Heinrich Keeps Porsche Penske Out Front After Six Hours

Photo: Juergen Tap/Porsche

Laurin Heinrich maintained Porsche Penske Motorsport’s lead in the Rolex 24 at Daytona at nightfall, having completed six hours of racing.

The No. 7 Porsche 963 held a lead of 1.957 seconds over the No. 93 Acura ARX-06 of Nick Yelloly, with both cars haven overtaken the No. 85 JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche.

Tijmen van der Helm held the race lead about the privateer 963 having elected not to pit under the most recent caution, which was triggered when the No. 81 DragonSpeed Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R hit the Turn 3 wall after contact from the No. 73 Pratt Miller Motorsports Oreca 07 Gibson.

Van der Helm then proceeded to hold Heinrich at bay for multiple laps before eventually losing the lead, running third before pitting.

BMW moved up to fourth and fifth with its pair of M Hybrid V8s driven by Rene Rast and Raffaele Marciello, followed by the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Series.R in the hands of Will Stevens.

Connor Zilisch sat in seventh position for Action Express Racing, ahead of the No. 6 Porsche that has lost ground as a result of floor damage it sustained as a result of contact with an LMP2 in the opening hours.

As darkness fell over the Daytona International Speedway, it also brought the first major setback for a GTP entrant as the No. 23 Aston Martin Valkyrie stopped multiple times before going behind the wall with an unspecified issue.

It has since rejoined in 51st overall, 15 laps off the race lead.

AO Racing continued to dominate the LMP2 class, although the aforementioned caution wiped out a lead of some 40 seconds for the No. 99 Oreca.

After the restart, Jonny Edgar maintained the race lead, sitting 1.270 seconds clear of CrowdStrike Racing by APR driver Alex Quinn with 18 hours to go.

In GTD Pro, BMW and Paul Miller Racing hit the front for the first time, with Neil Verhagen capturing the class lead at the wheel of the No. 1 M4 GT3 EVO.

Verhagen ran ahead of the pair of Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsport entries, with the No. 3 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R of Marvin Kirchhoefer leading the No. 4 sister car in the hands of Nico Varrone.

The remainder of the top five in class consisted of Jules Gounon’s No. 69 GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo and the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2.

The plaid-liveried Lamborghini briefly led the class with Andrea Caldarelli at the wheel, but has dropped back after the Italian pitted to hand over to compatriot Mirko Bortolotti.

A Ferrari 1-2 in GTD was led by Thierry Vermeulen’s No. 34 Conquest Racing 296 GT3 Evo, with Frederik Schandorff taking the No. 70 Inception Racing-entered example ahead of the No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo of Eduardo Barrichello.

 

Source: Sports Car 365