Daytona24: Porsche Motorsport hour 3 notes

Rolex 24 -- Hour 3; Lizard Porsche Riley Suffers Damage from Off-Road Excursion; 911 GT3 Cup Cars in Contention in GT as Race Settles In

Daytona Beach, FL -- January 20 -- The #45 Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche Riley Daytona Prototype race car, started by Joerg Bergmeister (Germany), turned the fastest lap of the race during the first hour of 49th running of the Rolex 24 at Daytona, but hour two incidents put the car in the garage for repairs, losing 18 laps to the leaders.

Bergmeister, who started on the pole and led the first 52 minutes of the 24-hour event, lost some time to the field when he made a green-flag pit stop for fuel and driver change just before a caution flag, which enabled the rest of the field to stop under yellow. Patrick Long spent almost an hour in the car, and brought it back up to second place, when another yellow and driver change took place. Car owner Seth Neiman climbed in the car, which was then hit and sustained fender damage on that re-start, and then received front splitter, under-tray and radiator damage when Neiman had to go off-track to avoid a spinning GT car. The car was repaired and is currently running in 16th place with Johannes van Overbeek at the wheel.

In the GT class, Kevin Buckler's TRG Porsche team started on the pole with #66 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car and Dominik Farnbacher (Germany) at the controls, but Ben Keating had a flat tire after a spin to move the car down to 13th position. Then, behind the first-place Paul Della Lana BMW, the Magnus Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup being driven by Richard Lietz, hit track curbs and damaged the rear sway bar, losing three laps in the pits. The Leh Keen Brumos Porsche is second while the TRG/Black Swan Racing Porsche, currently driven by Patrick Pilet, is third.

-source: porsche motorsport