Rolex 24, Hour 17: Tower Motorsports extends LMP2 lead
Kevin Estre still leads a Porsche Penske Motorsport 1-2 at Daytona, though it's not gone all to plan in the last hour.
Estre only overtook teammate Felipe Nasr minutes ago into Turn 1, after the Frenchman made a rare mistake going into the Le Mans chicane — he missed the corner and had to take the designated escape road.
That put the No. 7 Porsche 963 of Nasr ahead for a while, but now the No. 6 Porsche is back in front of the No. 7 which received a warning for an unsafe pit release in the path of the No. 31 Cadillac Whelen car.
The No. 24 Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8 has jumped the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 for third place. Philipp Eng and Scott Dixon have relieved Dries Vanthoor and Felix Rosenqvist in their respective cars.
The sun will rise soon. ☀️ Only 7 Hours to race. Here is a recap of what you might of missed overnight.
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Tower Motorsports has seized control of LMP2 once again from CrowdStrike Racing by APR. Toby Sowery spun on cold tires as he came in hot to Turn 1, putting him further away from leader Sebastien Bourdais in the No. 8 Tower ORECA.
Job van Uitert just took over from Bourdais, and he still leads from Sowery in second, and Christian Rasmussen in the No. 99 AO Racing car in third ahead of Paul di Resta in the No. 22 United Autosports USA entry.
'Rexy' and AO Racing continue to lead GTD PRO. The leaders have recently had driver changes so Laurin Heinrich has passed the baton of the leading No. 77 Porsche 911 GT3 R to Klaus Bachler.
In second is the No. 65 Ford Multimatic Mustang GT3 of Dennis Olsen, some 15 seconds down the road. Madison Snow in the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO is third, Antonio Garcia in the No. 3 Pratt Miller Corvette is fourth. And with Luca Stolz and Albert Costa in fifth and sixth for Mercedes-AMG and Ferrari respectively, the top six in GTD PRO are occupied by six different manufacturers.
GTD has been one-way traffic lately for Winward Racing's No. 57 Mercedes-AMG GT3 but a recent drive-through penalty for leaving a tire unattended in the pits has taken away Lucas Auer's advantage.
This has put Elliott Skeer back in the lead for Wright Motorsports in the No. 120 Porsche, ahead of the Mercedes of Ralf Aron (No. 80) and Maximilian Götz (No. 32), with the No.13 AWA Corvette of Matt Bell in fourth.
HOUR 17 STANDINGS
Story originally appeared on Racer
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