Vanthoor Maintains Porsche’s Advantage With Four Hours Left

Photo: Jurgen Tap/Porsche

The No. 7 Penske Porsche 963 maintained its advantage at the head of the Rolex 24 at Daytona field with four hours of racing still to go.

Laurens Vanthoor held an 8.398-second advantage over the No. 24 Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8 of Kevin Magnussen, with Mathieu Jaminet in third position in the second factory Porsche.

The No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 of Colin Braun ran fourth, with Gianmaria Bruni in fifth in his JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche.

The GTP field has been stable despite two full-course cautions, with the two factory 963s and No. 24 BMW continuing to control the race.

The No. 25 BMW, however, suffered a puncture as a result of contact with the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Series. R of Filipe Albuquerque, who ran into the BMW after locking up into Turn 1.

Albuquerque served a drive-through penalty for incident responsibility.

LMP2 was led by Dane Cameron aboard the No. 99 AO Racing Oreca 07 Gibson, despite multiple challenges from the No. 88 AF Corse entry behind. At the 20-hour mark, Cameron held an 8.530-second advantage over Nicklas Nielsen.

Connor De Phillippi led a very competitive GTD Pro field, after multiple challenges from the No. 65 Multimatic Motorsports Ford Mustang GT3 and a recent charge from Tommy Milner in the No. 4 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R.

Dennis Olsen was consistently less than a second behind De Philippi’s No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO until the most recent round of pit stops, where he slotted into third behind Milner’s Corvette.

AWA led in GTD with Marvin Kirchhofer at the wheel of the customer Corvette. Co-driver Lars Kern helped bring the car up to the sharp end of the field prior to the races’ 11th and 12th full-course cautions.

The first of the back-to-back yellows came just as the 18th hour elapsed for the No. 04 Crowdstrike Racing by APR machine of Colton Herta, who damaged the rear deck and suspension of his Oreca after contact with the Turn 5 barriers.

The No. 04 crew was able to repair the car and return it to the field, albeit nine laps off the class lead and with multiple drive-through penalties for pit stop infractions.

A crash involving three GTD class cars into Turn 1 on the restart brought out a brief yellow after Alessandro Pier Guidi lost control of his No. 21 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 under breaking, collecting the No. 78 Forte Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, who later continued.

Scott Andrews simultaneously lost the rear of his No. 80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, but continued under its own power to drive behind the wall.

The Texas-based team was eventually able to rejoin the GTD field in the 19th hour.