Max Angelelli in the Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac DPi has the overall lead of 2017 Rolex 24 at Daytona at the end of the fourth hour.
Seb Morris in the Whelen Cadillac held a 20 second lead before to changing over to Eric Curran, only for the car to refuse to start.
Despite quickly rejoining, the 20 second lead was gone and the car rejoined in third place.
However, the race’s third caution allowed the Cadillac to make the gap.
The third place runners in PC & GTD collided at the Oval chicane after the #8 Starworks PC car of John Falb’s over ambitious attempt to lap the #73 Park Place Motorsports Porsche of Matt McMurry resulted in both cars ending up in the barriers.
Falb managed to continue but received a 10 minute penalty for the incident, while McMurray retired on the spot.
During the resulting pitstops, new leader Christian Fittipaldi in the #5 Mustang Sampling Cadillac had rear body of the car changed due to a rear lights failure and dropped to third.
The pitstops allowed Curran to regain the lead in front of Wayne Taylor Racing‘s Max Angelelli, but the Max the Axe, in his final race for the team, soon took the lead and ended the hour with a half a second lead.
The top non DPi car was Ben Hanley in the DragonSpeed ORECA, a lap down on the three Cadillacs.
In GTLM, Dirk Mueller took over from Joey Hand to ensure the #66 Ford GT’s dominance of the event, holding a seven second lead over the #62 Risi Competionizionale Ferrari of Giancarlo Fisichella, with Ryan Briscoe rounding out the podium.
The #911 Porsche’s miserable race continued when Frederic Makowiecki was hit with a drive-thru penalty for pitting when the pits were closed and had to re-take that penalty when it was deemed not to have served it correctly.
In PC, Nicholas Boulle #38 Performance Tech Motorsports continues to lead the category ahead of the remaining Starworks car with the #20 BAR1 Motorsports car of Mark Kvamme inheriting the place vacated by the #8 car.
In GTD Matteo Cressoni leads in the #63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari ahead of Thomas Jaeger in WeatherTech Racing‘s new Mercedes AMG GT on an impressive debut for the new car.
Jesse Krohn in Turner Motorsport’s BMW M6 rounds out the GTD podium.
P
10 Wayne Taylor Racing Konica Minolta – Ricky Taylor, Jordan Taylor, Max Angelelli, Jeff Gordon
31 Whelen Engineering Racing – Dane Cameron, Eric Curran, Michael Conway, Seb Morris
5 Mustang Sampling Racing – Joao Barbosa, Christian Fittipaldi, Filipe Albuquerque
PC
38 Performance Tech Motorsports – James French, Patricio OWard, Kyle Masson, Nicholas Boulle
88 Starworks Motorsports – Scott Mayer, James Dayson, Alex Popow, Sebastian Saavedra
20 BAR1 Motorsports – Don Yount, Buddy Rice, Chapman Ducote, Gustavo Yucaman, Mark Kvamme
GTLM
66 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing – Dirk Mueller, Joey Hand, Sebastien Bourdais
62 Risi Competionizionale – James Calado, Toni Vilander, Giancarlo Fisichella
67 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing – Ryan Briscoe, Richard Westbrook, Scott Dixon
GTD
63 Scuderia Corsa – Christina Nielsen, Alessandro Balzan, Matteo Cressoni, Sam Bird
50 Riley Motorsports WeatherTech Racing – Thomas Jaeger, Cooper MacNeil, Gunner Jeannette, Shane Van Gisbergen
96 Turner Motorsport – Jens Klinsman, Justin Marks, Maxime Martin, Jesse Krohn
