Grand-Am

2012 Rolex 24 Hours At Daytona: Hour 11 Update

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The pair of Chip Ganassi Racing cars race beneath the Daytona flagstand (Photo Credit: Rolex/Stephan Cooper)

The pair of Chip Ganassi Racing cars race beneath the Daytona flagstand (Photo Credit: Rolex/Stephan Cooper)

Over 100 laps of green flag racing at the 2012 Rolex 24 at Daytona came to end shortly before the end of the eleventh hour after the APR Motorsport Audi R8 Grand-Am stopped with rear damage around the pack of the paddock.

The resulting caution period not only ended the longest green run by far of the 2012 event but had a significant impact on the running order at the top of the overall standings.

Longer stops for both of the Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates cars dropped them of running – ominously – 1-2 to being fifth and sixth of the seven Daytona Prototypes on the lead lap once Richard Westbrook was given the 'Lucky Dog' pass in the no.90 Spirit of Daytona Racing entry.

The change completed the mini-comeback from Lucas Luhr and the no.8 Starworks crew. The team fell a lap behind the lead battle after a brake change in an earlier pitstop. However, after Luhr had reduced the arrears to just a matter of seconds the intervention of the safety car helped move Allan McNish into the lead with David Donahue and Gustavo Yacaman second and third for Action Express Racing and Michael Shank Racing respectively.

With the one time leader in the no.57 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro still battling the effects of a lengthy pit penalty the GT class is very much to dominion of the Porsches.

The Magnus Racing had an 8.7 second before pitting before the caution flew, handing the lead to Brumos Racing and Marc Lieb. The order reverted back to favour the no.44 crew later but as the pack circulated under caution at the end of the our the top four places were held by Porsche crews, only the Autohaus Motorsport Camaro in fifth place preventing a sweep of the top five places by the Stuttgart manufacturer.

The hour also saw further problems for the Bob Stallings/Gainsco entry. The team had lost a handful of laps earlier in race replacing a radiator, but had made good progress since, regaining some of the lost laps on the overall leaders. However, the car was pulled back into the garage after the team had looked under the rear bodywork. 8/5/6/60/02
44/59/23/67/88

50th Rolex 24 at Daytona DP class standings after Hour 11

#8 Starworks Motorsport – Dalziel/Luhr/McNish/Popow/Potolicchio
#5 Action Express Racing – Donahue/Fittipladi/Law
#6 Michael Shank Racing – Goncalves/McDowell/Nasr/Yacaman
#60 Michael Shank Racing – Allmendinger/Negri/Pew/Wilson
#02 Chip Ganassi Racing – Dixon/Franchitti/McMurray/Montoya

50th Rolex 24 at Daytona GT class standings after Hour 11

#44 Magnus Racing – Lally/Lietz/Potter/Rast
#59 Brumos Racing – Davis/Haywwod/Keen/Lieb
#23 Alex Job Racing – Collard/Holzer/Leitzinger/MacNeill
#67 TRG – Bertheau/Bleekemolen/Goossens/Henzler/Pumpelly
#88 Autohaus Motorsports – Edwards/Marsh/Milner/Taylor

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James is our Diet-Coke fuelled writer and has been with TCF pretty much since day 1, he can be found frequenting twitter at @_JBroomhead
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