24 Hours of Daytona – H+4: Cadillac sets the pace

Si Helio Castroneves tried to sow discord at the start of the race, the Cadillacs are indeed the cars to beat this weekend, at the 24 Hours of Daytona. The four DPi-VRs were at the top of the race at one point or another. Tristan Vautier (Spirit of Daytona) and Felipe Nasr (Action Express Racing #31) made a strong impression, but it is the #5 of Action Express Racing who is leading the proceedings after four hours of racing. The trio Filipe Albuquerque-Joao Barbosa-Christian Fittipaldi has a handful of seconds ahead of the #2 Nissan Onroak DPi of Ryan Dalziel-Scott Sharp-Olivier Pla, while the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac driven by Van der Zande-J. Taylor-Hunter Reay completes the top three. Around ten cars are still on the same lap as the leading car.

Among the incidents, let us note the multiple technical problems encountered by the Mazda RT24-Ps of Joest Racing, the punctures suffered by the two Nissan Onroak DPi or the spin of simon pagenaud (Acura ARX-05), pushed by a Stuart Middleton (Cadillac n°31) who was rightly penalized.

In GTLM, the start of the race was led by the No. 66 Ford GT of Joey Hand-Dirk Müller-Sébastien Bourdais, qui pointe toujours en tête au moment où nous écrivons ces lignes. Suivent la Porsche 911 RSR n°911 de Makowiecki-Pilet-Tandy, la deuxième Ford GT de Briscoe-Dixon-Westbrook et les deux Corvette C7.R, qui sont assurément dans le coup. Les BMW M8 GTE apparaissent plus en forme qu’en qualifications et n’ont pas encore concédé de tour à la voiture de tête.

Finally, in GTD, the Mercedes-AMG GT3 n°33 of Keating-Bleekemolen-Christodoulou-Stolz leads the way in front of the Audi R8 LMS n°29 of S. van der Linde-K. van der Linde-Schmidt-Mies and the No. 3 Lamborghini Huracan GT11 of Ineichen-Bortolotti-Perera-Breukers. On the French side, Mathieu Jaminet (Porsche 911 GT3 n°58) has already abandoned all hope of victory, his teammate Robert Renauer having made a mistake on the opening lap. As for Côme Ledogar (Acura NSX-GT3 n°93), he is currently fourth in the class.