Earl Bamber has recorded his best finish to date in the Rolex 24 At Daytona for the Porsche GT Team.
Joined by Laurens Vanthoor (Belgium) and Mathieu Jaminet (France), the trio combined to finish second in the GTLM division.
Chaz Mostert, Augusto Farfus, John Edwards and Jesse Krohn claimed GTLM honours for BMW Team RLL. It’s the second straight success for the BMW M8 GTE in the 24-hour race.
It looked like it would be a competition between Porsche and Corvette early on as the two marques fought with their new-look cars.
The updated second-generation Porsche 911 RSR – based on the Porsche 991.2 – led from the outside with the new Corvette C8.R in tow.
However, BMW fought forward with Mostert completing a strong stint during the night to bring them into contention.
The typically close-fought GTLM field eventually pitted the two Porsche entries alongside the leading effort from BMW.
Nick Tandy led the final stint, but a mistake allowed Krohn to come through and take the lead. On fading tyres, Tandy fell behind Bamber too.
The final stanza of the race saw little change. In the end, Mostert/Farfus/Edwards/Krohn came home 14 seconds clear of Bamber/Vanthoor/Jaminet. Third was Nick Tandy, Frederic Makoweicki and Matt Campbell, 18 seconds adrift of the lead.
Corvette Racing couldn’t find the podium with Antonio Garcia, Jordan Taylor and Nicky Catsburg finishing a lap down on the GTLM field.
The other BMW M8 GTE of Bruno Spengler, Connor De Phillippi, Phillip Eng and Colton Herta claimed fifth.
The sole Risi Competizione encountered issues due to debris while the other Corvette Racing entry failed to fire due to a cracked bell-housing, finishing 300 laps behind.