Pipo Derani leads the Rolex 24 at Daytona with four hours of racing left on the clock, with the Florida morning so far filled with multiple position changes.
The Brazilian ace retook the lead of the race in the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac DPi-VR from JDC-Miller Motorsports’ Richard Westbrook after vaulted ahead at the latest round of pitstops.
The two Cadillacs had a brush in the early hours of Sunday morning when Tristan Vautier and Tristan Nunez came together during a restart for a caution caused by an LMP3 crash.
That same restart saw the #60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-05 of Tom Blomqvist capture the lead of the race. Blomqvist remained out front until he came in and handed over to Helio Castroneves, which dropped him behind Ricky Taylor’s #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura.
The time in the lead for the Konica Minolta Acura was brief, however. After Taylor had handed over to Alexander Rossi, Castroneves vaulted back ahead during the pitstops when Rossi had an off-track moment in the infield.
Castroneves was in turn caught and passed by the #31 Whelen Cadillac of Mike Conway when the Brazilian was held up by the recovering #01 Chip Ganassi Cadillac.
Conway maintained the lead until another round of stops shook up the order once again, with Westbrook emerging as the leader ahead of Rossi and Derani before the latter caught and passed both. Westbrook later revealed that JDC-Miller Motorsports were double-stining a set of tyres, which allowed Derani to take the lead.
The #60 MSR Acura in the hands of Simon Pagenaud has dropped to fourth place.
Chip Ganassi Racing no longer has any cars in contention for overall victory. After the #01 Cadillac already suffered electrical issues, the remaining #02 sister car fell victim to a fuel pump failure. It has returned to the track, but is currently 28 laps down with Marcus Ericsson at the wheel.
LMP2 is led by the #8 Tower Motorsport ORECA 07-Gibson of Louis Deletrazm holding a lead of some twenty seconds over the #81 DragonSpeed USA car of Pato O’Ward.
Only one other LMP2 contenders remains on the lead lap: the #52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA driven by Mikkel Jensen, currently sat in third place.
The LMP3 standings are still led by the #74 Riley Motorsports Ligier JS P320 of Kay van Berlo, leading the #54 CORE Autosport Ligier of Niclas Jonsson.
Patrick Pilet leads a Porsche one-two in GTD Pro, as the #2 KCMG 911 GT3 R is ahead of the #9 Pfaff Motorsports entry of Mathieu Jaminet. Kyle Kirkwood holds third for Vasser Sullivan, ahead of Proton USA’s Patrick Assenheimer.
The other Proton-run Mercedes, the #97 car, has retired following engine failure in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Jan Heylen currently leads GTD in the #16 Wright Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R, but is engaged in battle with the #70 Inception Racing McLaren 720S GT3 of Frederik Schandorff.
Schandorff had passed Heylen at the Le Mans chicane, only for the Belgian to return the favour at turn 6 a lap later.
Third is held by the #44 Magnus Racing Aston Martin of Jonny Adam.
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