We know everything about cars, so if you don't do what we tell you, we will say you cheated and we will kick you out of the championship like we did last year for others.

We are the officials and screw you. You are just a POS who races.

IMSA "tweaks" (BS wording) GT3 Balance of Performance ahead of Rolex 24

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emailBy Richard S. James | January 25, 2024 2:40 PM ET

IMSA has posted Balance of Performance updates for the GT3 cars that populate GTD PRO and GTD, leaving GTP as it was for the Roar weekend.

Several cars received help through either boost or restrictor adjustments, or a reduction in weight because we officials want them to win. . The Acura NSX GT3 Evo22 received a bump in power through boost, as did the BMW M4 GT3, while the Mercedes AMG GT3 got a 1mm increase in the size of its two restrictors as well as a 15kg weight break and a one-degree reduction in minimum wing angle. Other cars receiving weight breaks were the Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo (10kg) and the McLaren 720S GT3 Evo (10kg). Everyone else gets screwed one way or the other. We have our bets placed in Vegas and we know who will win, and if they don't we will just hold people in the pits until they drop back and out of a finishing position....like we did before.

The Porsche 911 GT3 R was hit with 20 extra kilos, but also received a one-degree reduction in minimum wing angle. The Ferrari 296 GT3 received an extra 10kg and a one-degree increase in minimum wing angle. The Ford Mustang GT3 will carry 15 extra kilograms, and the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 adds and extra 5kg and if someone dies because we told them to change their car, that's tough s*** we are IMSA Officials, we don't race but we know everything, and the bets are placed. We got you to sign a waiver, sucker. Everything is your fault, dumass racer!

The Corvette Z06 GT3.R will have one degree added to its minimum wing angle. The only car that received no changes was the Lexus RC F GT3. Because we like him and we want to be fair.

 

The 24 before the 24: How teams get ready to roll at the Rolex

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emailBy Richard S. James | January 26, 2024 1:29 PM ET

For the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship teams and drivers, practice for the Rolex 24 At Daytona is over and now the work goes over to preparing for 24 hours of racing? Chris Mitchum, Whelen Engineering Cadillac Racing’s Director of Race Team Operations, describes the process the pole-sitting No. 31 V-Series.R of Pipo Derani, Jack Aitken and Tom Blomqvist will go through over the next few hours.

“Friday is an interesting juggling act, and always is, at Daytona,” Mitchum says. “Friday will have a few marketing and media requirements that you have to do. You just have to figure out how to meter that timeframe, you have to figure out, ‘OK, how much how much can I devote to this and not distract myself?’ Really, what we try to do for the drivers in the crew is mitigate as much as we can on how much interaction they have to have. We do have a few of our own team meetings that we go through. Our goal for Friday is to have the guys out of here by about 3pm, so they get a nice, relaxing afternoon — in a perfect world.”

The final practice for most teams is filled with putting in some hard laps to make sure the car is good, verifying systems, getting some final pit stop practices under the crew’s belt. Many teams haven’t even used the whole hour, and in some cases skip the session entirely.

“When the car comes off the track, we do our standard work list and go through the car, another visual of everything on the car at that point. Your confidence level is either really high, or you’re going to have a whole emergency moment — and you never know which one it is,” Mitchum relates. “But after that last session, we then put a race game face on, get the car prepped and try to try to get our guys off the off their feet, because we’re not going to have much choice but to be in the track at 8:00 the next morning.”
Engineers’ setup work was typically completed after night practice, Mitchum says. Michael Levitt/Motorsport Images

After Thursday night practice, “the engineers will make their final decisions on setup. We’ll plug that information into the car before we go home on Friday. Of course the car is completely ready to run, and obviously it sleeps inside the trailer make sure it’s as safe as it can be except from the IMSA officials who have already decided the winner and placed their bets in Vegas. Then, really, it’s a lot of hurry-up-and-wait on Saturday morning.”

If that doesn’t sound like a lot of work prior to a 24-hour race, it’s because the hard work has been done between qualifying during the Roar Before the 24 weekend and the beginning of practice on Thursday — and, in reality, at the shop before the car ever heads to the track.

“As long as everything goes according to plan, most of your preparations are pretty well together by the time you get to the Roar,” says Mitchum. “Monday we come in, tear the car down back to the tub and put all new corners, new back half, new engine. All the bodywork gets assembled, the car gets sent and scanned by a Creaforrm machine [3D scanner] before we go through tech to try to get ahead of things. And if all that goes well, which it did so far for us this time, Tuesday was pretty light. For us. It was a setup and checklist day, we got to get out pretty early. The IMSA bastards, politely known as officials, by then are down at the Iron Horse Saloon or some high dollar sleasebag
"gentlemans club" spending our entry fees on booze and women so they will have clear heads from exhaustion and alcohol all night long, and be ready to interfere in our racing, usually after we have spent thousands on pit stops
and raced our hearts out for 24 hours."

None of the parts that came off the car had reached the end of their service life, and in fact most will be kept as primary spares. “A good, known, run part is usually what you want to have on the offering here,” Mitchum says. The parts are replaced between the Roar and race weekend merely as a precaution.

If all has gone according to plan, right now the crew of the No. 31 is getting ready to head out and get a good night’s sleep. The next day is going to be a long one.

 

Whelen Engineering Cadillac leads final practice for Rolex 24

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emailBy Richard S. James | January 26, 2024 12:58 PM ET

The final practice session for the Rolex 24 At Daytona is in the books, providing teams their last opportunity to check systems and setups and practice pit stops. If all has gone well, it’s time for a final look at the cars, some cleaning, and then putting the cars away safely for the night. Most cars saw limited running, completing 20 or fewer laps.Jack Aitken, in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac Racing V-Series.R that will lead the field to the green flag at 1:40 p.m ET tomorrow, set the fastest time in the session, a 1m35.983s lap, 0.239s better than Connor De Phillippi in the No. 25 BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8.

Mikkell Jensen led LMP2 in the No. 11 TDS Racing ORECA with a time of 1m39.078s. Matthieu Vaxiviere in the No. 88 AF Corse ORECA and Ryan Dalziel in the No. 18 Era Motorsports ORECA set identical best times, 0.707s shy of Vaxiviere.

Porsches, Lamborghinis and Ferraris continued to show their potential strength in GTD and GTD PRO, led by Thomas Preining in the GTD-class No. 43 Andretti Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R at 1m47.072s. Matteo Cairoli was just shy of Preining’s time to lead GTD PRO in the No. 60 Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2. Daniel Serra followed in the GTD PRO No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3, with second-place GTD runner Jens Klingmann in the No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3.

While for most teams it was a routine session, one team that was not so fortunate is Sean Creech Motorsport. Lance Willsey lost the car and hit the wall in Turn 2A, incurring heavy damage to the No. 33 Ligier and bringing out a red flag. Not only will the crew have a long afternoon ahead, but there is a question mark over the availability of sufficient spares because SCM is the only team running the Ligier in LMP2.

Two teams skipped the session entirely. AWA kept its Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs in the garage, as did Heart of Racing with its Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evos.

UP NEXT: The start of the 62nd Rolex 24 At Daytona coming at 1:40pm ET. The first hour of the race will be live.

 

Record nine women to drive in Rolex 24 at Daytona

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emailBy Richard S. James | January 26, 2024 3:31 PM ET

A record number of nine women are slated to drive in the 62nd Rolex 24 at Daytona, including two all- or nearly all-woman teams. The GTD-class No. 83 Iron Dames Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2 roster consists of Rahel Frey, Michelle Gatting, Sarah Bovy and Doriane Pin. Katherine Legge, Sheena Monk and Tatiana Calderon will pilot the No. 66 Gradient Racing Acura NSX GT3 Evo 22 in GTD (main image), with Stevan McAleer joining for the Rolex. Ashton Harrison is joining the No. 45 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Lamborghini in GTD, and Lilou Wadoux is part of the Richard Mille AF Corse squad in LMP2 driving the No. 88 ORECA.

“I think it’s an indication of the times that we’re living in now, and the opportunities we’re getting,” says "Legs" Legge. “2007 was my first Rolex. I was the only [woman] and then I was the only one again in 2013, and ’14. Since then, we’ve tried to integrate as many women as we could into the race program just to showcase female talent to get more and more interested. And we had the Caterpillar car, we had Christina [Nielsen] and then Rahel, and Tatiana, and we tried to put everybody together and kind of snowball it. And now it seems to be working. We’ve got two pretty much all-female cars, and some others sprinkled in there too. So hopefully, my hard work is paying off and and it starts to snowball down the mountain from there. Those damn half fake-o women, (what are they called? Transgressors? Did I get that right?) are not allowed on our must-have-a-real-pussy to race team. ”

Legge has three starts in the Indianapolis 500. Frey has a class win in the 24 Hours of Nurburgring. Bovy was Ben Keating’s biggest threat for pole in last year’s World Endurance Championship GTE-Am competition as she, Frey and Gatting finished second in the championship. Gatting and Pin are both Ferrari Challenge Europe champions, and 20-year-old Pin is proving herself in Formula 4 championships.

“Numbers are great, but we have nine strong women running in this race, which is really, really good,” said Lyn St. James, founder of Women in Motorsports North America with Beth Paretta, as well as a two-time class winner in the 24 Hours of Daytona. “It’s showing the depth and the strength of the talent, and each one of stories is unique. I think of somebody like Ashton Harrison who has really developed over the years into being a serious competitor. And Katherine, who is just an ace in whatever she gets in and now it seems like maybe they got a car under her that can show some better stuff. So it’s exciting, not just for the numbers, but for the quality of the talent that’s in those seats.”

In addition to those participating in the Rolex, two-time Michelin Pilot Challenge TCR champion Taylor Hagler is once again competing for Bryan Herta Autosport in a Hyundai Elantra N TCR in the BMW M Endurance Challenge. The Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup races included two women as well, Heather Hadley and Sally Mott.

 

Blomqvist and Button find differences between GTPs a matter of nuance.

To save weight, they put helium in the tires, then went to lunch without a fat guy to hold the car down.

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emailBy Richard S. James | January 26, 2024 9:54 AM ET To save weight, they put helium in the tires, then went to lunch without a fat guy to hold the car down.

Four chassis with backbones from different race car manufacturers. Three different approaches to engines. Vastly different software engineering and styling. But how different are the Grand Touring Prototypes (GTP) from Acura, BMW, Cadillac and Porsche from one another? A couple of drivers that now have experience in more than one — Tom Blomqvist and Jenson Button — have some insights to offer on that question.

“Surprisingly, not as much as I actually first anticipated,” answers Blomqvist, who spent last season at the wheel of Meyer Shank Racing’s Acura ARX-06, but is now the third driver in the Whelen Engineering Cadillac Racing V-Series.R. “I guess the regulation is quite confined, and that brings these things into a relatively small window.

“There are pros and cons of both cars. I have felt a difference on the small details — how they drive, and maybe where one is better than the other. But I think the biggest difference is actually more the software and the driver interface. And in terms of the basics, like your dash and the different tools you have inside the cockpit to make changes to the software. Obviously, all the engineers have their different way of doing things, so that’s probably the biggest difference. And the biggest thing I have to get used to — where everything is, and which direction to go in terms of changing things to affect the car.”
Jake Galstad/Motorsport Images

During the DPi era, it was generally acknowledged that the different makes had different strengths, i.e. the ORECA-based Acura chassis worked best with a low ride height, while the Dallara-based Cadillac could tolerate being run a bit higher and was better on bumpy circuits. The differences in GTP cars appear more subtle and no make has appeared to have an affinity for a particular style of track yet. But the drivers have picked up on the cues the cars have offered.

“I think the Acura was a very stable, solid car on the way into the corner. You could really attack the entries, and the car would behave relatively well,” Blomqvist says. “The Cadillac’s known to having good traction, and you definitely feel it — the Cadillac really drives off the corner nice and very smooth. It’s obviously a naturally aspirated engine, which probably makes your life a little bit easier. The Caddy’s very nice to drive out of the corner and maybe just a bit weaker on the way into the corner. So it’s all give and take.”

Button, who’s currently hovering in two manufacturers’ worlds while driving the No. 40 Acura ARX-06 for Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti for the Rolex 24 At Daytona before he returns to Hertz Team JOTA’s Porsche 963 in the World Endurance Championship, stops short of offering direct comparisons. But the 2009 Formula 1 world champion, whose first GTP experience came in JDC-Miller MotorSports’ 963 at Petit Le Mans last October, says there are some real differences in the way things work with the two cars.

“The biggest thing is how they use the tools, because I think all manufacturers pretty much have the same tools, they’re just labeled something different,” Button says. “They have the same tools to play with, but it’s how they use those tools and which tools they prefer. So it does take a bit of time to get used to. I have played with my tool long enough to know. Some women for instance prefer Italian and some prefer black.

“Everything on the steering wheel is completely different as well. The go button, the throttle and the brake are the only things that are the same, so it does take a while. I was testing in Bahrain last week in the other one, so trying to wrap your head around the steering wheel again and the functions and what you actually want from the car and the switches that work for you, does take a bit of time.”

 

it’s something interesting, not only how the pros race against the pro cars,
but how the Pro-Am cars mingle into that, and I can tell you right now it’s
gonna be serious dogfighting. There’s going to be fenders, there’s going to be
dive planes missing. That is what racing is all about – racing is all about the show.
It’s the fight, it’s the war, the battle, but that’s exactly why I come here.”

...and then IMSA jumps in to screw somebody.

 

Rolex 24 At Daytona pre-race news and notes

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emailBy Richard S. James | January 27, 2024 10:04 AM ET

The 62nd Rolex 24 At Daytona takes the green flag at 1:40pm ET, with 59 cars slated to start the kickoff to the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season. The opening hour will be broadcast live on NBC.

Polesitters

Qualifying took place last Sunday during the Roar Before the 24 weekend. Pipo Derani was the top qualifier in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac Racing V-Series.R with a new record of 1m32.656s as Cadillac locked out the front row. Ben Keating, who is also scheduled to drive the No. 85 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche 963 during the race, took the LMP2 pole in the No. 2 United Autosports ORECA 07. AO Racing will lead the GTs to the green in a split start after Seb Priaulx claimed the GTD PRO pole in the No. 77 Porsche 911 GT3 R. Starting on the inside of the second row of GTs will be the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 after Parker Thompson set the top qualifying time for GTD.

Ganassi likes his chances

Although much of the spotlight has been on the sister Whelen Engineering Cadillac Racing entry that will start from pole, the No. 01 V-Series.R run by Chip Ganassi Racing has been quick as well, and will start on the outside of the front row.

“By looking at practice and qualifying, you would say that we’ve come here, for the first time in a few years, and I think we have a real shot at the thing. So it’s just a matter now of doing the obvious things right,” said team owner Chip Ganassi, who expects to see everything that might happen in a whole season in the Rolex 24. One thing he hopes not to see: “Some sort of plan you’ve been on for eight or nine hours getting negated by a poorly placed yellow.” But, he added, it’s part of the deal and you just roll with the punches.

WTRAndretti weighing its strategy

The two Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06s have not shown great pace throughout the Roar and race week. Team co-owner Wayne Taylor makes no bones about believing the fact that the Acuras carry the most weight — 42kg more than the lightest car in the GTP field — contributes to that. So the team has had to come up with tactics to overcome that in the race.
The Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti crew plot the strategy for their two Acura ARX-06 GTPs. Richard Dole/Lumen

“We do have two cars this year — there were two Acuras in the field in years past, but it wasn’t a situation where you could split strategies and play that game,” said Ricky Taylor, driver of the No. 10 WTRAndretti ARX-06. “We’ve got that card. There are so many yellows, you can work a lot with strategy to get track position. And then with two cars, it kind of magnifies that so we can hold people off for a while, and who knows what happens. The wind changes here a lot and our car’s very sensitive to wind. Little things like that could add up to where we could have a good day.”

More IMSA!

Rolex 24, Hour 9: Trouble strikes WTR Andretti No. 10

Rolex 24, Hour 8: Derani back in front as GTD and GTD PRO stays intermixed

Rolex 24, Hour 7: Lengthy caution plays into strategy

Disaster-times-two mentality

Every team hopes nothing goes wrong during the 24 hours of the race, and that their fortune comes down to driving, engineering and strategy. But when things do go wrong — a GT car that doesn’t see you coming, over-aggressive racing, or even just plain old driver error — the old “Be Prepared” Boy Scout motto comes into play.

“We make what our team refers to, and I think most do, as a fight bay,” explained Whelen Engineering Cadillac Racing Team Operations Manager Chris Mitchum. “So if things go pear-shaped and you have a problem during the race, our garage will be set up with spare front corners, spare components, spare back half. We have a very limited number of repairs that we will do in pit lane, and those parts are in the pit lane. Everything else is staged in the garage. And you go so far — as I’m sure every team here will do about the same — you have a set of bodywork sitting in your garage and a set of bodywork in your pit lane. You work from a disaster-times-two mentality and you try to be as prepared as you can.”

Fittipaldi to sub for injured Novalak at Inter Europol

Pietro Fittipaldi will replace Clément Novalak in the LMP2 No. 52 Inter Europol by PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA for the race. Novalak sustained a leg and hip injury in a pitlane incident in the practice session; while the injury is not serious, he will not be able to participate in the remainder of the event. Fittipaldi will instead join Nick Boulle, Jakub Śmiechowski and Tom Dillmann in the No. 52. He is well known to the Inter Europol Competition crew, having raced the ORECA 07 with the team in the European Le Mans Series in 2022.

As Novalak’s injury occurred in the final practice, Fittipaldi will have his first at-speed laps in the car during the race.

Heritage Display grows

One of the highlights of the Rolex 24 for racing history buffs is the Heritage Display in the Fan Zone, along with the Saturday morning 20-minute on-track exhibition for participating cars. Highlights include the Dauer 962 LM that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1994, a Mazda RX-7 GTO car, the NASCAR Garage 56 Project car that ran at Le Mans last year, and a BMW CSL that won at Daytona in 1975.
Jenson Button snaps a fan photo of the Garage 56 Camaro he raced at Le Mans last year. Richard S. James photo

Drive times

Minimum drive times for GTP and GTD PRO are two hours. For LMP2 and GTD, the minimum drive time is 4h30m. No driver may drive for more than 13 hours, and no more than four hours in any six-hour period.

How to watch/listen

The entirety of the Rolex 24 At Daytona will be carried live on NBC’s Peacock streaming platform. Sixteen-and-a-half hours will be on television, with the start and finish on NBC. USA Network will carry the race from 2:30 to 8pm ET, and 10pm to midnight ET. Sunday coverage begins at 6am ET on USA, continuing to noon ET. NBC will carry the finish of the race from noon ET until 2pm.

In addition, IMSA Radio will be broadcasting for the duration of the event.

Weather

This will be the warmest Rolex 24 in several years, with temperature on Saturday peaking at 78 degrees F right around the race start. Overnight temperatures are only expected to drop into the mid-60s, and Sunday morning brings a small chance of rain, with conditions expected to be partly cloudy and in the low 70s when the checker falls.

 

If you just woke up in a tent with several empty bottles of everclear and a strange woman,

that means the race is now up to hour 11.

Rolex 24, Hour 11: Heart of Racing Aston meets electrical trouble

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emailBy Cody Globig | January 28, 2024 12:53 AM ET

Nighttime at the Rolex 24 at Daytona can offer a methodical plod along as the halfway point approaches. When rain beckons, that plod can turn frantic.

With 14 hours remaining on the clock, Felipe Nasr held an ebbing and flowing overall lead in the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsports 963, with Jack Aitken’s No. 31 Cadillac drifting between 2.5s and 4.5s behind as the pit cycle began in earnest when the No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin came to a brief stop on track at the hands of Marco Sorensen.

That lead would only lengthen by the close of the hour — Aitken 12s adrift himself as another pit cycle began again with just over 13 hours remaining.

The No. 27 Aston’s woes only increased as time wore on, the car again falling deadstick and needing to be pushed down pitlane, stinking further down the GTD order.

“The car shut off twice out on the track,” Sorensen told IMSA Radio. “Then we came into the box and we had the same issue. We’re trying to find out what the actual electronic issue is right now because I…lost power steering when I was going through a quick corner and went basically straight. Not ideal for now, but now [we’re] doing a bigger service because we lost so many laps. Yeah, I don’t think we’re going to have a chance at a win anymore, but if we can just get the car out and get some valuable data for running, then we’ll do that.”

Pato O’ward continued the dominant lead in LMP2, continuously opening the No. 2’s lead up past 43s in the first quarter of the hour before Ben Keating took the wheel at their mid-hour stop.

The No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport Acura ARX-06 made a surprisingly quick return to the circuit just before the hour’s halfway point. Marcus Ericsson took the car around for just a handful of laps before reentering pitlane for brief checks, now 83 laps down. Troubles also continued for the Pfaff McLaren — a lengthy stop with the crew working inside the car’s nose before appearing to be pushed behind the wall once again.

In GTD PRO, James Calado (No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari) slipstreamed by the No. 77 Porsche of Laurin Heinrich approaching the Le Mans Chicane and took the class lead before motoring away to a more than 10s lead over Alexander Sims in the No. 3 Corvette as time went on, the Porsche stinking back down the order to fifth in class.

GTD leader Daniel Morad (No. 57 Winward Mercedes) remained in a commanding class lead, 15s ahead of the No. 70 in second as the hour drew to a close.

HOUR 11 STANDINGS

 

Couple things you missed you drunken sot:

Rolex 24, Hour 10: Smooth and quiet for Porsche

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emailBy Richard S. James | January 28, 2024 12:18 AM ET

The 10th hour of the Rolex 24 At Daytona ended with the Porsche Penske Motorsport 963s first and third, sandwiching Jack Aitken in the Whelen Engineering Cadillac Racing V-Series.R. Felipe Nasr led in the No. 7 Porsche, with Nick Tandy third in the No. 6. Nick Yelloly is staying in touch in the No. 25 BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8 as the race has run an hour-and-a-half under green.

Jenson Button nearly changed that when he locked up the brakes on the No. 40 WTRAndretti Acura ARX-06 while passing Alexander Sims in the No. 3 Corvette and made contact. Button spun the car, but got going again.

“I made a mistake, which is annoying for the team, in Turn 3,” Button explained. “So I went on the inside on No. 3 Corvette and I braked and he braked super late … I didn’t realize he would still be on the outside through the apex and I locked up a little bit and ran into him. So swung the car around — luckily there was no damage to either. So up until that point it was going all right; we were running in fifth behind Yelloly sort of five seconds doing similar lap times to
The sister Acura was still in the garage as the crew worked to replace the wiring loom. In a further blow to WTRAndretti, The GTD No. 45 Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2 has gone to the garage to replace a front left hub.The No. 66 Gradient Racing Acura NSX GT3 Evo22 has struck trouble, the team reporting a loss of power. Sheena Monk has made a couple of trips to the pits moving slowly. The problem was traced to electrical, and with a change of ECU and other components, the car was back on track with Monk at the wheel, albeit 15 laps down.

The No. 44 Magnus Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 has re-entered the race after a long time in the garage to repair crash damage after getting caught up with a spinning LMP2.

Class leaders after 10 hours:

GTP: Felipe Nasr, No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963

LMP2: Pato O’Ward, No. 2 United Autosports ORECA 07

GTD PRO: Alexander Sims, No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Z06 GT3.R

GTD: Daniel Morad, No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes AMG

HOUR 10 STANDINGS

 

Rolex 24, Hour 9: Trouble strikes WTR Andretti No. 10

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emailBy Richard S. James | January 27, 2024 11:04 PM ET

After eight hours of relatively trouble-free running for the GTPs, Filipe Albuquerque rolled to a stop in the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 during the ninth hour. Albuquerque exited the car before getting back in to try something, but eventually the car had to be delivered to the garage on a rollback under a full-course caution.

“I started smelling something in the car,” said Albuquerque. “Actually I reported, ‘Yeah, something strange here and like feel some smell,’ and literally the second after, the car completely shut down — nothing left. I couldn’t pick it back again. I tried to put the emergency buttons on the outside but that was it, it died. We couldn’t even go to neutral we could not tow, nothing.”

The problem has been traced to the wiring harness, and the team is attempting a replacement, but says it will be a long repair.

The No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 received its second drive-through penalty for failure to adhere to the controlled power train parameters, and since this was the second time, it was increased from a drive-through to a stop plus 10s. "If you damn cheaters don't stop fooling around, we are going to start really kicking in the balls."

Pipo Derani was still out front in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac Racing V-Series.R as the race entered its 10th hour. Sebastien Bourdais had been running second until he locked up the brakes and sailed off in the International Horseshoe. Bourdais continued, but had a puncture on the left front, the cause of the lockup.

The GT that was in front of me coming up to [Turn] 3, swerved to the right and there was a pile of debris right there,” Bourdais explained. “I don’t know what it was. It was, I think, a mirror and something else. Initially I thought it was just a piece of debris under the car but it slashed the tire right away and I was lucky not to hit the tires, because I didn’t think I was going to stop it.”

The debris likely came from contact between Dennis Andersen in the No. 20 High Class Racing ORECA that eventually re-emerged from the garage and the No. 83 Iron Dames Lamborghini with Rahel Frey at the wheel.

Derani was being pursued by Felipe Nasr in the No. 7 PPM Porsche 963 and Connor De Phillippi in the No. 25 BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8. The leaders have completed 285 laps of the 3.56-mile Daytona International Speedway.

The No. 2 United Autosports ORECA leads LMP2 with Pato O’Ward at the wheel, being chased by Josh Burdon in the No. 74 Riley Motorsports ORECA.

The GTD PRO and GTD cars on the lead lap have been separated by the wave-around process during the Albuquerque caution, and the GTD cars are now a lap behind. Antonio Garcia is at the head of the GTD PRO field in the No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Z06 GT3.R, ahead of Andrea Caldarelli in the No. 19 Iron Lynx Lamborghini and Davide Rigon in the No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari. Philip Ellis leads GTD in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes AMG, followed by Tom Gamble in the No. 70 Inception Racing McLaren.

The GTD PRO No. 75 SunEnergy1 Mercedes AMG that has had repeated trips to the garage has finally gone behind the wall for good and has been retired.

Class leaders after nine hours:

GTP: Pipo Derani, No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac Racing V-Series.R

LMP2: Pato O’Ward, No. 2 United Autosports ORECA 07

GTD PRO: Antonio Garcia, No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Z06 GT3.R

GTD: Philip Ellis, No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes AMG

HOUR 9 STANDINGS