Cooper MacNeil handed off the No. 63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 GT3 car to Jeff Westphal on the first pit stop of the morning, after spending the opening 30 minutes of the race behind the safety car due to the morning rain. As the rain let up, however, lap times dropped precipitously. Scuderia Corsa opted to change to slick tires on their second stop, as the track truly became dry before Jeff handed the car over to Ferrari factory driver, Toni Vilander on the third pit stop of the race. Toni then leveraged pit stop timing to vault into third position, and is now just under 20 seconds behind the class leader.
Changeable Weather affects Strategy. The early portion of the race was marked by the changeable weather conditions, initially with heavy rain, and eventually tapering to simply overcast conditions. Cooper did an excellent job to keep the car pointing the right direction in his stint as a number of cars, particularly prototypes spun in the early running. Jeff Westphal jumped into the car next and had the difficult task of balancing risk and reward on the fast drying track before handing off to Toni Vilander with just under nine hours to go. Ultimately, Jeff was able to maintain 5th position as the GT-Daytona class cycled through their pit stops.