Corvette Daytona Prototypes once again set the fastest times in the final day of the Rolex Roar Before the 24 test weekend at Daytona International Speedway Sunday.
Sixty cars turned out to practice for the upcoming 50th Anniversary Grand Am Rolex 24-hour race (and 57 more for the Continental Tire Sports car Challenge practice,) giving fans a first look at the kind of action they might see race weekend.
The top five spots were taken by cars wearing the new Corvette bodywork, but not by a huge margin: the sixth-place car was less than six-tenths of a second behind the second-place car.
Fastest lap of the two sessions—by four-tenths of a second—was set by Max Angellei in the No. 10 SunTrust car he shares with Ricky Taylor and IndyCar star Ryan Briscoe, getting around Daytona’s road course in 1:41.142 at 126.712 mph. The No. 99 Corvette Riley of Gainsco/Stallings and the three Corvette Coyotes of Action Express and Spirit of Daytona filled out the top five.
Michael Shank Racing’s pair of Riley Fords led the non-Corvette brigade.
Absent from the sessions was the multiple-championship-winning No. 01 Telmex-Ganassi Riley BMW, which got caught in an accident during night practice Saturday.
Max Angelelli told Grand-Am.com how he beat the field by such a large margin.
“Speed is not really important in this test; we wanted to have everything ready to make sure it was prepared for the race. We did go out for one fast run. We trimmed the car down, took away downforce, put on new tires and then I was able to run an absolutely clean lap. It was like a qualifying lap—we put everything we had on the table.”
Ferrari vs. Porsche in GT
