Rolex 24, Hour 14: Campbell vaults to the overall lead with Porsche

In the opening minutes of the hour, it was Matt Campbell who decided it was his turn to lead. The Australian breezed past up the inside of Colin Braun’s No. 60 Acura MSR ARX-06 at the Le Mans Chicane.

He immediately pulled away from the Acura, creating a margin of 6.1 seconds over 45 minutes before the latest FCY, which was called for the No. 43 Inter Europol ORECA stopping on track at NASCAR 2.

Tom Dillmann was behind the wheel at the time and had to be shuttled back to the pit lane on a flatbed. This caused a flurry of activity in the pits as the hour came to a close.

After the round of stops for the field, the No. 6 Porsche – now with Mathieu Jaminet at the wheel – still holds the lead, with the No. 60 MSR Acura second. Raffaele Marciello sits third in BMW Team RLL’s No. 24 M Hybrid V8.

In LMP2, Malthe Jakobsen is installed in the No. 04 Crowdstrike ORECA, which now leads the No. 88 AF Corse ORECA which has slipped to second since Nicklas Nielsen made way for Dylan Murry. Ryan Dalziel and Era Motorsport are third.

‘Rexy’ has taken control of GTD PRO. Alessio Picariello will be chased by No. 4 and No. 3 Corvettes of Tommy Milner and Daniel Juncadella when the race restarts.

Down the order Proton used the FCY stop as a chance to change the brakes on the front-end of its No. 20 Porsche which now sits ninth.

In GTD after Inception’s Ferrari held a commanding lead during the previous two hours, disaster would strike the British Ferrari customer team during this hour.

Ollie Millroy was spotted crawling along the apron, limping back to pit lane with 10 and a half hours to go. He would steer the car into pit lane where the mechanics would tend to the right-front corner before pushing it behind the wall for further inspection.

“I came out of Turn 5 and with no warning suffered a suspension failure. Front right corner. There was a bang and the car hit the ground,” Millroy told RACER.

The damage looks to have torn the mounting studs out of the chassis. “If it can be fixed,” Millroy continued, “it’s a three-hour job.”

Whether this is the end or not, it’s worth noting that Inception held the class lead at both the six and 12-hour mark, handing them a solid haul of Endurance Cup points.

This left Turner Motorsport’s Robby Foley to claim the lead in the class in the No. 96 BMW M4 GT3 briefly. But after the stops under FCY, the No. 021 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari rose up the order to P1.

The surviving No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin is second, with the No. 19 Van Der Steur Racing Vantage making it two cars in the top three for the British marque.

HOUR 14 STANDINGS