Daytona 24 Hours: Cadillac in charge two-thirds into rain-hit race
Cadillac maintained its grip on the rain-hit Daytona 24 Hours as the race hit two-thirds distance
The Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R with Ricky Taylor at the wheel led the opening round of the IMSA SportsCar Championship on the 18-hour mark.
His advantage, with the safety car on track for the 14th time of the race, stood at 12 seconds over the best of the Action Express Racing Cadillacs driven by Joao Barbosa.
The Spirit of Daytona Riley-Gibson MK30 had split the Cadillacs earlier in the 18th hour following a charge from Renger van der Zande.
A drive-through for missing the Bus Stop chicane on multiple occasions dropped the car back to third, although he remained on the lead lap despite following up on the penalty with a scheduled pitstop.
Fourth place was held by the best of Extreme Speed Motorsport's Nissan-Onroak DPis, which was a lap down with Ryan Dalziel at the wheel.
The sister ESM car topped the leaderboard in both the ninth and 10th hours.
Brendon Hartley pitted out of the lead in hour 10, but struggled to get heat into a new set of rain tyres and was tagged by a GT Daytona Porsche as he corrected a slide up on the banking.
The battle for the GT Le Mans class victory was being fought out in the lower reaches of the top six overall.
The #912 Porsche 911 RSR led in the hands of Patrick Pilet by three seconds from Sebastien Bourdais in the #66 Chip Ganassi Ford GT that had topped the class for much of the race.
The #3 Chevrolet Corvette C7-R with Jan Magnussen at the wheel ran third ahead of a further three GTLMs that remained on the lead lap in the class battle.
The GT Daytona class was led by the two new Michael Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3s with Ryan Hunter-Reay and Graham Rahal at the wheel.
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