H+6: Cadillac leads the way at Daytona

As we write these lines, the race has just been restarted after being interrupted for the fourth time, following a collision between the No. 52 Oreca and the No. 84 Cadillac. The first three neutralizations were due to the explosion of the engine of the Porsche 911 GT3 4 No. 99 of NGT Motorsport, stopped at the entrance to the pit lane of the No. 8 BMW M24 GTE and stopped on the track of the No. 50 Cadillac of Juncos Racing. Apart from the Porsche, everyone returned to the track.

The first six hours of racing of this 57th edition were very lively, particularly in GTLM. Indeed, in quick succession, Porsche, Ford and Corvette saw one of their cars delayed. The 911 RSR n°912 (Bamber-Vanthoor-Jaminet) was forced to change the splitter which took forever, the Ford GT n°67 (Briscoe-Westbrook-Dixon) was the victim of contact with the wall and the C7.R n°3 (Magnussen-Garcia-Rockenfeller) had to undergo repairs to the left front after contact in the pit lane with…the sister car. If the GT marked with the blue oval is still three laps away, its two rivals are respectively back in the same lap and one lap behind the leaders.

In DPi, the main information comes from the long repair to which the No. 5 Cadillac DPi-VR (Albuquerque-Barbosa-Fittipaldi) had to undergo. The defending champion, victim of stubborn rear lights, lost 12 laps in the process. If the Nissan Onroak n°54 (Bennett-Braun-Dumas-Duval) saw her left rear tire burst and received a 20” stop & go for excessive speed in the pits, she is still in the race, in seventh position.

The ranking – very provisional since the first seven are grouped into 10” – is dominated by two Cadillacs, the No. 31 of Derani-Nasr-Curran ahead of the No. 10 of Kobayashi-Alonso-J. Taylor-Van der Zande, at the wheel of which Alonso delivered a superb performance. Followed by Acura n°6 (Montoya-Cameron-Pagenaud), the two Mazda RT24-Ps, the No. 85 Cadillac of Barrichello, the No. 54 Onroak Nissan of Bennett and the No. 7 Acura of R. Taylor, which has just spun after a collision with the Bernhard's #77 Mazda. Here is the classification in the first quarter of the race, at the end of which points are distributed for the North American Endurance Cup

In GTLM, the No. 4 Corvette (Gavin-Milner-Fässler) is ahead of the No. 911 Porsche 911 RSR (Tandy-Pilet-Makowiecki), the Ferrari 488 GTE n°62 (Pier Guidi-Calado-Rigon-Molina) and the BMW M8 GTE n°25 (Farfus-De Philippi-Eng-Herta). The latter saves the honor of the Bavarian firm, whose No. 24 lost around fifteen laps due to a connectivity problem. The best Ford, the No. 66 of Bourdais-Hand-Müller is fourth.

La Mercedes-AMG GT3 n°33 of Bleekemolen-Keating-Stolz-Fraga leads the GTD ahead of the Audi R8 LMS GT3 n°29 of Morad-Mies-D. Vanthoor and the #3 Mercedes-AMG GT71 (Buhk-Schiller-Baumann-Perez).