren.
This is a very warm day. It has been freezing cold in past years. It is very warm today, a typical Florida day. Track conditions are a bear. 0-20 and 20-24, two races in one, really. James Hinchcliffe will be taking over from Oliver Jarvis. There's a long, long way to go. Marvin Kirchofer will be next into the #9 car. Another driver must be prepared to be in the pit box if need be. Another driver could get sick or something may go wrong. The driver next up is listening to what his co-driver is telling the crew chief to make sure the car is running in peak condition.
The racing has been phenomenal. The GTP cars splitting the LMP2 cars! Pipo Derani on top of the banking, passing the #74 Riley Motorsports Oreca and the #85 JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche 963 of Richard Westbrook. Again, we have only been racing now for an hour and a half. The #74 car we saw is the Riley Motorsports Oreca 07 shared by Felipe Massa, Gar Robinson, Felipe Fraga, and Josh Burdon. The #85 JDC-Miller Porsche has Ben Keating, Richard Westbrook, Tijmen van der Helm, and Phil Hanson. We are also seeing a duel between the two BMW Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8's.
#24 is shared by Jesse Krohn, Philip Eng, Augusto Farfus, and Dries Vanthoor. In the #25 sister car it is Connor De Philippi, Nick Yelloly, Rene Rast, and Maxime Martin. Porsche #7 in the lane, serviced and sent. Now, a driver change in the #9 Pfaff Motorsports McLaren 720S GT3. Marvin Kirchofer taking over from Oliver Jarvis from second in GTD Pro. Alexander Rossi is the other star driver. The #01 Ganassi Racing Cadillac is in the lane and Sebastien Bourdais hands off to Scott Dixon. Whelen Engineering Cadillac are in the pit box as well.
A clean pit stop for the Whelen Cadillac as wel. A full stint is 40 seconds worth of fuel flow. Because Whelen Engineering are champions, they are in the first pit box. A concern for our team is that if we drop down first, the opposition responds and beats them out of the pit lane. So, we are going to be pushing like crazy. #31 now passing the #85 JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche 963. Ben Keating now in the Porsche 963. This will be his most difficult double duty pulling with the prototypes. He has a car that is so complex, it is unreal.
He is playing it smart. It is much more complicated than the LMP2 car, the #2 United Autosport car. Speaking of United Autosport, the #22 is Dan Goldburg, Paul di Resta, Felix Rosenqvist, and Bijoy Garg. Corvette Racing now has customer cars and Pratt & Miller who have developed these cars for years are one of the customers. Antonio Garcia now sharing the #3 Corvette GT3 with Alexander Sims and Daniel Juncadella. Joey Hand has the Ford Mustang in second in class, the #65 Ford Mustang GT3. Hand sharing with Dirk Mueller and Fredric Vervisch. The sister #64 is being driven by Harry Tincknell, Mike Rockenfeller, and Christopher Mies.
Ford are building 40-50 of these Mustang GT3's over the next two years. There is a GTD #55 Mustang as well with Proton Competition. Scott Dixon and Dane Cameron scrapping with each other for the overall lead of the motor race as Jack Aitken is now in the #31 Action Express Whelen Cadillac. Dixon is opening a gap right now over Dane Cameron. Back to that Proton Mustang #55. That is the car of Ryan Hardwick, Dennis Olsen, Giammarco Levorato, and Corey Lewis.
Jordan Pepper is serving a penalty for the #19 Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 for not putting enough fuel in the tank. The meter is monitored in real time during the race by the stewards and the technical staff. Jordan Pepper, the South African sharing with Franck Perera, Andrea Caldarelli, and Mirko Bortolotti. We are nearly two hours into the race here looking at the clock. Another racing hour about to conclude. We have Jordan Taylor back with his family's team in the #40 Acura, the Dex Imaging car.
Scott Dixon, Dane Cameron, Jack Aitken, Ricky Taylor, Matthieu Jaminet, Louis Deletraz, Ben Keating, Nick Yelloly, Philip Eng, and Gianmaria Bruni, the top ten in GTP. Another big wreck! Yellow, yellow, yellow! A massive front end and rear tail hit for Steven Thomas in the #11 PR1/Mathiasen Oreca! Good gravy! This motor car is totally destroyed! What on earth happened? Into the Bus Stop, he just loses it and clobbers the wall! It's hot, and the tires got away. This is a second set of tires, in the heat. The rear snapped away. Steven Thomas sharing with Mikkel Jensen, Hunter McElrea, and Charles Milesi.
Full Course Yellow. We are under Full Course Yellow, heading for another hour. Survival during the night is going to be key with double stinting the tires in the GTP class. This is such a tricky spot on the road following in the aero wash of the GT3 cars.
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