Vanthoor Leads Opening Hour at Daytona

Photo: Mike Levitt/IMSA

Dries Vanthoor led the opening hour of the Rolex 24 at Daytona from pole for BMW M Team RLL.

The Belgian in the No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8 held a 13-second advantage over the No. 93 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 of Nick Yelloly, which started alongside the front row in second.

Jack Aitken ran third in the No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac V-Series.R, with Tom Blomqvist and Felipe Nasr completing the top-five for MSR and Porsche Penske Motorsport, respectively.

The No. 25 BMW of Sheldon van der Linde, which started from the rear of the 12-car GTP field, moved up to sixth overall and in class.

Trouble struck Mirko Bortolotti, meanwhile, who made an unscheduled stop at the end of the hour with the engine having come off the No. 63 Lamborghini SC63 before later going behind the wall.

While the GTP running has been relatively straight forward, LMP2 saw multiple early incidents, including two off-course excursions from then-leader Ben Keating in the No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca 07 Gibson.

It cost Keating the class lead to PJ Hyett, whose No. 99 AO Racing Oreca had a slightly lengthened first stop for attention to the left-front brake duct.

While Hyett continued to lead, Keating relinquished driving duties to co-driver Rodrigo Sales in the PR1/Mathiasen entry.

GTD Pro saw the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 of Andrea Caldarelli jump into the lead until an issue getting the left-front wheel off during its first stop saw it drop down the running order.

The No. 48 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Dan Harper took over the lead in class, ahead of Mike Rockenfeller’s class pole-sitting No. 64 Multimatic Ford Mustang GT3.

Winward Racing, meanwhile, is out front in GTD with its No. 57 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, which saw Russell Ward at the wheel.

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