DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.—Rebellion Racing remains the fastest of the 55 cars entered at the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship 2017 Roar Before the Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway.
Rebellion Racing’s Neel Jani has led every one of the three dry sessions run on Friday and Saturday (Saturday morning’s session was run in the rain, and Rebellion opted not to risk their car.)
In Saturday’s afternoon session Jani lapped the 3.56-mile Daytona track in 1:39.017 at 129.4 mph, marginally quicker than his best efforts of prior sessions, despite the Swiss team’s LMP2 Oreca-Gibson being only fourth in top speed at 191.5 2 mph, behind the WTR Cadillac The #5 Mazda, and the quickest car and driver, 52 Andres Gutierrez in the #52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports Ligier-Gibson which hit 194.3 Friday afternoon.
Rebellion Racing’s domination went deeper: Rebellion driver Stephane Sarrazin scored third-fastest lap of the session, 1:39.315 at 129.0 mph.
Wayne Taylor Racing’s #10 Cadillac DPi VR was second in both Friday sessions and quickest in the rain Saturday morning, but barely made the top ten Saturday afternoon. The WTR entry was replaced by the #55 Mazda RT24-Z driven by Tristan Nunez who turned a lap of 1:39.157 at 129.2 mph. The 55 Mazda was also second fastest at 192.4 mph, fastest of the day but a still tick behind Jani’s time from Friday afternoon.
This was surprising as both Mazdas had been having mechanical and electrical troubles since the start of the three-day Roar test. Apparently the crews found some solutions; Joel Miller in the #70 Mazda managed fourth-fastest lap of the session.
The #81 Dragonspeed Oreca-Gibson filled out the top three with a lap of 1:39.315 at 129.0 mph. Three-times series champs Mustang Sampling with their #5 Cadillac was the quickest of the DPis, fifth with a lap of 1:39.791 at 128.4 mph.
