Porsche Penske Dominates Rolex 24 Opening Hour

Porsche Penske Motorsport dominated the opening hour of the Rolex 24 at Daytona, which featured a multi-car LMP2 incident on the opening lap.

Felipe Nasr’s No. 7 Porsche 963 led the sister car of Kevin Estre, with Renger van der Zande following in third aboard the polesitting No. 93 Acura ARX-06.

Van der Zande was overtaken by Nasr on the opening lap of the race, which then quickly fell under caution when multiple LMP2 cars collided at the first corner.

The No. 18 Era Motorsport Oreca 07 Gibson of Naveen Rao was found to have caused the incident, which also involved the No. 83 AF Corse Oreca of Francois Perrodo, TDS Racing driver Tobias Lutke, CrowdStrike Racing by APR’s George Kurtz and the No. 2 United Autosports entry driven by Phil Fayer.

The latter took the brunt of the damage, going behind the wall and losing 20 laps to the class lead before rejoining.

In the opening lap melee, Dries Vanthoor also spun the No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8 but was able to continue without damage.

Wayne Taylor Racing’s pair of Cadillac V-Series.Rs moved into fourth and fifth courtesy of Louis Deletraz and Filipe Albuquerque, followed by the No 85 JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche and No. 60 Acura of Tom Blomqvist.

Marco Wittmann and Vanthoor ran eighth and ninth for BMW, ahead of the No. 23 Aston Martin Valkyrie and the No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac.

Jack Aitken made strong progress in the opening laps in the Whelen Engineering-liveried machine, but has been dropped back to the field as a result of a drivethrough penalty for a jump start.

LMP2 was led by the No. 52 Bryan Herta Autosport with PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca of Ben Keating after the Texan made an off-sequence pitstop.

As a result, he has filtered to the front ahead of AO Racing’s PJ Hyett and the No. 343 Inter Europol Competition Oreca driven by Georgios Kolovos.

Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports dominated the opening hour in the GTD Pro class, running 1-2 after fending off an early challenge from 75 Express driver Maro Engel.

Engel’s No. 75 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo briefly fought his way past the polesitting No. 3 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R of Alexander Sims, only for Sims to retake the lead not much later.

Engel was then also passed by the sister No. 4 Corvette in the hands of Nicky Catsburg, but has held off the No. 65 Ford Mustang GT3 EVO of Fred Vervisch.

Neil Verhagen, meanwhile, climbed up to fifth in class after a strong opening hour in the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO.

In GTD, Winward Racing ran out front at the end of the opening hour, with the No. 57 Mercedes-AMG Mercedes-AMG of Philip Ellis ahead of a pair of Ferrari 296 GT3 Evos of Antonio Fuoco and Frederik Schandorff.

The GTD category also produced the first retirement of this year’s Florida endurance classic after Eric Zitza’s No. 28 RS1 Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo hit the pit exit wall and inflicted heavy damage.

Zitza, for his part, was checked and released from the on-site medical center, according to a Porsche spokesperson.