2019 Rolex 24 Red Flagged for Rain

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer

The 2019 Rolex 24 at Daytona was red flagged due to a driving rainstorm, pardon the pun.

The rain came down a couple of hours before sunrise and has not relented, resulting in some cars sliding off track and the No. 4 Corvette hitting the tires hard at Turn 1. After spending over an hour under a yellow flag, IMSA decided just before the 17 hour mark to throw the red flag.

The No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac DPi is leading with Fernando Alonso behind the wheel. In LMP2, the No. 81 DragonSpeed car leads while Alessandro Pier Guidi leads GTLM in the No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari.

GTD has the most interesting situation as the No. 33 Mercedes AMG GT3 of Jeroen Bleekemolen pitted under the yellow because the safety car lights were out, indicating that the race was getting ready to go green. However, the red flag came out and the 33 entry fell to 12th place. The No. 86 Acura NSX GT3 entry for Meyer Shank Racing currently leads GTD with AJ Allmendinger behind the wheel.

The cars were stopped for an hour and 45 minutes and there was contact with the Nos. 9, 46 and 48 GTD cars at the restart.