The Rolex 24 At Daytona is a quarter over, and crossing the six-hour mark has triggered the first round of Michelin Endurance Cup points.
When the last caution ended 15 minutes into the sixth hour, Matt Campbell pushed the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsports 963 into the lead, and even stretched it a bit over the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac Racing V-Series.R with Tom Blomqvist at the wheel. After a round of pit stops just prior to the end of the sixth hour, Campbell led Derani in the No. 31 after he took over from Blomqvist and Renger van der Zande in the No. 01 Cadillac, who had just taken over from Alex Palou.
With many teams double stinting early in the race, they’re losing time not only to the tire degradation, but also because they have to be more cautious in traffic.
“You need to be more careful — we are quite struggling on the brakes to stop the car,” said Mathieu Jaminet after his stint in the No. 6 PPM Porsche 963. “You arrive very fast, so some moves becomes impossible when your tire drops, like going outside Turn 1, outside 5 by the end is pretty much impossible to GT cars … even in the Bus Stop I wasn’t quicker than GTD towards the end. You need to adjust and be for sure more cautious because you don’t want to hit someone, so you lose a bit more time in traffic on top of the tires but that’s the way to go. It’s not a moment of the race where you need to be aggressive. That’s the moment where you keep it one piece.”