Action Express Racing’s #31 Cadillac is leading at Road Atlanta, pursued hard by Helio Castroneves in the sole surviving Acura Team Penske ARX-05.
Championship leader Eric Curran in his final race as a fulltimer for AXR currently heads Castroneves by a mere half second following the third full-course caution of the day.
Curran survived an investigation into causing the second caution, when he tagged a Scuderia Corsa Ferrari which in turn spat the Turner Motorsports BMW M6 into the wall.
Behind Castroneves ran Ryan Dalziel at quarter distance in the #2 ESM Nissan but soon after that, the car ran slowly into the pits with a wheel stud issue, and the #5 AXR Caddy currently driven by Tristan Vautier moved up to third.
Having suffered a puncture in the opening 25mins, the polesitting ESM Nissan is in 11th but back on sequence with the leaders, and currently has Timo Bernhard at the wheel.
Mazda’s challenge has faded somewhat, after Jonathan Bomarito dominated the opening hour. Following the second yellow-flag pitstops, temporary co-driver Spencer Pigot lost a wheel, and had to limp the Mazda back to the pits and then serve a drive through for emergency service during the GT cars’ stops, and falling to 11th.
The Acura Team Penske challenge has also been halved, after Montoya had a strange accident just past the one-hour mark, that ended with the ARX-05 off the road and damaged at Turn 3.
In GT Le Mans, the slightly off-sequence #66 Ford GT leads, with Dirk Muller at the wheel, as championship leader Jan Magnussen runs second ahead of Ryan Briscoe in the other Ford.
Jeroen Bleekemolen leads GT Daytona in the #33 Riley Mercedes AMG GT ahead of Chris Mies in the Land Motorsport Audi R8, and the two Lexus RC Fs split by the Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini.
That fourth place makes Madison Snow and Bryan Sellers clear GTD title favorites, because Katherine Legge currently runs only 11th in the #86 Acura NSX.
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