After eight hours, it is the #48 Ally Cadillac Racing DPi that holds the lead, with Kamui Kobayashi behind the wheel for a good portion of the early evening running of the Rolex 24.
After multiple lengthy cautions plagued the first few hours of racing, there was relative calm as the headlights came into full use in the chilly Florida night.
There were two full course cautions in the after the darkness full descended, each for single car incidents. The first came when Owen Trinkler in the Team TGM Porsche 911 slid through the grass in the sixth hour and became stuck against the barrier.
The next yellow came in hour seven for the #9 LMP3 entry driven by Moritz Kranz, which was back on track 94 laps down thanks to a lot of effort from the Muehlner Motorsports America crew. Kranz came to a stop in the infield and was not able to get going again without assistance.
During the slow laps, the Ally Cadillac team chose to change both the front nose and the rear bumper in order repair minor damage that had been suffered in the first quarter of the day-long event.
The night time hours also saw Jimmie Johnson climb into the #48 for the first time, and he was able to hold position in fifth overall before handing duties off to Kobayashi, who took the lead on a pit stop cycle.
Will Stevens suffered a puncture while braking for turn 1 in the Wayne Taylor Racing #10 DPi, resulting in a spin and a slow and careful lap to get back around to the pits. No damage was done aside from the loss of two laps, one of which has already been regained.
At the eight-hour mark, Kobayahi leads Alex Lynn in the #02 Cadillac DPi and Pipo Derani and the #31 Whelen Engineering DPi in the overall running.
Behind in LMP2, there were battles left and right throughout the early evening running. Pato O’Ward, one of many IndyCar stars running in this weekend’s event, was also able to complete his first ever stint behind the wheel of the #81 DragonSpeed USA entry.
Ben Keating suffered a bit of bad luck and had a piece of plastic completely cover the air intake on the top of his #52 Mathaisen Motorsports entry. The talented racer had make an unscheduled stop to clear the debris and fell down to fifth in class.
Pinto de Andrade in the Tower Motorsport Oreca currently leads the way by nearly a full minute in the second-fastest class.
In LMP3, Michael Cooper in the #74 Riley Motorsports entry holds a slight lead over Jon Bennett in the #54 CORE Autosport drive.
The GTD Pro sportscar class is currently headed up by Mathieu Jaminet in the #9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3.
The deep GTD class has the Inception Racing McLaren 720S driven by Jordan Pepper at the head of the class at the eight-hour mark.
A few cars returned from behind the wall after lengthy repairs from their respective crews, bringing the total number of cars on track back up to 54.
