Grand-Am, Rolex 24 At Daytona - To The Flag

The final hour opens as the previous one ended - finely poised.

14:37 - Pruett pits for the final time in the #01 Riley.

14:44 - The most important stop of the race is taking place - #9. He gets away without problems; the question now is where is Pruett?

Pruett is under a minute back - Now its a duel to the flag - Barbosa vs Pruett, Porsche V8 vs BMW, Action Express vs Chip Ganassi Racing

Pruett is closing, but only slowly - A yellow would suit them fine just now!

Liddell is trying to get onto terms with Lietz for fourth in GT - 13 seconds the gap with 30 minutes to run

Pruett can't close the gap at present - it's hovering around the 55-56 second mark - Barbosa is lapping quickly and consistently - Pruett a touch quicker but only by the odd tenth here and there. It seems he's keeping up the pressure but with no real hope of closing significantly on pace alone - But will something - or someone - throw him a break? 

Liddell though has closed on Lietz - 10 seconds the gap in the 4th place battle and then another three seconds sliced from the Porsche's advantage next time around.

13 minutes and the lead battle is still 54 seconds - Barbosa looks well in control - Surely we won't see a last minute drama that will throw this result up in the air? Nails are being bittten to the quick in pitlane.

Liddell still closing, 5.6 seconds becomes 4.8 then 3.8 - 10 minutes left  The Camaro is soon almost on the engine cover of the Magnus Porsche

5 minutes and the lead gap is still static as the third placed car, the #95 Riley has another draa at pit exit, Ryan Hunter Reay though rejoins safely and with plenty in hand over the 4th placed Krohn Lola

Lietz pits, Liddell grabs 4th in GT - good Championship points but the team will rue their earlier problems.

The white flag flies  - nothing other than a last lap failure can stop Barbosa now.  It's been a fascinating race, plenty of close racing, with 13 of the 15  DPs having led at some point.

Action Express Racing win the Rolex 24 Hours - Joao Barbosa, Mike Rockenfeller, Ryan Dalziel and Terry Borcheller take the win with Porsche V8 power, the Brumos crew take a win double.

The #01 crew will rue their decision to pit the car in the closing hours as a precaution but what a record Chip Ganassi Racing have at this race in the DP era - Max Papis, Scott Pruett, Memo Rojas and Justin Wilson take a hard fought second place.

And its a fine third place for  Crown Royal/ NPN Racing Richard Westbrook, Ryan Hunter Reay, Lucas Luhr and Scott Tucker

GT sees a great result for Mazda with the #70 Speedsource RX 8 crew of Jonathan Bomarito, Nick Ham, David Haskell and Sylvain Tremblay

Second place in GT goes to the Lizards, Johannes van Overbeek, Seth Neiman,  Jorg Bergmeister and Pat Long in their TRG entered Porsche

Third goes to the #66 TRG entered Porsche, Ted Ballou, Kelly Collins, Patrick Flanagan, Wolf Henzler and Andy Lally

Congratulations to all of the above but from all of us at dsc, and in particular from our Editor in Chief, a massive well done to Joao Barbosa.

Huge thanks too to Mark Howson for a 20 hour stint at the keyboard for these live updates.

GG and MH