Daytona 24 Hours: Castroneves’ late lap puts MSR top in second Roar practice
Meyer Shank Racing led an Acura 1-2 in the second Roar Before the 24 practice session, as defending Daytona 24 Hours race-winner Helio Castroneves took advantage of cool conditions and a clear track to grab top spot.

On his fifth lap of the session, Filipe Albuquerque in the #10 Acura ARX-06 of Wayne Taylor Racing beat the fastest lap that Meyer Shank Racing’s Acura, driven by Colin Braun, set in the morning session. A 1m35.580s around the 3.56-mile course put him some 1.6s ahead of his nearest opposition, which came from the #02 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-LMDh and the two BMW M Hybrid V8s.
Albuquerque then raised the bar to 1m35.320s, and Earl Bamber’s Cadillac was 0.7s adrift, but still ahead of team-mate Scott Dixon in the #01 sister car.
Both of the CGR Cadillacs were displaced by Blomqvist once the MSR team had overcome issues with a pitlane speedlimiter that wouldn’t release, and he moved up into second behind the Wayne Taylor Racing Andretti Autosport team to complete an Acura 1-2.
This was spoiled by Dixon getting into second place, 0.265s from top spot, but Simon Pagenaud trimmed the MSR Acura’s deficit down to less than half a tenth before pitting.
His team-mate in IMSA and IndyCar Castroneves, did rather better than that, and moved to the top of the times with a 1m35.210s with under three minutes to go.
Thus Castroneves led an Acura 1-2 by 0.110s, he and Albuquerque sharing the three fastest sector times.
That left Dixon’s best Cadillac time some 0.375s adrift in third, although the six-time IndyCar champion was a similar distance ahead of the fastest of the Porsche Penske 963s, Michael Christensen’s #7 entry.

#01 Cadillac Racing Cadillac V-LMDh: Sebastien Bourdais, Renger van der Zande, Scott Dixon
Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images
Bamber was barely half a tenth slower in the second Ganassi Cadillac, ahead of Sheldon van der Linde’s best effort in the quicker BMW, while Marco Wittmann was a further half a second adrift.
The second Porsche 963, shared by Mathieu Jaminet, Dane Cameron and Nick Tandy, turned only nine laps with technical issues that Cameron didn’t wish to share with IMSA Radio, but their late appearance on track was still enough time for Tandy and Jaminet to push the Action Express Racing Cadillac of Jack Aitken down to the bottom.
In LMP2, Matthieu Vaxiviere was the first driver in class to bust below the 100s barrier, setting a 1m39.835s on his fifth lap in the AF Corse machine, but then Ben Keating in the PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports entry went almost half a second quicker.
It took only until his third lap for Mikkel Jensen’s TDS Racing car to trim 0.64s from that to go fastest, and his 1m38.730s stood firm as the top time in class for the remainder of the session.
Vaxiviere trimmed a few hundredths from his best to take second, but was still 0.6s from Jensen, with Keating third. Christian Rasmussen was the fastest of Era Motorsport’s drivers to nab fourth ahead of Scott McLaughlin who again impressed in the Tower Motorsports entry.
Gabby Chaves in the Andretti Autosport Ligier eclipsed Felipe Fraga's early leading effort in LMP3 with a 1m42.926s, to take top spot for the majority of the session.
But former Daytona 24 Hours winner Joao Barbosa left it until the last minute to move the Sean Creech Motorsports car into second, 0.45s adrift, mere hundredths ahead of Fraga’s former benchmark.

#75 Sun Energy 1 Mercedes AMG GT3: Fabian Schiller, Axcil Jefferies
Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images
Fabian Schiller moved to the top of the table early on in the GTD Pro class, producing a 1m47.020s in the SunEnergy1 Mercedes AMG GT3, less than a tenth faster than Parker Thompson’s Lexus RC F run by Vasser Sullivan Racing.
Nicki Thiim in the Magnus Racing Aston Martin Vantage and Russell Ward’s Winward Racing Mercedes were third and fourth at this stage, this quartet all swifter than the fastest GTD Pro cars – the second Lexus driven by Jack Hawksworth and the Heart of Racing Aston piloted by Alex Riberas.
When Ben Barnicoat took over the #14 GTD Pro Lexus, it moved up to shade its sister car by half a tenth, albeit 0.02s off the SunEnergy1 car.
Luis Perez Companc moved AF Corse’s new Ferrari 296 GT3 into fifth in GTD ahead of Maxi Goetz’s Team Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes, while Mirko Bortolotti’s Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan was third of the GTD Pro runners.
Practice 3 runs for 90 minutes on Saturday, starting at 11:15am local time (4:15pm GMT).
Daytona 24 Hours - Roar before the 24 FP2 results
Cla | Num | Driver | Class | Chassis | Laps | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 60 | |
GTP | Acura ARX-06 | 35 | 1'35.210 | |
2 | 10 | |
GTP | Acura ARX-06 | 37 | 1'35.320 | 0.110 |
3 | 01 | |
GTP | Cadillac V-LMDh | 33 | 1'35.585 | 0.375 |
4 | 7 | |
GTP | Porsche 963 | 35 | 1'35.974 | 0.764 |
5 | 02 | |
GTP | Cadillac V-LMDh | 41 | 1'36.013 | 0.803 |
6 | 25 | |
GTP | BMW M Hybrid V8 | 50 | 1'36.032 | 0.822 |
7 | 24 | |
GTP | BMW M Hybrid V8 | 43 | 1'36.547 | 1.337 |
8 | 6 | |
GTP | Porsche 963 | 9 | 1'36.754 | 1.544 |
9 | 31 | |
GTP | Cadillac V-LMDh | 31 | 1'37.128 | 1.918 |
10 | 11 | Thomas Steven Scott Huffaker |
LMP2 | ORECA LMP2 07 | 47 | 1'38.730 | 3.520 |
11 | 88 | |
LMP2 | ORECA LMP2 07 | 43 | 1'39.341 | 4.131 |
12 | 52 | Alex Quinn |
LMP2 | ORECA LMP2 07 | 45 | 1'39.372 | 4.162 |
13 | 18 | Dwight Merriman Christian Rasmussen |
LMP2 | ORECA LMP2 07 | 43 | 1'39.559 | 4.349 |
14 | 8 | Kyffin Simpson |
LMP2 | ORECA LMP2 07 | 41 | 1'40.105 | 4.895 |
15 | 04 | |
LMP2 | ORECA LMP2 07 | 49 | 1'40.140 | 4.930 |
16 | 35 | |
LMP2 | ORECA LMP2 07 | 49 | 1'40.450 | 5.240 |
17 | 20 | |
LMP2 | ORECA LMP2 07 | 46 | 1'40.635 | 5.425 |
18 | 51 | |
LMP2 | ORECA LMP2 07 | 43 | 1'40.809 | 5.599 |
19 | 55 | Giammaria Bruni |
LMP2 | ORECA LMP2 07 | 39 | 1'41.744 | 6.534 |
20 | 36 | |
LMP3 | Ligier JS P320 | 36 | 1'42.926 | 7.716 |
21 | 33 | Nicolas Pino Danny Soufi |
LMP3 | Ligier JS P320 | 37 | 1'43.375 | 8.165 |
22 | 74 | Josh Burdon |
LMP3 | Ligier JS P320 | 41 | 1'43.389 | 8.179 |
23 | 87 | |
LMP3 | Duqueine D08 | 35 | 1'43.820 | 8.610 |
24 | 17 | Nico Varrone |
LMP3 | Duqueine D08 | 40 | 1'44.290 | 9.080 |
25 | 13 | |
LMP3 | Duqueine D08 | 45 | 1'44.600 | 9.390 |
26 | 85 | |
LMP3 | Duqueine D08 | 43 | 1'44.882 | 9.672 |
27 | 38 | John DeAngelis Christopher Allen Connor Bloum |
LMP3 | Ligier JS P320 | 29 | 1'45.468 | 10.258 |
28 | 43 | Sebastian Alvarez Alex Vogel Guilherme de |
LMP3 | Ligier JS P320 | 34 | 1'46.152 | 10.942 |
29 | 75 | |
GTD | Mercedes AMG GT3 | 32 | 1'47.020 | 11.810 |
30 | 14 | |
GTD PRO | Lexus RC F GT3 | 41 | 1'47.040 | 11.830 |
31 | 12 | Parker Thompson |
GTD | Lexus RC F GT3 | 44 | 1'47.096 | 11.886 |
32 | 44 | |
GTD | Aston Martin Vantage GT3 | 40 | 1'47.166 | 11.956 |
33 | 57 | |
GTD | Mercedes AMG GT3 | 40 | 1'47.335 | 12.125 |
34 | 23 | David Pittard |
GTD PRO | Aston Martin Vantage GT3 | 33 | 1'47.561 | 12.351 |
35 | 21 | Mann Simon |
GTD | Ferrari 296 GT3 | 38 | 1'47.575 | 12.365 |
36 | 32 | Maximillian Goetz |
GTD | Mercedes AMG GT3 | 41 | 1'47.575 | 12.365 |
37 | 70 | Brendan Iribe |
GTD | McLaren 720S GT3 | 40 | 1'47.609 | 12.399 |
38 | 93 | Ashton Harrison Danny Formal |
GTD | Acura NSX GT3 | 31 | 1'47.676 | 12.466 |
39 | 63 | |
GTD PRO | Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 | 40 | 1'47.735 | 12.525 |
40 | 79 | |
GTD PRO | Mercedes AMG GT3 | 40 | 1'47.768 | 12.558 |
41 | 27 | |
GTD | Aston Martin Vantage GT3 | 38 | 1'47.794 | 12.584 |
42 | 023 | Onofrio Triarsi Charles Scardina |
GTD | Ferrari 296 GT3 | 33 | 1'47.847 | 12.637 |
43 | 62 | |
GTD PRO | Ferrari 296 GT3 | 22 | 1'47.921 | 12.711 |
44 | 3 | |
GTD PRO | Corvette C8.R GTD | 36 | 1'48.006 | 12.796 |
45 | 47 | |
GTD | Ferrari 296 GT3 | 34 | 1'48.112 | 12.902 |
46 | 64 | |
GTD PRO | Aston Martin Vantage GT3 | 25 | 1'48.115 | 12.905 |
47 | 66 | Sheena Monk |
GTD | Acura NSX GT3 | 41 | 1'48.135 | 12.925 |
48 | 78 | |
GTD | Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 | 38 | 1'48.322 | 13.112 |
49 | 42 | Kerong Li |
GTD | Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 | 42 | 1'48.381 | 13.171 |
50 | 83 | Doriane Pin |
GTD | Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 | 39 | 1'48.578 | 13.368 |
51 | 96 | Michael Dinan |
GTD | BMW M4 GT3 | 34 | 1'48.695 | 13.485 |
52 | 19 | Frank Perera |
GTD | Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 | 39 | 1'48.811 | 13.601 |
53 | 9 | |
GTD PRO | Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) | 34 | 1'48.881 | 13.671 |
54 | 1 | |
GTD | BMW M4 GT3 | 40 | 1'49.028 | 13.818 |
55 | 95 | Chandler Hull |
GTD PRO | BMW M4 GT3 | 43 | 1'49.405 | 14.195 |
56 | 77 | Max Root |
GTD | Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) | 37 | 1'49.453 | 14.243 |
57 | 16 | |
GTD | Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) | 36 | 1'49.599 | 14.389 |
58 | 92 | David Brule |
GTD | Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) | 34 | 1'49.701 | 14.491 |
59 | 91 | Alan Metni |
GTD | Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) | 40 | 1'49.762 | 14.552 |
60 | 80 | PJ Hyett Seb Priaulx |
GTD | Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) | 25 | 1'49.790 | 14.580 |
61 | 53 | |
GTD | Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) | 43 | 1'49.990 | 14.780 |
View full results |

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61 cars make Daytona 24 Hours “like a gymkhana”, says Bourdais

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