Ferrari took the lead in the GT Daytona class from the waving of the green flag in Saturday’s 23rd running of the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta.
Starting on the outside of the front row, Jeff Westphal sprinted to the class lead at the wheel of Scuderia Corsa’s No. 63 WeatherTech Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo co-driven by Cooper MacNeil and Alessandro Balzan.
Westphal led the opening 20 laps before pitting, taking advantage of the initial full-course caution, and turned the Ferrari over to MacNeil.
“The WeatherTech Scuderia Corse Ferrari is handling really well,” Westphal said. “All weekend, we’ve been working towards the race balance. I’ve noticed that the temperature is getting colder each day, and our car changes a lot with the weather. Thus far, I’m extremely happy with it. The car is handling really, really well. We have to manage the rear tires – I think everyone else does – because that could be an issue later on. Everyone is working real well together, and we’re looking forward to nine more hours.”
Approaching the one-hour mark, MacNeil is running fourth in the GTD class after the team sacrificed some track position to make the early driver change.
There’s plenty of action ahead at Road Atlanta, with the Petit Le Mans set to take the checkered flag at 10:40 p.m. ET.