Jaminet Ahead of Aitken With Six Hours to Go

Photo: Juergen Tap/Porsche

Mathieu Jaminet led Jack Aitken with six hours to go in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, although had yet to serve a penalty for a technical infraction.

Quick pit work by Porsche Penske Motorsport put the No. 6 Porsche 963 out front ahead of the No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac V-Series.R. following a back-and-forth battle between the two GTP class cars for most of the hour.

However, Jaminet’s Porsche was served with a stop-and-hold plus ten-second penalty for failure to adhere to the controlled powertrain parameters, marking the car’s third such penalty in the race.

The No. 7 Porsche of Matt Campbell ran third, ahead of the No. 5 Proton Competition Porsche driven by Neel Jani and the Louis Deletraz-driven No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06, which completed the top-five.

A two-and-a-half-hour stretch of green flag racing was interrupted when Matthew Brabham went off into the Turn 3 barriers in the No. 99 AO Racing Oreca.

Action resumed with seven hours and 42 minutes to go and has run caution-free since.

LMP2 was led by the No. 04 CrowdStrike by APR Oreca 07 Gibson of Malthe Jakobsen, who got out of the pits ahead of the No. 18 Era Motorsport entry, which had changed drivers to Ryan Dalziel.

The No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 of Neil Verhagen paced GTD Pro, ahead of the No. 4 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R.

The sister factory supported Corvette, meanwhile, ran fourth despite smoke and brief bursts of flames coming from the right-rear of the car.

GTD, meanwhile, was led by the No. 023 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3 of Alessio Rovera with six hours to go.

Trouble struck the No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW of Robby Foley, which had an oil pump belt breakage that sent it behind the wall.

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John