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Practice report
IMSA Daytona 24

Rolex 24: Vautier sets the pace in night practice

Tristan Vautier and Spirit of Daytona Racing topped Thursday evening's third practice for this weekend's Rolex 24 at Daytona.

#90 Spirit of Daytona Racing Cadillac DPi, P: Tristan Vautier, Matt McMurry, Eddie Cheever III

Former IndyCar driver Vautier went fastest late on in the 90-minute session with a best time of 1m37.215s in the #90 Cadillac DPi-V.R, ousting Helio Castroneves and Team Penske from the top spot.

Castroneves, who narrowly missed out on pole to Wayne Taylor Racing's Renger van der Zande in qualifying, led for much of the running with a 1m37.413s lap, which proved enough for second.

Completing the top three was the #22 ESM Nissan DPi, driven by Pipo Derani, which was a further tenth back and fractionally ahead of the fourth-placed #55 Mazda Team Joest car of Harry Tincknell.

The #23 United Autosports Ligier JS P217 was fifth-fastest - and best of the LMP2s - courtesy of an early 1m37.557s effort from Lando Norris, who shares the car with Fernando Alonso.

WTR's pole-sitting #10 Cadillac was ninth-fastest, half a second off the pace with Jordan Taylor at the wheel.

Sebastien Bourdais set the fastest time in the GT Le Mans class in the #66 Ford GT, setting a best time of 1m43.675s - two tenths up on Richard Westbrook's best effort in the sister #67 machine.

The pole-winning #3 Corvette driven by Antonio Garcia was fifth in class behind the #82 Risi Ferrari and the best of the Porsches, the #912.

Mirko Bortolotti put the #11 Grasser Lamborghini Huracan on top in the GT Daytona class. However, the car has been consigned to the back of the grid after failing the stall test in post-qualifying tech inspection. 

Third practice results (top 10):

Pos.No.DriverChassisTimeGap
1 90 united_states Matt McMurry 
france Tristan Vautier 
italy  Eddie Cheever III 
Cadillac DPi 1'37.215  
2 7 brazil Helio Castroneves 
united_states Graham Rahal 
united_states Ricky Taylor 
Acura DPi 1'37.413 0.198
3 22 brazil Pipo Derani 
united_states Johannes van Overbeek 
france Nicolas Lapierre 
Nissan DPi 1'37.517 0.302
4 55 united_kingdom Harry Tincknell 
united_states Spencer Pigot 
united_states Jonathan Bomarito 
Mazda DPi 1'37.543 0.328
5 23 spain Fernando Alonso 
united_kingdom Phil Hanson 
united_kingdom Lando Norris 
Ligier LMP2 1'37.557 0.342
6 37 netherlands Robin Frijns 
spain Daniel Juncadella 
sweden Felix Rosenqvist 
canada Lance Stroll 
ORECA LMP2 1'37.620 0.405
7 78 china Ho-Pin Tung 
portugal Antonio Felix da Costa 
united_kingdom Alex Brundle 
austria  Ferdinand Habsburg 
ORECA LMP2 1'37.650 0.435
8 5 brazil Christian Fittipaldi 
portugal Filipe Albuquerque 
portugal Joao Barbosa 
Cadillac DPi 1'37.672 0.457
9 10 united_states Jordan Taylor 
united_states Ryan Hunter-Reay 
netherlands Renger van der Zande 
Cadillac DPi 1'37.754 0.539
10 6 colombia Juan Pablo Montoya 
france Simon Pagenaud 
united_states Dane Cameron 
Acura DPi 1'37.785 0.570

Click here to see full results

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