The pole-winner from last Sunday’s Roar Before the 24, Pipo Derani in the #31 Action Express Racing Cadila V-Series.R, set the fastest time in the third practice session for the Daytona 24 Hours, lapping the circuit in 1:35.708s.
The night-time practice at the Daytona International Speedway was the penultimate session before Saturday’s race start and thus it was of paramount importance as drivers and teams alike chased laptime and familiarity with the track and their machines.
What’s more, the session is the only nighttime running afforded to the field ahead of the Daytona 24 Hours race itself.
15 minutes into the session a red flag was flown when Josh Burdon’s #74 Riley Oreca-07 Gibson LMP2 machine came to a halt on the track at Turn Speedway 2.
The field went back to green just shy of 10 minutes later, with Felipe Nasr at the top of the classification courtesy of his 1:36.018s laptime in the #7 Penske Porsche 963 machine.
Nasr was then displaced by pole-winner Derani in the #31 Action Express Racing Cadillac, who pushed the benchmark on the 31 car’s 10th lap.
Derani held his advantage for the remainder of the session over Nasr in second and third-placed Sebastien Bourdais in the #01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R (1:36.109s), who jumped into the top three times late on.
In fourth and fifth were the two BMWs, led by Connor De Phillippi in the #25 BMW M Hybrid V8 (1:36.320s), with fifth going to Philipp Eng lapping the Daytona Road Course in 1:36.332s at the wheel of the #24 entry.
Next up was Colton Herta in the WTR with Andretti #40 Acura ARX-06 (1:36.550s) and Phil Hanson in the #85 JDC-Miller Porsche (1:36.560s).
The top 10 was completed by Nick Tandy in the #6 Penske Porsche (1:36.766s), 2022 Indy 500 winner Marcus Ericsson in the #10 Acura (1:36.849s) and Alessio Picariello in the #5 Proton Porsche (1:37.022s).
Derani ensured that Cadillacs topped the classification in all of Thursday’s practice sessions, with the #01 machine topping first and second practice earlier on.
The #25 BMW and #10 Acura completed the most laps with 46 tours and the #85 Porsche the fewest with 31 as the GTP field was spread by 1.314s.
In LMP2, Malthe Jakobsen in the #04 Oreca-07 Gibson run by Crowdstrike led proceedings courtesy of a 1:39.166s laptime, ahead of IndyCar star Pato O Ward in the #2 United Autosports Oreca (1:39.472s) and Christian Rasmussen in the #18 Era Motorsport Oreca (1:39.643s).
In a reversal from second practice, it was the GTD Pro entries that led the way in the GT pack, occupying the top four spots overall.
First in GTD Pro went to Earl Bamber in the #4 Pratt Miller Corvette Z06 GT3.R (1:46.770s), ahead of Alexander Sims in the #3 Pratt Miller Corvette (1:46.858s) and Matteo Cairoli in the Iron Lynx #60 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 (1:46.955s).
The first of the GTDs finished fifth out of all GT competitors and the honours went to Larry Voorde in the #86 MDK Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R (1:47.075s).
Second in GTD was Danny Formal in the #45 WTR with Andretti Lamborghini (1:47.097s) and third went to Eddie Cheever in the #47 Cetilar Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 (1:47.193s).
The fourth and final practice gets underway on Friday at 11:20 local time (16:20 GMT).
