The Daytona 24 approached 10 hours of racing with the #60 of Meyer Shank Racing leading the race over the field with three DNFs.
The ninth hour of the race began in bright form for debutant Alex Lynn after he snatched the overall race lead from the #48 of Kamui Kobayashi.
His times were comfortably in the 1m35s bracket thus keeping him in the winning fight for the next two hours in his Cadillac.
In LMP2, the pack ran closely too with the #29, #69, #52 and #20 all fighting for the top-four places.
Corvette Racing were experiencing a tough race with the #4 still in the garage being attended to surrounding gearbox and differential issues.
The sister #3 C8.R. experienced no better fate during the night after it needed its alternator replaced.
Both cars were simply being run around for the purposes of gathering data, due to being several laps down, and with the #4 serving as the full-time IMSA entry.
In GTD, the lead fight made for a thrilling duel between the Mercedes-AMG and McLaren 720s package.
The #70 Inception Racing was on the tail of the #32 car with just 0.4s between the two GTDs.
A seventh Full Course Yellow (safety car) period was deployed when the #96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 spun after contact with the #47 Cetilar Racing Ferrari.
The IMSA regulars have found the debuting M4 a challenging package for them at Daytona.
After this brief caution safety car period, the #2 of Alex Lynn was set to lead the way over a closely-packed DPi field.
To his disadvantage, he pitted before the field went green flag racing once again, and then received a drive-through penalty.
This was for accelerating and braking, therefore not maintaining his pace on the restart. It was then put a lap down and was distant from a DPi field just seven seconds within one-another.
Ricky Taylor of the #10 headed the way, before another extensive caution period triggered several convenient pit stops up and down the field.
This was because the #59 had a moment at Turn 6 where the car seemingly turned off and stopped with 20 minutes of the eighth FCY.
On the restart, Tom Blomqvist was opportunistic on the #10 of Alexander Rossi and claimed the lead, building over a second at the front.
| Overall Position | Category | Team |
| 1 (304 Laps) | DPi | #60 Meyer Shank Racing W/Curb-Agajanian |
| 2 | DPi | #10 Konica Minolta Acura ARX-05 |
| 3 | DPi | #5 JDC Miller MotorSports |
| 4 | DPi | #48 Ally Cadillac |
| 5 | DPi | #1 Cadillac Racing |
| 6 | DPi | #31 Whelen Engineering Racing |
| 7 | DPi | #2 Cadillac Racing |
| 8 | LMP2 | #20 High Class Racing |
| 9 | LMP2 | #69 G-Drive Racing By APR |
| 10 | LMP2 | #81 DragonSpeed USA |
| 11 | LMP2 | #52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports |
| 12 | LMP2 | #8 Tower Motorsport |
| 13 | LMP2 | #29 Racing Team Nederland |
| 14 | LMP2 | #11 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports |
| 15 | LMP2 | #68 G-Drive Racing By APR |
| 16 | LMP2 | #22 United Autosports |
| 17 | LMP3 | #33 Sean Creech Motorsport |
| 18 | LMP3 | #74 Riley Motorsports |
| 19 | LMP3 | #54 CORE Autosport |
| 20 | LMP3 | #13 AWA |
| 21 | LMP3 | #26 Muehlner Motorsports America |
| 22 | LMP3 | #36 Andretti Motorsport |
| 23 | GTD-Pro | #62 Risi Competizione |
| 24 | GTD-Pro | #2 KCMG |
| 25 | GTD-Pro | #9 Pfaff Motorsports |
| 26 | GTD-Pro | #15 Proton USA |
| 27 | GTD-Pro | #97 WeatherTech Racing |
| 28 | GTD-Pro | #14 VasserSullivan |
| 29 | GTD-Pro | #63 TR3 Racing |
| 30 | LMP2 | #18 Era Motorsport |
| 31 | GTD | #21 AF Corse |
| 32 | GTD | #32 Gilbert Korthoff Motorsports |
| 33 | GTD | #57 Winward Racing |
| 34 | GTD | #66 Gradient Racing |
| 35 | GTD | #16 Wright Motorsports |
| 36 | GTD | #42 NTE Sport |
| 37 | GTD | #70 Inception Racing |
| 38 | GTD | #19 TR3 Racing |
| 39 | GTD | #44 Magnus Racing |
| 40 | GTD | #27 Heart of Racing Team |
| 41 | GTD | #71 T3 Motorsport North America |
| 42 | GTD | #64 TeamTGM |
| 43 | GTD-Pro | #25 BMW M Team RLL |
| 44 | LMP3 | #7 Forty7 Motorsports |
| 45 | GTD-Pro | #3 Corvette Racing |
| 46 | GTD | #39 CarBahn with Peregrine Racing |
| 47 | LMP3 | #38 Performance Tech Motorsports |
| 48 | GTD | #96 Turner Motorsport |
| 49 | GTD-Pro | #24 BMW M Team RLL |
| 50 | GTD-Pro | #79 WeatherTech Racing |
| 51 | GTD | #99 Team Hardpoint |
| 52 | GTD | #59 Crucial Motorsports |
| 53 | GTD | #98 Northwest AMR |
| 54 | GTD | #47 Cetilar Racing |
| 55 | GTD | #12 VasserSullivan |
| 56 | GTD-Pro | #4 Corvette Racing |
| 57 | LMP3 | #6 Muehlner Motorsports America |
| 58 (DNF) | GTD | #28 Alegra Motorsports |
| 59 (DNF) | GTD-Pro | #23 Heart of Racing Team |
| 60 (DNF) | GTD | #75 Sun Energy 1 |
| 61 | GTD | #34 GMG Racing |
