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Vanthoor Tops Roar Night Session

Laurens Vanthoor breaks BMW’s hold on top spot as Saturday Roar running concludes…

Photo: Mike Levitt/IMSA

Laurens Vanthoor topped Saturday night running at the Roar Before the Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway.

The No. 7 Porsche 963 clocked a time of 1:36.271 during the fifth Roar session, which marked the first time on Saturday that a BMW did not occupy the top spot.

The pair of BMW M Hybrid V8s still took second and third however, with the No. 24 car of Philipp Eng 0.227 seconds behind Vanthoor and 0.444 seconds ahead of the sister No. 25 machine piloted by Sheldon van der Linde.

Tom Blomqvist slotted into fourth behind the wheel of the No. 60 Acura Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06, while Mirko Bortolotti rounded out the overall top five aboard the No. 63 Lamborghini SC63.

Inter Europol Competition led a tightly contested session in the LMP2 ranks, with multiple cars topping the times before Antonio Felix da Costa reeled off a 1:39.618 at the wheel of the No. 43 Oreca 07 Gibson.

That left the Portuguese racer 0.344 seconds ahead of the No. 11 TDS Racing entry of Mikkel Jensen, who in turn cleared the No. 73 Pratt Miller Motorsports Oreca of Callum Ilott by a mere 0.019 seconds.

The GT ranks, meanwhile, were dominated by Porsche as the German brand occupied the first four positions across GTD Pro and GTD.

Thomas Preining topped GTD Pro in the No. 20 Proton Competition Porsche 911 GT3 R with a best lap of 1:48.034, 0.106 seconds faster than GTD leader Elliott Skeer in the No. 120 Wright Motorsports car.

AO Racing’s Alessio Picariello sat a further 0.026 seconds further back, followed by the No. 83 Iron Dames Porsche in the hands of Michelle Gatting.

The fastest non-Porsche driver was Marvin Kirchhoefer, who was third in GTD in the No. 13 AWA Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R.

The two-hour session was once interrupted by a red flag, triggered when Tobias Lutke found the tire barriers at Turn 3 aboard the No. 18 Era Motorsport Oreca.

Roar running will conclude with two final sessions on Sunday, with the first one planned for 9:45 a.m. ET (3:45 p.m. CET).

Davey Euwema is Sportscar365's European Editor. Based in The Netherlands, Euwema covers the FIA World Endurance Championship, European Le Mans Series and Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS, among other series.

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