Jack Aitken leads at the halfway mark of the 2024 Daytona 24 Hours, but the #31 Action Express Cadillac V-Series.R is only mere seuconds ahead of Laurens Vanthoor, driving the #6 Porsche 963. Maxime Martin is third in the #25 BMW M Hybrid V8.
The race started with a caution-ridden first hour, with the race being peppered with cautions since then — eight in 12 hours.
For much of the first half, Cadillac led from the front, with a 1-2 between the two a common sight. Meanwhile, the Porsches were struggling in the Florida heat, as related by #7 Porsche 963’s Felipe Nasr.
“In the heat of the day, [Cadillac] seems to have an advantage, especially under braking and traction,” said the Brazilian when asked by MotorsportWeek.com.
“They seem to handle better in those two areas. They have the upper hand now, but ask me in a few hours and we might have a different answer.”
Mid way through the third hour, Jack Aitken, having just recently exited the pits on new tyres in the #31 Action Express Cadillac V-Series.R caught Cadillac stable-mate Scott Dixon in the #01 Cadillac. However, both related that while they weren’t on team orders, there was no need to fight each other that early in the race.
“I was surprised he wasn’t,” said Dixon when asked, whether he thought Aitken would overtake, by MotorsportWeek.com after his stint.
“He just had tyres so his pace should have been a lot quicker than ours. We were saving a lot of fuel as well, energy and I think they were as well.
“But yeah, I think we’re deliberately not racing each other hard at the moment,” finished the Kiwi.
Aitken, for his part, didn’t see the need to overtake.
“I’m sure Scott would have given me a hard time, but there was no point,” said the British-Korean.
“It’s not like we’re gonna run off into the distance with so long left in the race. And I was very happy just working together with him and getting a bit of draft, a bit more fuel saving.”
After the six hour mark, as it began to get dark and therefore cooler, the race started to fall into the hands of the Porsches — just as Nasr predicted.
For hours afterwards, the Porsches and the Cadillacs diced for the lead positions, with the lead changing multiple times between Nasr’s teammate, double Indycar champion Josef Newgarden, and Derani in the #31 Cadillac, who had replaced Aitken.
In the other #6 Porsche, Tandy had overtaken Jenson Button, in the #40 WTRAndretti Acura ARX-06, for fourth, and was rapidly moving towards the front. When he and Derani pitted, a quicker stop for Porsche meant Tandy was able to come out nearer Derani, and soon was able to catch the Brazilian for the lead.
Around about this time, the #01 Cadillac had a minor issue, with Sebastien Bourdais going straight on at the second horseshoe, although the Frenchman did keep it out of the barriers. He got back on track but it turned out debris had caused a front left puncture, with this needing to be replaced and dropping the car down the order.
Half way through the 12th hour of the race, the field was put under yellow to clear debris at turn 5. At that point, Aitken led from Jaminet and Cameron, with Maxime Martin in the #25 BMW M Hybrid V8 fourth and #40 WTRAndretti Acura ARX-06 fifth, with Louis Deletraz at the wheel.
The field then pitted, with the exception of Aitken and Augusto Farfus in the #24 BMM M Hybrid V8. This then set the field for the restart: Aitken in the lead, Farfus second, Martin third, Cameron fifth, and Laurens Vanthoor, who had replaced Mathieu Jaminet at the wheel of the #6 Porsche in fifth.
Over in LMP2, the race-long battle has been between The #2 United Autosports Oreca 07-Gibson, the #52 Inter Europol, and the #74 Riley. These three have swapped the lead more times than is countable, with United Autosports’ Ben Keating, Inter Europol’s Jakub Smiechowski, and Riley’s Felipe Massa all leading at various points during the race.
However, as WTRAndretti’s Ricky Taylor related to media, all that matters is keeping the car alive until 4 hours to go, which according to the American is “when it gets spicy”. Unfortunately, Taylor’s car spent a long time in the pits fixing an electrical problem after stopping on track with Filipe Albuquerque, and while it’s now back out on track, it’s 98 laps down and out of contention.
Even worse for Acura, Louis Deletraz has just stopped the the #40 Acura ARX-06 on track, with an issue that looked very similar to Albuquerque’s. Deletraz, though, did manage to get the car going again, but has fallen to ninth in class.
Back to LMP2, and under yellow Tom Dillmann in the #52 Inter Europol led. Connor Zilisch moved up to second at the restart, with the 17-year-old overtaking Felipe Massa and Ben Keating at turn 1 as the race went green. He then took the lead off Dillman, to lerad the race — not something every 17-year-old can say!
As ever, the two GT classes, GTD Pro and GTD, is a toss up that is unpredictable to a tee. While Alessandro Pier Guidi leads now, he’s been in a race long battle with the #3 Corvette and #19 Iron Lynx Lamborghini.
Sims and Perera are currently in those two cars — Sims in the #3 Corvette Racing with Pratt Miller Corvette Z06 GT3.R, and Perera in the #19 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, but with the cars bunched up after the restart, this will likely change again.
Frederik Schandorff leads GTD, in the #70 Inception Racing McLaren 720S GT3 EVO, with Mike Skeen in the #32 Korthoff Mercedes-AMG GT3 second. Giorgio Sernagiotto sits third, in the #47 Ferrari 296 GT3.
