The #5 Mustang Sampling Racing came out on top in a hour long battle with the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac in the 20th hour of the Rolex 24 At Daytona.
Max Angelelli in the #10 Cadillac pulled away from the Joao Barbosa in the #5 car, but several errors brought Barbosa back into the hunt and enabled the Action Express team to leapfrog the Taylor car at the pitstops.
The remaining GTD Lexus RC-F brought out another caution when the #15 car of Jack Hawksworth crashed at Turn Six.
The Lexus managed to continue but during the caution the #27 GTD Dream Racing Lamborghini parked on the edge of the same corner after a wild spin.
During the GT pitstops under yellow, Toni Vilander in the #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari was involved in a race out of pits with the two Porsches and emerged in front of #911 car of Dirk Werner despite being alongside in the pitlane.
This move was illegal and Vilander was forced to give the place back.
On the restart Angelelli got the jump on Barbosa and soon built up a lead of 12 seconds.
However he lost this lead with a quick spin at the Bus Stop chicane which brought the #5 right back on his tail.
Despite this the veteran Italian, in his final race, quickly opened up a gap again.
Werner lost time at the restart and was swamp and dropped back to fifth from third.
Vilander, despite cutting across the mud on the approach to the bus stop, went on a charge and stormed into the lead.
The #93 GTD Acura NSX of Andy Lally was the first car to venture out on slicks.
While he was initially slower than his wet tyre shod opposition, Lally gradually got onto their pace.
Joey Hand in the #66 Ford GT was the next driver to try slicks beginning the dash for slick tyres.
Eventually the top 2 Cadillacs came into the pits for change of drivers and change to slicks.
The Mustang Sampling car now with Christian Fittipaldi at the wheel got ahead of Jordan Taylor in the Taylor car to regain the lead.
Renger van der Zande in the #90 Visit Florida Racing Riley held third place throughout but as it was changing to slicks, the #55 Mazda pulled into the pits on fire, ending it’s race.
Hand’s early stop benefited the Ford driver as he lead the GTLM field in front of James Calado in the Risi Ferrari and Ford team-mate Harry Tincknall.
Lally’s brave change paid dividends as he leads the GTD field ahead of Mario Farnbacher in the #33 Riley Motorsports Mercedes and team-mate Tom Dyer.
In PC Patricio O’Ward in the #38 Performance Tech Motorsports remains untroubled out front infront of the recovering BAR1 Motorsport cars of Trent Hindman and Gustavo Yacaman.
Top 3 in each class after 20 Hours
P
5 Mustang Sampling Racing – Joao Barbosa, Filipe Albuquerque, Christian Fittipaldi
10 Wayne Taylor Racing Konica Minolta – Ricky Taylor, Jordan Taylor, Max Angelelli, Jeff Gordon
90 Visit Florida Racing – Marc Goossens, Renger van der Zande, Rene Rast
PC
38 Performance Tech Motorsports – James French, Patricio O’Ward, Kyle Masson, Nicholas Boulle
26 BAR1 Motorsports – Tom Papadopoulos, Johnny Mowlem, Adam Merzon, Trent Hindman, David Cheng
20 BAR1 Motorsports – Don Yount, Buddy Rice, Mark Kvamme, Chapman Ducote, Gustavo Yacaman
GTLM
66 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing – Dirk Mueller, Joey Hand, Sebastien Bourdais
62 Risi Competizione – James Calado, Toni Villander, Giancarlo Fisichella
69 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing – Harry Tincknell, Andy Priaulx, Tony Kanaan
GTD
93 Michael Shank Racing – Graham Rahal, Andy Lally, Katherine Legge, Mark Wilkins
33 Riley Motorsports – Team AMG – Ben Keating, Jeroen Bleekemolen, Mario Farnbacher, Adam Christodoulou
86 Michael Shank Racing – Ryan Hunter-Reay, Ton Dyer, Ozz Negri Jr., Jeff Segal
