Taylor Leads Opening Hour; GTD Pro Lexus Hits Trouble

Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti’s No. 10 Acura ARX-06 of Ricky Taylor took an early lead in a chaotic start to the Rolex 24 at Daytona, as the GTD Pro class Lexus RC F GT3 was heavily damaged in an incident with a LMP2 car.

Action Express Racing’s pole man Pipo Derani led the field to green, as Sebastien Bourdais in the Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-Series.R was jumped at the start by Felipe Nasr’s Penske Porsche 963.

Bourdais soon reinstated the Cadillac 1-2 with a pass on Nasr at Turn 1 at the start of lap four, and the two Cadillacs were circulating nose-to-tail when the first full-course yellow was called after 26 minutes in response to a crash for the No. 78 Forte Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 of Misha Goikhberg.

All ten GTP cars took to the pits, but it was Ricky Taylor in the No. 10 WTR Andretti Acura that jumped into the lead by virtue of short-filling, with Derani second and Bourdais third.

Bourdais passed Derani for second place and was pressuring Taylor for the lead when a second caution was called following an incident involving Mike Conway in the No. 14 Lexus and the No. 20 High Class Racing LMP2 car of Dennis Andersen.

Conway appeared to have nowhere to go when Andersen spun across his bows going through Turn 2, with the two cars making contact and leaving the Lexus heavily damaged. 

Conway made it as far as the back stretch before pulling over, while Andersen made it back to the pits under his own power before being pushed behind the wall.

Significant debris from the accident meant the field was still under caution at the one-hour mark, with Taylor leading Bourdais and Nasr back up to third ahead of Derani.

The second WTR Andretti Acura, the No. 40 machine of Louis Deletraz, was running fifth followed by the Proton Competition Porsche of Neel Jani and the second of the works 963s, the No. 6 of Nick Tandy that was delayed in the pits for a steering check.

In LMP2, George Kurtz led the way in the No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR Oreca 07 Gibson ahead of Nico Pino, who had taken over from pole-sitter Ben Keating in the No. 2 United Autosports machine at the first round of stops.

Pietro Fittipaldi, standing in for the injured Clement Novalak in the No. 52 Inter Europol by PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports car, ran third having taken over from starting driver Nick Boulle, who was allowed to start in the car’s original grid position of second in class.

Lexus driver Conway had been leading in GTD Pro at the time of his incident, taking over the car that had been started by Ben Barnicoat, but the team’s GTD class RC F GT3 led the GTD field overall in the hands of Aaron Telitz.

Andrea Caldarelli ran second in GTD and first in GTD Pro aboard the No. 19 Iron Lynx Lamborghini, ahead of Oliver Jarvis in the Pfaff Motorsports McLaren 720S GT3 Evo.

Corvette Racing with Pratt Miller Motorsports’ No. 3 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R was next up in the hands of Antonio Garcia, with Tommy Milner fourth in class, split on the road by the Conquest Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 of Manny Franco.

The GTD Pro pole-winning No. 77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R dropped down the field after Michael Christensen was hit with a drive-through penalty for making contact with the No. 3 Corvette on pit road.

AWA’s No. 13 Corvette suffered early dramas with a power steering problem that put it at the rear of the field, and then behind the wall, in the early stages.