Taylor leads, rain persists entering final 3h of Rolex 24

Jordan Taylor leads the Rolex 24 at Daytona entering the final three hours of the race after moving to the head of the field amid multiple caution periods as rain continued to impact running.

Following a 90-minute red flag period due to heavy rain, the race returned to green momentarily before another caution period during which Pipo Derani moved into the lead for Action Express Racing in the #31 Cadillac DPi.

After more than an hour behind the safety car, the race returned to green with Taylor quickly making up time on Derani, who told his team via radio he found conditions "dangerous" before relinquishing the lead. Derani soon pitted and handed the car over to Felipe Nasr.

Taylor mimicked teammate Fernando Alonso's excellent pace to pull away from the field by multiple seconds each lap, only for cautions to wipe his advantage away.

The race was put under a full course caution twice more during Hour 21 as a number of cars went off-track or got caught up in incidents due to the wet conditions, most notably the lead two cars in GTLM. Contact between Ford's Joey Hand and Porsche's Frederic Makowiecki left both with damage, handing the lead to Risi Competizione's James Calado in the #62 Ferrari 488 GTE.

A second caution late in the 21st hour, allowing Acura Team Penske's Alexander Rossi and AER's Nasr to close up on Taylor behind the safety car with three hours left on the clock.

The trio of DPi runners are the only cars still on the lead lap, with the second Acura falling out of contention due to an engine issue that forced Simon Pagenaud to pit, with his car being taken behind the wall for a lengthy period of time.

LMP2 continues to be led by the pair of DragonSpeed-entered Oreca 07 Gibsons, with Nicolas Lapierre running one lap clear of teammate Roberto Gonzalez, while Jeff Segal runs at the head of the GTD pack in AIM Vasser Sullivan #12 Lexus RC F GT3.