Daytona H+18: pelotons grouped in the lead, Lapierre on the mat

At Daytona, there is no point in racing, you have to stay on the leader's lap until money time. If we have witnessed some tensions coming in particular from Kamui Kobayashi in Dpi and some nice passes in GT, everything remains to be done in the main categories.

Overall, the No. 10 Acura from Wayne Taylor Racing (Albuquerque, Taylor, Red, Castroneves) and the No. 01 Cadillac of Chip Ganassi Racing (Kevin Magnussen, Renger van der Zand, Scott Dixon) exchange orders, but five cars can still win. Only the Cadillac JDC Miller of the French Bourdais, Vautier and Duval as well as the Mazda are out of the game.

In LMP2, we are heading towards a duel between the very French #8 Oreca from Tower Motorsport driven by John Farano, Gabriel Aubry, Matthieu Vaxiviere, Timothe Buret and the #18 Oreca from Era Motorsport, notably in the hands of Paul-Loup Chatain.

The two cars are separated by four seconds. Behind, the hole is made. In this category, the main victim of the night was Mikkel Jensen. The teammate of Nicolas lapierre at the wheel of the Oreca of PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports made a mistake when leaving the pits, causing the retirement.

In LMP3, victory should go to the No.74 Riley Motorsport Ligier.

In GTLM, the fight is more intense than expected. If overall, the two Corvettes are a slight step above, as evidenced by their two current first places, the #8 BMW M24 GTE and the Ferrari 488 GTE n°62 from Risi Competizione are still in ambush for the win.

But in recent hours, the show has mainly been provided by the GTD and more precisely two cars, the Mercedes n°57 HTP Winward Motorsport and the n°488 AF Corse Ferrari 3 GT21.

At the wheel are two of today's best GT drivers, Maro Engel and Daniel Serra. For more than two stints, the two men went wheel to wheel and exchanged the lead. The German notably showed exceptional resistance around the 7 hours before the finish, when he had to play with the doors to keep his position.

In the end, the Ferrari was able to take the lead after the pit stop, but the two drivers remained in a fight. Five cars can still win in GTD, with a Lamborghini and two Porsche.

Follow the race live on video here.