Flying Lizard Motorsports Daytona 24H hour 6 report

Rolex 24 At Daytona – Hour Six Update – No. 45 Thirteenth in GT

#45 Flying Lizard Motorsports with Wright Motorsports Porsche GT3: Jorg Bergmeister, Patrick Long, Seth Neiman, Mike Rockenfeller

Photo by: Eric Gilbert

10:00 pm ET – Just past the one-quarter mark of the Rolex 24 At Daytona, the Flying Lizard No. 45 Porsche is thirteenth in GT. It was a clean start for both classes with Patrick Long starting fourth on the GT grid. Long had an uneventful 90-minute double stint and turned the wheel over to Mike Rockenfeller in P3. For the next 90 minutes, Rockenfeller kept the No. 45 out of the multiple incidents which resulted in several lengthy yellows. Rockenfeller commented, “I just tried to take it very easy on the car because we were so early in the race. The car feels fine; we have some understeer and we hope the track will come towards us over the race. We have a good race car; I think we’ll be ready when it comes time to race Sunday morning. We just need to run clean and we have a good chance.”

At the three-hour mark, Joerg Bergmeister took over for his first stint of the race. Bergmeister was also able to stay out of trouble and battled up to second, then turned the wheel over to Seth Neiman, now in P8. Neiman was nearing the end of his stint when the crew lost radio contact, and called him into the pits. The No. 45 then had contact with another GT car, which resulted in some light damage on the left rear and pushed him back in the field. After a pit stop for new tires, fuel and driver change, Patrick Long headed back out, now in P16 and two laps down. Over the next 30 minutes, and several more full course cautions, Patrick moved up to P13.