Nine hours into the 50th Anniversary Rolex 24 at Daytona, the #2 Telmex Ganassi Riley-BMW of Juan Pablo Montoya led by nearly three seconds over the #6 Shank Racing Riley-Ford of Felipe Nasr, closely pursued by the 2011 champion #01 Telmex-Ganassi with Scott Pruett at the wheel.
The two Telmex cars finished one–two last year with the same driver lineups, with the #01 seconds ahead of the #02.
The #8 Starworks Riley-Ford of Ryan Dalziel had led comfortably for a few hours having a lead of 15 seconds when the Scot brought the car in for a driver and brake change at 12:15 a.m. The Starworks car dropped to seventh, a lap down.
The #8, with Lucas Luhr at the wheel, was faster than any of the leaders. With fifteen hours of racing left, there is plenty of time for the pole-sitting Starworks car to catch back up.
The Ford motors seem to be putting out more power than the BMWs in the Telmex cars; Scott Pruett spent several laps unable to pass Nasr’s Shank Riley Ford. The Riley-BMW could catch up in the tight turns of the infield but Nasr could pull away on the banking. It took Pruett 18 minutes to pass Nasr, and then only because Nasr ran wide on a corner. Nasr’s tires were cooked; he pitted for fresh rubber as soon as Pruett got by.
Third in the Daytona prototype class was Darren Law in the #5 Action Express Corvette Coyote 55 seconds behind.
In GT the #57 Stevenson Camara had held the lead until 12:26 a.m. when the car was called in to serve a 1:50 penalty for passing the pace car. This dropped the Eric Curran’s Camaro down to 19th, letting the #24 Alex Job Porsche into the class lead. This gave Porsche a top three places in class, with Paul Edwards’ Autohaus Camaro fourth in class.
