Three hours into the Grand Am Rolex 24 at Daytona, the #9 Action Express Corvette-Coyote with Joao Barbosa at the wheel led the 59-car field through the near-dark of Daytona International Speedway, having passed Justin Wilson in the #60 Shank Racing Riley-Ford for the lead the lap prior.

Five minutes later Barbosa was in the pits and Lucas Luhr in the #8 Starworks Riley-Ford was passing Wilson for the lead; Luhr was the seventh different driver to lead the race, 95 laps old.

Michael Valiante in the #2 Starworks car ran third, four seconds ahead of Memo Rojas in the defending champion memo Rojas in the #01 Telmex Ganassi Riley-BMW, with Felipe Nasr in the #6 Shank Riley-Ford in fifth.

Half an hour later it was a Starworks one-two, with Allan McNish in the #8 leading teammate Michael Valiante, with Justin Wilson in third again.

Most 24-hour races have lots of lead changes during pit stops; the 2012 Rolex has had actual battles for the lead through the first three hours.

One car not fighting for the lead was the #10 SunTrust Corvette Dallara, which pulled into the pits after 14 laps and retired with irreparable valve train problems just before the three-hour mark.

Though there were three short cautions for cars stopped trackside, the first three hours saw no major collisions, though Johannes Overbeek did lean his ESM Ferrari on Tony Vilander’s Ferrari and Boris Said in the #94 Turner BMW spun Justin Bell’s #4 Porsche. The Turner car retired just after the three-hour mark with engine failure, not related to the contact; the other cars race on.

In GT, the lead also changed hands a few times; at three hours Paul Edwards in the #88 Autohaus Camarao led a string of Porsches; the first three—Patrick Pilet in the #66 TRG car, Mike Rockenfeller in the #45 Flying lizard car, and Rene Rast in the #44 Magnus Racing Porsche, were within a second of each other.

Audi debuted in R8 Grand Am at the Rolex, with mixed results. The R8 was quick on the twisties and slow on the banking. Steven Kane retired the Oryx Audi R8 Grand Am with a burned-out clutch two hours into the race, leaving APR Motorsports with the sole remaining R8.