weather conditions at the start of the race were dry but cloudy. the air temperature throughout was between and the track temperature ranged from ; conditions were expected to remain consistent throughout the race, but a 70% chance of rain was forecast for sunday. chip ganassi racing founder and owner chip ganassi waved the green flag at 14:40 eastern standard time () to start the proceedings. fifty cars were due to take the start, but robert renauer spun on cold tyres and heavily damaged the left-hand quarter of the no. 58 wright motorsports car when he hit the turn five inside wall during the first formation lap. extensive repairs to the car were carried out for the next two hours and eight minutes. van der zande led from the start with castroneves close behind. nasr moved to third by the third lap and overtook castroneves around the outside for second at turn seven. he lost third to albuquerque two corners later. the first round of green flag pit stops for fuel began on lap 17, with van der zande stopping two laps later. he lost first to albuquerque after all pit stops were carried out. hand took the gtlm lead from magnussen in the opening minutes. westbrook was also an early mover but fell to third after a slow pit stop to rectify brake issues. jeffrey schmidt's no. 29 land motorsport car moved to the front of gtd by passing serra and having a faster pit stop than molina who overtook serra.