Rolex 24: 7 hour report

At the 7 hour mark, Montoya in the Ganassi BMW Riley has a commanding lead by sprint race measures, but it's nothing for an endurance race where cars that had over a lap on the field at sunup, ultimately lost the race.

He is laying down the fastest laps now and though AJ Allmendinger is really showing some speed in the #6 Michael Shank Ford, Montoya seems to be putting just a little more distance between them with each lap.

Dalziel was holding station a few seconds behind Allmendinger after some dicey action after the restart about an hour ago, but just took to the pits and turn the car over to Joao Barbosa, dropping to 8th. However, expect to see that car near the front at the end. We have been watching them, and their lap times are fast and consistent.

Pits stops are starting to shuffle the field now. The top 9 DP cars are running on the same lap.

Right now the top 10 in the DP class:

Hunter-Reay
Rojas
Leitzinger
McMurray
Allmendinger
Barbosa
Braun
Vasser
Tucker
Negri

The GT Class is in an ongoing state of oscillation that makes it hard to really tell who is at the front. The TRG cars seem to be commanding the top three, but the Stevenson Camaro is holding close and jumps to the lead along with teammate Matt Bell, and the Tremblay SpeedSource Mazda also running really well. Tremblay commented that this was in their race plan all along, to hold a consistent pace, and then let the Mazda really run at night when it makes the most power, gets the best fuel mileage and that the car is especially easy on tires.

It looks like the top two or three GT cars are running on the same lap or so, with the other cars a couple of laps down or more as you sift down through the field.

The top 10 in GT:

Liddel
Pumpelly
Tremblay
Long
Bell
McIntosh
Sahlen
Foster
Segal