Acura DPi Leads Second Hour as Order Shuffles Behind

Photo: Rick Dole/IMSA

Dane Cameron inherited Juan Pablo Montoya’s lead for Acura Penske as the DPi order shuffled around behind him during hour two of the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

Cameron, who took over driving duties from Montoya in a green flag stop, held a two-second lead over Eric Curran in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac DPi-V.R at the close of the second hour.

Montoya’s opening-hour lead was put into question by Oliver Jarvis, who briefly moved ahead in the No. 77 Mazda RT24-P DPi, but the Colombian re-took the lead before handing over the No. 6 Acura.

The Joest-run Mazda then lost a position to Eric Curran, who jumped ahead of three cars during a round of pit stops under a full course caution.

The caution period was triggered by a dramatic engine blowout for the NGT Motorsports GTD Porsche which stopped on-track.

At the restart, Rene Rast sat in third in the Mazda started by Jarvis, while Olivier Pla ran fourth in the sister Joest car ahead of Helio Castroneves and Fernando Alonso.

In GT Le Mans, the order shuffled during the full course yellow pit stops when Ford Chip Ganassi Racing elected to keep its No. 66 car out on track.

This meant Joey Hand emerged ahead of Tommy Milner in the No. 4 Corvette C7.R and Patrick Pilet in the No. 911 Porsche 911 RSR as the race returned to green.

The No. 3 Corvette, which ran in the top two during the opening stanza, fell off the lead lap when the Pratt & Miller-run cars collided in the pits, resulting in front-end damage.

Rik Breukers led in GT Daytona for the GRT Grasser Racing Lamborghini squad after two hours, while James Allen headed a DragonSpeed 1-2 in the LMP2 category.

However, Breukers was dealt a three-minute and 40-second stop and hold penalty for disobeying the full course caution wave-by procedure.