Dries Vanthoor dominated the second running session of the Roar before the Rolex 24 at Daytona this Friday, placing the No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8 at the top of the hierarchy by increasing the tempo compared to the first session.
The Belgian driver set the new benchmark in 1’35″424, four tenths faster than Tom Blomqvist (Acura ARX-06 no. 60 – Acura Meyer Shank Racing) in the afternoon. Vanthoor precedes the second Acura no. 93 – Nick Yelloly’s Acura Meyer Shank Racing 0″195.
The top 5 of the session is completed by the Lamborghini SC63 n°63 – Automobili Lamborghini Squadra Corse of Romain Grosjean, clocked at 0.617, the second BMW n°25 of Sheldon van der Linde, classified in the same tenth as the Lamborghini , and the No. 60 Acura of Colin Braun, last car in the same second as Vanthoor.
The Cadillac V-Series.Rs remain discreet, following in 6th, 7th and 8th rows more than a second behind, the No. 31 – Cadillac Whelen preceding the two official examples No. 10 and No. 40 – Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing.
Three Porsche 963s follow with the No. 6 – Porsche Penske Motorsport, ahead of the private cars JDC-Miller Motorsports and Proton Competition.
Felipe Nasr (Porsche 963 n°7 – Porsche Penske Motorsport) caused one of the two neutralizations of the session by stopping the reigning champion car at turn n°7. The 963 was subsequently unable to return to the track.
In LMP2, TDS Racing took the lead with the No. 11 Oreca 07 of Mikkel Jensen, best time in the category in 1’39″047, without improving the time of session 1 of Malthe Jakobsen (Crowdstrike Racing by APR) . Inter Europol Competition fails at 83 thousandths with the No. 43 Oreca of António Félix da Costa,
-But the car caused the second neutralization after Bijoy Garg stopped on track at turns 5 and 6, possibly following a gearbox problem as indicated by the team. The top 3 LMP2 is completed by the No. 04 Oreca – Crowdstrike Racing by APR, dominant in session 1.
The #77 Porsche 911 GT3 R – AO Racing, 2024 champion, set the benchmark in GTD PRO with Laurin Heinrich in 1’47″775, 23 thousandths ahead of the #9 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 – Pfaff Motorsports de Marco Mapelli.
Third in the GT category, the Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO n°32 – Korthoff Competition Motors of Maxi Götz took the lead in GTD in 1’48″237. The Mercedes n°80 – Lone Star Racing did not set a time.
The Roar before the Rolex will resume tomorrow with a third session scheduled for 5:15 p.m. French time.
The times are HERE
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