Rolex 24 Hour 8: No. 60 Honda still leads at 1/3 mark

The No. 60 Michael Shank Ligier Honda leads at 1/3 mark

The Michael Shank Racing No. 60 Ligier Honda, now with Oswaldo Negri at the wheel, still leads the Rolex 24 at Daytona as the race reached the 1/3 mark. Just before the 8-hour mark Negri passed the Chevy Corvette DP of Ricky Taylor.

The Ford of Tony Kanaan runs third as the top-3 cars are separated by less than 2-seconds and the top 8 by less than 6 seconds thanks to another caution that bunched the field.

Earl Bamber's Porsche #912 still leads GTLM ahead of the Chevy Corvette of Jan Magnussen.

The Oreca of Tom Kimber Smith leads PC and the Lamborghini of Mirko Bortolotti leads GTD over the sister car driven by Spencer Pumpelly.

Corvette Quotes at Hour 8

MAX ANGELELLI, WAYNE TAYLOR RACING NO. 10 KONICA MINOLTA CORVETTE DP: “The car was very good but I fought all the time because the cars in front of me were slower than I was and I was trying to find a way to overtake them. So it was tough, but I am pleased with the team and pleased with the car. The car is really, really strong and I am looking forward to the race. When you have a car like this, you really enjoy driving it."

TOMMY MILNER, NO. 4 CHEVROLET CORVETTE C7.R: “Pretty routine start of a 24-hour race. People are finding their way and causing some trouble but all-in-all it was pretty clean in the first triple-stint there. I’m pretty happy with how the Corvette is driving right now and we are quick in our class which is obviously nice, but there is still a long way to go. That is just part one of writing a good story so to speak. So yeah, I am really happy and now we get Marcel in for his laps and get him comfortable and settled in, and then we can kind of push on from there."

IF YOU COULD NAME ONE THING THAT YOU COULD USE A LITTLE MORE OF WHEN YOU GET BACK IN, WHAT WOULD THAT BE? “There is still some work to be done on the setup of the car a little bit. The car is not perfect by any means, but where it is good is in all the right spots. It’s a bit of a handful in the high-speed stuff and we have set ourselves up to make some passes in a straight line. It seems like that is working well, but some of the stuff in the infield isn’t quite where I would want it to be but it’s still good enough for right now. So, it’s a long race and we can still make some adjustments as the race goes on and really try and dial in the car so that we have a chance to push hard at the end."

ANTONIO GARCIA, CORVETTE RACING NO. 3 CHEVROLET CORVETTE C7.R: “Everything ran according to plan. When Jan came in, I could see that the car was very good. He did a really fast last stint before I got in, so I felt really confident. The Corvette behaved just as I wanted. Whenever we are able to lead the race right now, we will take it. But there is still a big risk factor out there. We want to be fast but more important is saving the car as much as possible."

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI, ACTION EXPRESS RACING NO. 5 MUSTANG SAMPLING CORVETTE DP: “That was a pretty solid stint. The car is good. We have some understeer but we’re not losing time on that. We’re losing the majority of our time on power-down. Overall, I’m pretty happy. We’re in the hunt and we have a lot of racing ahead of us."

MARCEL FÄSSLER, CORVETTE RACING NO. 4 CHEVROLET CORVETTE C7.R: “It’s really close and a ton of work, actually. But it’s also great fun because we had great battles in our class against BMW, the Porsches, the Ferraris and even the other Corvette. The restarts were quite tricky because we were not on old tires all of the time. In the middle of the field and going into the first corner, you didn’t know where to brake, what was going to happen in traffic and which hole to dive in going to the corner. It was quite tricky in the beginning but then everything sorted out quite well. There is also a lot of respect from the slower cars and the faster prototypes. We try to give each other plenty of space. I enjoyed these first couple of stints very much. Everything looks good for Corvette Racing so far. There’s still a long time to go though."

Hour 8 Standings