Hour 2: Dixon leads, but DeltaWing closing

Scott Dixon’s Ganassi Riley-Ford #02 led Jordan Taylor, Dane Cameron and Joao Barbosa in Corvette DPs running 2-3-4, for WTR and the two AX Racing entries.

However, Barbosa skated off the track at the restart and damaged his left front corner upon impacting the tire barrier, handing fourth place to Tristan Nunez in the Mazda Prototype.

Following her first pitstop with the DeltaWing, Katherine Legge had run 15sec behind Pipo Derani’s ESM Ligier-Honda and 10sec ahead of Ozz Negri’s Mike Shank Racing Ligier.

During the caution period, Legge suffered a tardy getaway but still resumed ahead of Johannes van Overbeek who replaced Derani in the ESM Ligier, and John Pew who took over the Shank Ligier. Going into the bus stop, the two got together, sending van Overbeek spinning and busting the left-front headlight out of the MSR machine.

At the restart, Legge wasted no time in getting past Nunez’s Mazda, and then closed in on and passed the two Corvette DPs ahead.

Nick Tandy continued to lead GTLM in the #911 Porsche 911 RSR, while Earl Bamber drove its sister #912 car into second. Bill Auberlen was up to third in the #25 BMW M6 GTLM, with Jan Magnussen fourth in the best of the Corvettes.

However, there was more bad news for Ganassi Ford GT fans, as Joey Hand’s #66 car had a long pit stop to repair a brake line knocked off during the wheel change. He returned to the track but then caused a yellow as he appeared to lose drive. Another stop followed before he rejoined.

Meanwhile the #67 Ford showed what might have been, by re-emerging from behind the wall to set fastest lap in GTLM, albeit 11 laps behind the next in class.

In GTD,  Robin Liddell’s Stevenson Motorsports Audi R8 LMS led the Lamborghini Huracans of Paul Miller Racing and O’Gara Motorsport.

The PC class still saw JDC Miller machine of Stephen Simpson running ahead of Performance Tech Motorsport’s James French and Starworks’ Alex Popow.