As Daytona rolls around once more, heralding the start of the sportscar racing season I’m happy to say Motornerd returns to give my account of the Florida epic. The blog now has a year of experience behind it, and with so much to look out for across the event it brings a slight restructure to my race reporting! I’ll be breaking down each class in order, which should hopefully add more flow and proffessionalism to what once was largely a wall of text.

GTP – Porsche Hold Lead as Attrition finds Acura and Ohta.

Porsche returned to running 1-2, while the #60 Meyer Shank Acura of A.J Allmendinger was handed a drive through penalty for failing to secure the car inside its pit box on the most recent set of stops, on what had been a difficult day for Acura as a whole. They’d managed with the #93 to fight Porsche somewhat but on the whole were being outclassed and now the #60 was down in 10th.

BMW were still struggling, and stuck down in 7th and 8th having lost the spark of performance they’d had earlier on in the night, both cars delayed for various reasons. The #25 was ahead of #24, Phillip Eng piloting the former and Dries Vanthoor in control of the latter.

GTP had been a relatively low attrition class thus far but it was the #93 to hit trouble with 13 hours and 40 minutes left, Kakuoshin Ohta limping on the apron back to the pits after his left front tyre dislodged itself and did considerable damage to the front of the car at the International Horseshoe. The car that had been the biggest threat to Porsche was now a lap down.

Meanwhile the JDC Miller #85 also fell of the lead lap, and the #60 would do the same before long.

And when the FCY was brought out to deal with the issue of low visibility, the GTP order was #7, #31, #6, #24, #25.

LMP2 – AO Retain Advantage, More Difficulty for TDS

AO Racing held the lead with their #99 machine ahead of Inter Europol’s #43, the #22 of United Autosports and the second Inter Europol #343 of George Kolovos.

The hour began with Pratt and Miller’s #73 returning to the track in the hands of Chris Cumming, the crew now running 51st overall and last in class.

The much delayed #2 that had been languishing at the very back of the field received a drive through penalty for contact with the #73.

Tobi Lutke had already had a rather poor showing having caused the opening lap multi-car crash, and now spun the car on pit exit having locked up, re-emerging 9 laps down and ninth in class, before further damaging their hopes by picking up a drive through penalty for pit speed violation. They’d end up re-emerging 10th in class and 10 laps down.

Another drive through went to the race-challenging #43 crew, for incorrect pit equipment placement. The team remained third, but were now a lap down, which meant only the race-leading #99 of AO Racing and the #22 United Autosports machine were on the lead lap in the LMP2 class at this point.

At the calling out of the FCY the LMP2 order stood at #99, #22, #8, #43, #04.

GTD PRO – BMW Leapfrog Corvette Before FCY Ends Battle.

Corvette still held a 1-2 lead, #4 ahead of #3 while the #911 Manthey Porsche of Ricardo Feller gave chase, fourth was Dan Harper’s #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW and Sebastian Priaulx’s #65 Ford Mustang. Indeed the Mustang had been nowhere near the front for most of the night running but was now working its way back into the picture.

Two more cars slowly fell out of contention, or at least had considerable blows to their chances: The #64 Ford Mustang of Ben Barker fell off the lead lap, as did the #48 Mercedes of Luca Stolz and Winward Racing, while the #033 Triarsi Competition Ferrari of James Calado had a lengthy pit stop to remove a stubborn tyre and also lost time.

When the FCY was called out for visibility reasons, the class stood at #1, #4, #3, #911, #65.

GTD – Lone Star Lead at Halfway Point After AF Corse Hit Strife

The order considerably changed behind the #21, as the HoR #27 Aston Martin ran second ahead of the #36 DXDT Corvette of Scott McLaughlin and Jens Klingmann’s #96 Turner Motorsport BMW, but it was tight.

There was drama too for the #023 Triarsi Competition, after a puncture forced driver Robert Magennis to limp back to the pits from halfway round the track and still on the lead lap – just.

The race leading #21 AF Corse machine then suffered two huge blows, as on a scheduled pit stop the team couldn’t release the wheelguns, which lost it roughly five minutes in the pits and then were handed a drive through penalty for their troubles, dropping the team down to 16th in class, as the former race leading Inception Ferrari #70 also spun and lost time.

Also moving up during the night was the #80 Mercedes of Lone Star Racing, coming to the forefront for the first time all race. And they would remain in a strong position when the FCY was brought out for visibility, #36, #80, #96, #27, 57.

image credit: Osajus Photography from Asheville, NC, United States, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons