Acura ahead of Porsche as darkness descends

Acura led the Daytona 24 Hours with Colin Braun as the opening round of the IMSA SportsCar Championship hit the six-hour mark. 

The #60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 swept into the lead as the race went green after a third caution period just before the end of the hour. 

Braun went around the outside of the #31 Action Express Racing Cadillac V-Series.R LMDh driven by Earl Bamber into Turn 1. 

The Caddy driver was demoted to third at the restart as Felipe Nasr in the #7 factory Porsche 963 LMDh went down the inside. 

Braun held a lead of just eight tenths on one-quarter duration over Nasr’s PPM entry. 

Kamui Kobayashi ran third in the #40 Wayne Taylor Racing Caddy a further four tenths in arrears after pushing Bamber down to fourth on the lap leading up to six hours. 

BMW held fifth and sixth positions with the two Rahal M Hybrid V8 LMDs, Marco Wittmann in #25 just heading the pole-winning #24 entry driven by Raffaele Marciello. 

Porsche had been at the front prior to the safety car with the #6 963 in the hands of Kevin Estre. 

The 2024 World Endurance Championship title winner had built up a lead of 10s over Kobayashi after taking over at the front during the previous pitstop cycle. 

The car dropped down the order to ninth after a spin in the infield from Matt Campbell just before the restart. 

The majority of the field dived into the pits when the race went yellow, which gave the lead to Kevin Magnussen in the #24 BMW. 

The Dane was out of sequence as a result of a puncture, before he took a top-up of fuel despite stopping minutes prior to the yellow. 

The #24 dominated the early stages of the race in the hands of pole winner Dries Vanthoor. 

The Belgian had built up a lead of in excess of 10s by the first round of pitstops and was 25s to the good before a disastrous pitstop when he handed over to Philipp Eng. 

Vanthoor pulled up at an angle in his pit box, which required the car to be shunted into the correct position before the wheels and tyres could be changed. 

More than half a minute was lost, while the car was also given a drive through because of a pitstop infringement. 

The second Shank Acura hit trouble in hour four, a left rear stub axle costing the car approximately an hour to repairs back in its garage. 

Lamborghini’s solo SC63 LMDh run by the factory in conjunction with Riley Motorsports went out of the race at the end of the opening hour with a cooling system issue. 

LMP2 was headed by Mathias Beche in the PR1/Mathiasen Motorsport ORECA-Gibson 07 in which Ben Keating had led the way before two off-track excursions in the infield.  

Beche was just ahead of the Riley Motorsports entry driven by Felipe Fraga.

The AO Racing ORECA in which PJ Hyett had built up a minute’s lead had been ahead before the third yellow in the hands of Dane Cameron. 

BMW led GT Daytona Pro with the Paul Miller Racing M4 GT3 EVO with Augusto Farfus driving, the Brazilian more or less neck and neck with Nico Varrone in the best of the Pratt Miller Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs.

Frederik Schandroff led the regular GTD class for the Optimum-run Inception Ferrari 296 GT3.