Drama for Cadillac, BMW in Night Time Hours

Cadillac and BMW have lost contenders for victory in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, as the No. 01 and No. 24 cars both stopped on track in quick succession during the night.

The No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8 was first to hit trouble when Dries Vanthoor stopped on track at Turn 3 just shy of the 14-hour mark, triggering the 11th full-course yellow of the race.

Further time was lost for the No. 24 crew as initial attempts to tow the car back to the paddock failed, leaving Vanthoor 13 laps down by the time he was able to rejoin.

The caution allowed the No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-Series.R, which had previously gone two laps down following its earlier puncture, back on to the lead lap in the hands of Renger van der Zande.

That was until van der Zande went off at Turn 1 an came to a stop just before 3 a.m. local time, effectively removing one of the favorites for victory from contention.

Under the 12th full-course caution of the race, it was the surviving BMW, the No. 25 car of Rene Rast, that had taken the lead ahead of the No. 6 Penske Porsche 963 of Laurens Vanthoor.

The No. 31 Action Express Cadillac that had led at the halfway mark was third with Tom Blomqvist at the wheel.

Colton Herta was able to get back on the lead lap in the No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 and ran fourth ahead of Matt Campbell’s No. 7 Porsche.

Both privateer Porsches, the No. 5 Proton Competition car and No. 85 JDC-Miller Motorsports car, were able to get back on the lead lap as a result of the two cautions, meaning seven cars were on the lead lap with just over ten-and-a-half hours to go.

In LMP2, the No. 18 Era Motorsport Oreca 07 Gibson of Ryan Dalziel was out in front ahead of Nico Pino in the one remaining United Autosports entry, the No. 2 car.

Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports led the way in GTD Pro, Daniel Juncadella’s No. 3 Corvette Z06 GT3.R holding the advantage over Michael Christensen aboard the No. 77 AO Racing Porsche GT3 R.

Mercedes-AMG ran 1-2 in GTD, Indy Dontje in the No. 57 Winward Racing entry leading Kenton Koch in the No. 32 Korthoff/Preston Motorsports car.

The No. 55 Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3 became the ninth official retirement of the race, while the No. 66 Gradient Racing Acura NSX GT3 was behind the wall amid long-running electrical problems.