Customer Porsches 1-2 in Fourth Roar Session

Customer Porsche 963s locked out the top two positions for Saturday afternoon’s fourth Roar Before the Rolex 24 test session at Daytona International Speedway.

JDC-Miller Motorsports driver Phil Hanson narrowly set the fastest time of the Roar so far, a 1:35.216, in the No. 85 car with just over 20 minutes left on the clock in the 60-minute session, eclipsing Pipo Derani’s Friday benchmark by a thousandth of a second.

Hanson’s best time knocked Neel Jani in the No. 5 Proton Competition Porsche off the top spot, but the Swiss driver’s time of 1:35.329 was enough to end the session second-fastest.

The lead BMW M Hybrid V8, the No. 25 car of Connor De Phillippi, set an identical time to Jani to go third, followed by Sebastien Bourdais in the No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-Series.R and Tom Blomqvist in the No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac.

Jesse Krohn was next up in the second of the BMWs, while the quicker of the Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06s, the No. 10 car, was seventh in the hands of Brendon Hartley.

The two works Penske Porsches ended the session in eighth and 10th places, sandwiched by the No. 40 WTR Acura.

In LMP2, Ben Keating set the pace aboard the No. 2 United Autosports Oreca 07 Gibson with a 1:39.047 – meaning both cars that the Texan is set to race next weekend topped their respective classes.

Paul di Resta made it a one-two for United in the No. 22 car, 0.047 seconds down on Keating, while Connor Zilisch made a late jump to third in the No. 18 Era Motorsports Oreca.

Porsche swept the top three positions in the GTD category, with Klaus Bachler leading the way in the No. 86 MDK Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R with a best time of 1:45.799.

Next up were Trent Hindman in the No. 92 Kellymoss with Riley machine and Frederic Makowiecki in the No. 120 Wright Motorsports car.

Best of the GTD Pro cars and fourth among the GTD cars in general was the No. 23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo, in which Mario Farnbacher set the benchmark time of 1:46.066.

Second and third in class went to the pair of new Ford Mustang GT3s entered by Ford Multimatic Motorsports, Mike Rockenfeller in the No. 64 car leading the sister No. 65 entry of Dirk Mueller.

Two cars in the class, the No. 3 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R and the No. 60 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2, failed to set lap times, with Corvette reporting electrical gremlins on both of its Pratt Miller Motorsport-run GTD Pro cars. Earl Bamber completed only four laps aboard the No. 4 Corvette.

There was also drama involving the Pfaff Motorsports McLaren 720S GT3 Evo, which pulled over on the backstretch on its out lap and was about to be towed back to the pits, before driver James Hinchcliffe intervened and removed the radiator block, which had been left on the car by mistake.

Hinchcliffe returned to the track to complete nine laps.

One more test session is scheduled for later on Saturday, beginning after sunset at 6.30 p. m. ET.

RESULTS: Session 4