2024 Rolex 24, Hour 3: Cadillac 1-2 At The Front

TDS Racing ORECA retires after Thomas' crash

27 January 2024, 9:44 PM

After three hours of racing, the #01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R continues to lead the 62nd annual Rolex 24 at Daytona.

Scott Dixon currently has a manageable lead of around two seconds to Jack Aitken in the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac.

As the American marque continues to lead the way, the two Porsche Penske Motorsport 963s continue to run third and fourth with Dane Cameron in the #7 ahead of Mathieu Jaminet in the #6.

Of note, the #40 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 is running on a different pit strategy to the GTP leaders. It stayed out during the last Full Course Yellow while the rest of the pack went in to replenish their virtual fuel tanks. A BS term to please the green a-holes, who are usually dope smokers and as a result have no money to buy tickets, but plenty of time to write letters and emails of complaint about the automobile in general until they are all sent to the crusher and people are forced onto the public busses....whose route avoids the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

Also, gentleman driver Ben Keating has begun his first stint aboard the #85 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche.

To Keating’s delight, the #2 United Autosports USA ORECA 07 currently leads the LMP2 class, with his co-driver Pato O’Ward leading the class, 15 seconds ahead of the #81 DragonSpeed ORECA of Sebastian Alvarez.

In GTD Pro, Alexander Sims is due a pit stop past the top of the hour but he is running up front aboard the #3 Pratt Miller Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R, ahead of the #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo.

And in GTD, it’s business as usual as the #12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3, now piloted by Parker Thompson, is leading the way and challenging Sims for the ‘outright’ GTD lead.

Racing resumed at 13 minutes past the hour following the clean-up for Steven Thomas’ earlier crash. The #40 WTRAndretti Acura’s strategy put it out front, and Louis Deletraz was able to keep the red and black Acura out front until his most recent stop. IMSA has noted that someone got out front and is now calculating ways to screw them later, usually after many expensive pit stops and after racing for 24 hours.

The #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus returned to the race after over an hours’ worth of repairs thanks to the steadfast work of their mechanics.

Part of the rear decklid of the #64 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang GT3 began to peel off as Chris Miles was mixing it up and trying to gain ground in GTD Pro, but it hasn’t been troubling the German’s form.

Two early GTD contenders have digested significant penalties: The #34 Conquest Racing Ferrari and #80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG both received 60-second penalty stops for running the red light at the exit of pit lane.
The red light was a recent innovation put up in secret and covered until the last minute, to keep everyone from racing onto the track without permission of IMSA officials.

There was also some tough news for fans of the #33 Sean Creech Motorsports Ligier JS P217, which lost a lap after Dr. Lance Willsey spun off at turn two – but he has gotten going again.

Unsurprisingly, the #11 TDS Racing ORECA LMP2 is listed as the first official retirement of the race after Thomas’ accident. "We might as well get the heck out now, to avoid penalties in case we might have placed high enough
and IMSA decides that WE are the fault of all the evil in the world.
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Rolex 24, Hour 3: Ford teething troubles and Lexus returns

Jake Galstad/IMSA
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emailBy Richard S. James | January 27, 2024 5:09 PM ET

Hour three saw both GTD PRO Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang GT3s suffer the same affliction, a loose trunk lid. Both appeared to have come loose at the front and then blown back with the airflow and broken. Each car required unexpected visits to the pits to replace the lid. Two other cars visited the pits to have trunk lids removed from their front windshields,

Louis Deletraz led much of the hour in the No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 after going off-sequence with the rest of the field and staying out for track position, but at the end of the hour it was Philipp Eng in the No. 24 BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8 leading as the GTP field was cycling through pit stops. The real race leader, however, was the No. 01 Cadillac with Scott Dixon at the wheel, and the two Cadillacs looked solidly in control of the pace.

“It’s quite hot outside and it’s very hot in the cars,” said Deletraz after his stint. “But I think we [are maximizing] everything so far. We’re trying to keep it clean and go long. The strategy now is way out of what will be in the end, so just running, seeing how the car behaves and try to see where we are with the competition. And I think the last stint was pretty good, too, out front. But I feel our competitors are strong and we’ll have to fight this out.”

The No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F rolled out of the garage eight minutes into the third hour after repairs from the collision with the No. 20 High Class Racing ORECA in the first hour, Mike Conway at the wheel. The car is 26 laps down from the GTD PRO leader.

IMSA has provided a new tool to help follow the race, live telemetry from the GTP cars. It includes energy level and usage, as well showing when the car is regenerating energy, the gears and brake and throttle application, and speed. It can be found at https://www.imsa.com/gtp-telemetry/.