The BMW Riley No. 02 Chip Ganassi's team was ahead of his nearest rivals by 2647. The irony was that those rivals are also a team of former Formula 1 drivers / NASCAR drivers in the person of AJ Allmendinger, Justin Wilson and Michael McDowell.
Ford Dallara No. 6 was itself a few seconds before the third overall. The defending champions of the series, Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas, were in effect in 4128 leaders at the 17th hour of the race. They share the driving with Graham Rahal and Joey Hand this weekend.
The Hollywood actor Patrick Dempsey and his teammates held their hand the head of the division standings GT (14th overall) as the race neared its final hours. Dempsey shares the Mazda RX-8 of his team, Racing Dempsey, Joe Foster, Charles Espenlaub and Tom Long.
Second in GT class, Steven Bertheau, Brendan Gaughan, Wolf Henzler, Andy Lally and Spencer Pumpelly were a full lap behind the leaders in the class aboard their No. 67 Porsche GT3 Cup.
As for the Canadian Jean-Francois Dumoulin, Ferrari has never really recovered from the disappointment of Friday night when one of his young inexperienced teammates was severely damaged in testing.
After several short visits to the pits, the team had to undertake more intensive work in mid-race. The car was still in the garages with the latest news.
The team also appeared in 43rd place overall, 228 laps behind the leaders of the race after this 17th hour of trial.
Note also that the yellow flag that lasted over 30 minutes this morning, between 5:30 am (14th time) and the 15th hour of the race, was 16th in the race so far.