Grand-Am, Rolex 24 At Daytona – Thursday Morning Notes
Underway

Events at the 2011 Rolex 24 were formally opened at a sunny, if somewhat cool, Daytona International Speedway Thursday morning with a short ceremony on the start-finish straight, which was immediately followed by the start of the first practice session.

The entry list reached the 50 mark with the late addition of a third Starworks Riley Ford – the #2 of Enzo Potoliccio, Alex Popow and Romain Iannetta – bringing the DP class to 18.

The morning session was largely incident-free, but was ended prematurely after about 82 minutes after the #23 United Autosports Riley Ford suffered a blow out on the front straight and pulled up in the no-man’s-land between the entrance and exit of the infield portion of the circuit.

The #01 Chip Ganassi Riley BMW was fastest in the session, with Juan Pablo Montoya setting the fastest time of 1:40.544, but things were very close in the chasing positions; the top 17 being separated by just 1.747s. The SunTrust Dallara Chevrolet was second, followed by the #8 Starworks car.

The GT class was led for much of the session by the #57 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro GT.R, after Jan Magnussen set a 1:49.657; and it required a 1:49.116 from Andy Lally in the #67 TRG Porsche on its 27^th lap to depose it from the top place. Three Porsches filled the next three positions – #54 TRG/Black Swan, #59 Brumos Racing and #66 TRG – while the #94 Turner Motorsport M3 was sixth.

The #00 Aten Motorsports Ferrari was the only car in the field not to venture out in the first session, while the #8 Burtin Racing Porsche ended the session with an alarmingly broken windscreen after having encountered something heavy and unyielding. No other damage was visible on the car, suggesting a chunk of rubber or a recently-deceased seagull.

The rest of the day sees second practice at 13:30 to 14:30, the two 15-minute qualifying sessions at 15:45 and 16:15, and night-time practice from 18:30 to 20:30.

The forecast for the rest of the week, incidentally, is dry, warm and sunny, with the weekend looking like dry and in the low ‘70s. Apologies to those readers elsewhere in the States and the world that are currently buried under snow.

MH