Penske Porsches Remain In Control Of Rolex 24 At Sunrise

The No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport Grand Touring Prototype in action Sunday morning at Daytona Int'l Speedway. (IMSA photo)

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – As the sun rose over Daytona Int’l Speedway Sunday morning, Porsche Penske Motorsport remained in firm control of the 63rd Rolex 24 at Daytona after 18 hours.

Seeking its second straight win in the twice-around-the-clock endurance classic, the No. 7 Grand Touring Protoype of Nick Tandy held a 5.593-second lead over the sister No. 6 of Matt Campbell at three-quarters distance.

The No. 24 Team RLL BMW and the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura filled out the top four overall, with those four cars remaining on the lead lap heading into the final six hours of competition.

Leading in Le Mans Prototype 2, Christian Rasmussen hopes to earn his second straight Rolex 24 class win, this time guiding the No. 99 for AO Racing.

He held a 4.7-second gap over the No. 8 from Tower Motorsports after 18 hours, with the No. 04 from Crowdstrike Racing by APR sitting third with NTT IndyCar Series star Colton Herta at the wheel.

Madison Snow remained out front in the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW for another six-hour benchmark in GT Daytona Pro, ahead of Klaus Bachler and the No. 77 AO Racing Porsche by 1.96 seconds. The No. 65 Multimatic Motorsports Ford Mustang with Dennis Olsen remained in podium contention in third.

Finally, Matthew Bell held the GT Daytona class lead with six hours to go in the No. 13 AWA Corvette.

He sat 1.327 seconds clear of the No. 80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes of Ralf Aron, followed by the No. 32 Korthoff Competition Mercedes of Kenton Koch.

Unfortunately for the Crowdstrike LMP2 machine, trouble struck just after the three-quarter mark of the race, with Herta spinning and the car having to go to the garage for nearly a half hour for repairs.

It dropped the No. 04 from podium placing to eighth in class, nine laps off the lead, and Herta was understandably frustrated after climbing from the car briefly behind the wall.

“I’m not 100 percent sure what happened,” Herta admitted. “I might have had a bit of rear lock and it just turned the car around instantly. I hate it, because the car was fast, and these guys didn’t deserve that. You hate to be the extra guy and ruin it for everybody else. Just made a silly mistake.”

Through the first three Michelin Endurance Cup segments, unofficial point leaders are the No. 7 Porsche in GTP, No. 99 AO ORECA in LMP2, No. 1 PMR BMW in GTD PRO and No. 70 Inception Ferrari in GTD.

Every lap of the Rolex 24 can be streamed live on Peacock, with television coverage resuming at noon ET Sunday on NBC and going to the checkered flag.