Following a brief spell in the lead for BMW, Corvette retook control in the GT Le Mans battle and held a solid one-two with six hours of the race to go.
Prior to the ninth caution, the top three cars all pitted together, and it was at that juncture that the BMW driven by Connor de Phillippi surrendered the advantage to the Corvettes.
The #3 Corvette of Antonio Garcia briefly took the lead, but shortly after the sister C8.R of Tommy Milner got back in front, and after the next round of stops – when Nick Tandy took control of the #4 and Jordan Taylor the #3 – it was the silver Corvette that consolidated the lead.
Tandy led by around five seconds over Taylor with six hours to run, while John Edwards was a further seven seconds back in the best of the BMWs.
Risi Competizione’s Ferrari 488 GTE ran fourth in the hands of Davide Rigon ahead of DTM ace Timo Glock in the second of the Team RLL-run BMW M8 GTEs.
In GT Daytona, a spirited battle between Daniel Serra’s Ferrari and Maro Engel’s Mercedes was finally resolved in favour of the AF Corse Ferrari 488 GT3 shortly before the 18-hour mark.
Andrea Caldarelli had the Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 up to third, 30 seconds down, followed by Trent Hindman in the Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R and Laurens Vanthoor in the Pfaff Motorsports Porsche.
The SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes had slipped to sixth, with Mikael Grenier at the helm.
