The #7 Penske Porsche Motorsport 963 of Matt Campbell started on pole and led the field to the green flag.
Sebastien Bourdais, who started fourth in Chip Ganassi Racing’s #01 Cadillac V-Series.R, jumped to the outside and immediately made it a three-wide fight for the lead entering Turn 1.
Campbell, on the inside of both team-mate Mathieu Jaminet (starting the #6 963) and Bourdais, locked up and missed the apex of the opening corner, which allowed Jaminet in the #6 entry to grab the lead. Consequently, it squeezed Bourdais, who was hit and spun around by the #60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 of Tom Blomqvist, who was then hit by Phillip Eng in the #24 BMW M Team RLL machine.
The first caution came out due to debris left over from the incident, which sent Bourdais into the pits with right front damage and in need of a nose change. Blomqvist remained out on track despite damage to the front of his car, while Eng’s damage was significant enough to require multiple visits to the pitlane as it finished 41st overall, and last in the GTP class, at 10 laps down.
The second caution came out when the #18 ORECA LMP2 07 of Dwight Merriman (Era Motorsport) made slight contact with the #93 Acura NSX GT3 (Racers Edge Motorsports with WTR) in the GTD class coming out of the last corner of the 14-turn, 2.439-mile circuit. Merriman was sent into a spin in front of the field, with several near misses until the yellow came out.
A run of driver changes followed soon after, with Tandy replacing Jaminet, while Nasr swapped with Campbell. At this time, Blomqvist remained in, but was serviced with a nose change from the earlier contact.
During the GTD split sequence under the caution, the Penske cars failed to yield appropriately, according to race control, allowing the #31 Whelen Cadillac of Pipo Derani to bizarrely sprint to first place, despite running under yellow, ahead of the Penske Porsches.
Nasr jumped ahead of Tandy on the restart going into Turn 1 with 1h35m to go, while Derani sped off in the lead.
Source: Autosport