Daytona 24: #31 car leads after strong stint from Derani

An impressive stint from Pipo Derani means the #31 car is in the overall lead of the Daytona 24 as four hours remain.

An incident-free two-hour period saw the drivers begin to settle into a good race pace as the final few hours begin.

The 18th hour began with problems for the #57 Winward Racing as it pulled into the pits and disappeared behind the wall with an issue.

A close battle in the DPi class emerged towards the end of the 18th hour, the #60 and #5 cars were separated by less than a second with the latter shortly taking third place after a nice overtake at Turn 6.

A flurry of pit-stops in the DPi class then began halfway through the 19th hour. The #31 and #5 cars pitting in consecutive laps for their stops.

With Pipo Derani stepping into the #31 car and taking over from Mike Conway, it wasn’t too long before the Brazilian made a move for second place, forcing a mistake from Alexander Rossi in the #10 car.

Derani quickly began to close the gap to the leading #5 car, with the gap at 5.5s shortly after he took second place.

Around 15 minutes after the #31 took second, Derani quickly closed in on Westbrook’s #5 car, with less than 0.3s separating the pair for more than two laps.

Derani then took the lead of the race coming out of Turn 6, slicing up the inside of the #5 car and quickly bridging a gap to Westbrook.

Elsewhere in the field, the #70 took the lead of the GTD class from the #16 car, a move at the Le Mans Chicane was enough to move ahead after a tight wheel-to-wheel battle.

But the #16 car wasted no time in retaking the position, going down the inside of the #70 Inception Racing at Turn 6.

With the DPi leaders pitting at the end of the 19th hour, the #31 car still leads the Daytona 24 with just four hours to go.

The #81 DragonSpeed is in the lead of the LMP2 class, with the #74 car at the front of the LMP3 field.

The #2 KCMG continues to lead the GTD-Pro class and the #16 is leading in the GTD category.

Tune into our Live Text Commentary as we enter the final four hours of racing in the Daytona 24!