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Dixon Out Front After Three Hours; Trouble for AXR

Chip Ganassi Racing out front at Sebring after three hours; Action Express suffers setback…

Photo: Jake Galstad/IMSA

Scott Dixon led the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring with three hours of racing completed, while Action Express Racing suffered setbacks after Pipo Derani made contact with an LMP3 car.

Dixon’s No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-Series.R ran 13 seconds clear of the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport Acura ARX-06, with Phillipp Eng’s No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8 and the pair of Porsche 963s ran closely behind to complete the top five.

The yellow-and-black Cadillac first gained the lead of the race at the start of the second when Sebastien Bourdais beat the No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac to the head of the first after a round of scheduled pitstops.

Derani, who attempted to double stint a set of tires, began struggling for pace and dropped out of the top three.

The Brazilian then ran into even more trouble when he made contact with the No. 38 Performance Tech Motorsports Ligier JS P320 Nissan of Robert Mau.

Mau spun at T13 when Derani came up to lap him, leaving the Cadillac unable to avoid a collision.

The contact inflicted left front damage to the No. 31 car, with the car now having dropped to the rear of the class as it pitted multiple times for repairs.

In the round of pitstops under caution that followed thereafter, the No.10 WTR Andretti entry briefly assumed the race lead when Ricky Taylor beat the newly installed Scott Dixon out of the pits, but the Kiwi recaptured first place with a pass into Sunset Bend not much later.

While Dixon has managed to pull a significant gap, Taylor has come under pressure from Eng, Nick Tandy, Felipe Nasr and Nick Yelloly behind.

Corvette Racing led GTD Pro, with the No. 3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R GTD assumed the lead during the stops under the full course caution caused by Derani’s incident.

Jordan Taylor was ahead of the No. 79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Maro Engel, with Kenton Koch’s No. 32 Team Korthoff Motorsports running third in the pack as the GTD class leader.

Corey Lewis holds second in the GTD class aboard the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3, followed by the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R of Laurens Vanthoor and the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes of Russell Ward.

In LMP2, a strong stint from Nolan Siegel has seen the No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR Oreca 07 Gibson take the class lead, while Andretti Autosport is in first place in LMP3 after contact with Riley Motorsports.

The No. 36 Ligier of Jarett Andretti was battling for the lead with the No. 74 car driven by Gar Robinson when the pair made side-by-side contact at Turn 15, leaving Robinson spinning off and dropping to the back of the back after pitting.

Davey Euwema is Sportscar365's European Editor. Based in The Netherlands, Euwema covers the FIA World Endurance Championship, European Le Mans Series and Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS, among other series.

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