It would seem, looking at the long run pace in the three practice sessions for the Daytrona 24 Hours, that BMW and Acura are still mostly on top, emerging as favourites for the win.
That doesn't tell the whole story, though. While BMW took pole with a last gasp effort from the rapid Dries Vanthoor on Thursday, and their long run pace is near or at the top when analysing the averages, anything can happen in 24 hours and strategy will certainly come into it.
'I think especially BMW looks strong,' Porsche's Laurens Vanthoor told The Racing Line.
'But last year,' he continued, 'we were also not the favourite going into the race and in the end, with strategy, after 24 hours we were there. I think it's quite close. It'll come up to details with track temperature and other cars after 24 hours and how the track evolves.
'I think that's going to play more of a role than just the pure performance,' said the Belgian.
While Vanthoor is undoubtedly correct, and his assessment may well turn out to be correct: let's take a look at the long run averages and try to put together some trends for the race.
BMW and Acura continue form from the Roar
At the Roar test last weekend, the BMWs and Acuras were the class of the field. They were topping the outright sessions and the long run pace tables, as TRL's analysis showed.
This seems to have largely continued in the three free practice sessions for the race itself.
When taking each car's fastest single stint, practice 1 was topped by the #93 Meyer Shank Acura. This stint, seven laps long, had former BMW man Nick Yelloly at the wheel, with the Briton well over a second faster on average than the next car, the #25 BMW of Sheldon van der Linde.
The sister Acura was third, with the three Cadillacs next up in fourth, fifth and sixth. Both van der Linde and Rosenqvist, in that third-placed #60 Meyer Shank Acura, had longer stints than Yelloly, with van der Linde pitting after nine laps and Rosenqvist after 10.
It's impossible for us to say why Yelloly was such a substantial amount faster than his rivals, but it surely places Acura in a good spot going into the race.
That said, as L. Vanthoor alluded to, conditions were not favourable or representative in practice 1. Florida has been undergoing a long, uncharacteristic cold snap since before the Roar, with temperatures in the single digits.
The race, though, will be much warmer as the cold snap breaks, meaning tyre degradation will be higher and the teams will face unknowns going into the race.
Looking at the average stint times again, the Porsches seem to be struggling. They sat 10th and 11th in the long run standings in practice 1, even behind the #63 Lamborghini.
Cadillac coming on strong in practice 2 and 3
Rain during practice 2 caused many cars to stay in the dry garages, with only six of the 12 GTPs venturing out.
With the two BMWs, and one of the Acuras, choosing to stay in the garage, the two Wayne Taylor-run factory Cadillacs rose to the top of the pile on average long run pace. The #40 car was the quicker of the pair, Kamui Kobayashi at the wheel.
He did four laps in the stint, out of the car's six in total, all with the Japanese driver at the wheel, setting a 1:37.564 on average over those four laps.
Brendon Hartley was half a second off in the sister #40, unable to match his WEC Toyota teammate. Encouragingly for Porsche the #7 car was next, with Tandy just a smidge off Hartley.
But in practice 3, BMW were back, with the #25 car — which will start from the back of the GTP field after a technical issue with the high voltage system in qualifying — fastest on average, with Rene Rast at the wheel.
The German did a five lap stint to set his 1:37.877 average, under a tenth slower than van der Linde in the first session.
Cadillac, though, were again there or thereabouts. Kobayashi was again the fastest of the Cadillacs, just under two tenths on average off Rast and quicker than Felipe Drugovich in the Action Express-run, Whelen-sponsored #31 Cadillac.
But, Kobayashi's stint, at 13 laps, was substantially longer than Rast's. While it's impossible to know fuel levels or tyres, details the timing does not provide, this must be encouraging for Cadillac.
The fastest, longest stint in practice 3 was 19 laps, L. Vanthoor in the #7 Porsche, setting a 1:38.618.
Anyone's game
The conclusions we can draw from this are frustratingly vague: it's anyone's game. While BMW look to be very strong, and Acura too, Cadillac seem to have as-yet unrevealed pace and you can never, ever count Porsche out in endurance sportscar racing.
As many will know, Daytona 24 Hours is dominated by a single thing, year in, year out: cautions. Because of the way IMSA and its headlining Sportscar Championship use caution periods, many drivers insist you simply need to stay on the lead lap until the final quarter of the race.
This final quarter is when it all happens, then. Teams begin to show their true pace as they push to move up the field, after essentially doing the racing equivalent of treading water for the previous 18 hours.
But, with four manufacturers so closely matched on the timesheets, one thing's for sure: we are, once again, in for a banger of a race in what continues to be a golden age for sportscar racing.
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