The Brazilian and the American kept trimming tenths from each other’s best laps, with Castroneves finally putting the matter beyond dispute with his 11th lap – a 1min11.834sec.

Although the Acuras left their rivals gasping, the gap closed substantially from the morning session when they were 1sec adrift. Oliver Jarvis and Jonathan Bomarito put the Mazda RT24-Ps into third and fourth with best laps 0.5 and 0.76sec off top spot.

Renger van der Zande was fastest of the Cadillacs, putting the Wayne Taylor Racing entry fifth, 0.35ahead of Joao Barbosa in the Action Express Racing Cadillac #5.

PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports’ Gustavo Yacaman led a quartet of Global P2 cars, all of which outperformed the ESM Nissans and Eric Curran’s #31 AXR Cadillac.

GT Le Mans saw a fabulous scrap between the two RLL BMW M8s of John Edwards and Alexander Sims and the two Porsche 911 RSRs of Nick Tandy and Earl Bamber. It was eventually resolved in Edwards’ favor ahead of Tandy, the pair separated by 0.066sec, with Sims only 0.013sec further back!

Bamber was fourth, one-tenth ahead of Antonio Garcia in the #3 Corvette C7.R, ahead of the Ford GTs of Dirk Muller and Ryan Briscoe, the latter of whom had a quick spin. Tommy Milner was eighth in the #4 Corvette.

In GT Daytona, Jack Hawksworth led teammate Kyle Marcelli in a hugely impressive 1-2 for the 3GT Lexus RC Fs. They were only 0.053sec apart yet over half a second better than Madison Snow’s third placed Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini Huracan.

The Michael Shank Racing Acura NSXs of Katherine Legge and Justin Marks were separated by the Turner Motorsport BMW M6 of Dillon Machavern.

Christina Nielsen will roll off seventh in class in the Wright Motorsports Porsche ahead of Cooper MacNeil driving the Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488.