In the first race for IMSA’s new GTD Pro class, which replaces the GTLM division in which RLL fielded an M8 GTE last year, the works BMW team struggled for pace as the M4 GT3 made its US competition bow.
It sat at the bottom of the fastest lap timesheets, the M4’s in-race best of 1m46.897s set by Jesse Krohn aboard the #25 entry almost two seconds off the best GTD Pro lap of 1m45.087s from Laurens Vanthoor’s KCMG Porsche. It was also slower than the best efforts posted by many silver-graded drivers in the pro-am GTD class.
Although both cars finished the race, with the car Krohn shared with Augusto Farfus, John Edwards and Connor De Phillippi classified seventh, it was 13 laps behind the winning Pfaff Motorsport Porsche after suffering early diffuser damage.
The sister #24 entry driven by Philipp Eng, Marco Wittmann, Nick Yelloly and Sheldon van der Linde was 46 laps down in ninth after damage to the diffuser and a puncture.
Rahal, an outright Daytona winner as a driver in 1981,…
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