After winning the final race of the year with his brother Ricky and Max Angelelli at Petit Le Mans in 2014, Jordan Taylor has hit the ground running with the fastest time of the day in Saturday’s running at the “Roar before the 24” test at Daytona International Speedway.

Taylor stopped the clocks at 1:39.181 aboard the Wayne Taylor Racing Corvette DP – outpacing 2014 Rolex 24 winners Action Express Racing. Sebastien Bourdais ran the second-fastest lap of the day for Action Express in the closing minutes of night practice, running 1:39.310. He was followed by Oswaldo Negri Jr. the No. 60 Michael Shank Racing Ligier JS P2/Honda, 1:39.342 LMP2 style machine.

“These days you need to have the fastest car because when you get to the final hour [of the race] you need to race everyone,” said Taylor.

“Five years ago we wouldn’t focus on a lap-time car; we’d just make it as comfortable as possible. Now you need to work on lap times and race pace because you know you’re going to come to that last hour having to race for the win.”

Teams will have two final changes to run today at Daytona at 10:20pm and 2:40pm before returning in two weeks for the opening round of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship.