The Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona is a prestigious race in North America held at the end of January. It brings out the best drivers from different series for this grueling 24-hour race. This year it featured drivers from NASCAR, IndyCar, Formula One, WEC, and more.
Those names included defending Cup Series champion Chase Elliott, Austin Dillon, seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson, AJ Allmendinger, former Haas F1 driver Kevin Magnussen, Simon Pagenaud, and Helio Castroneves. It also marked Chip Ganassi Racing’s return, who last competed in IMSA in 2019 in the GTLM class with Ford, this time in the DPi category with Cadillac.
At the green flag drop, the DPi, LMP2, and LMP3 classes got off to a normal start. The GTLM class started with a bang when No. 25 BMW of Bruno Spangler ran into the back of the No. 79 Porsche of Kevin Estre. The contact turned Estre into the No. 62 Ferrari of Alessandro Pier Guidi, but the Ferrari only suffered minor damage to the door. For Spangler, he had to serve a drive-through penalty for incident responsibility.
Shortly after the wreck, the No. 79 Porsche left debris on the track to bring out the first full-course caution. There were twelve cautions throughout the race. The other notable cautions included a clog up of GTLM cars on pit road that forced IMSA officials to put the caution out so they could get the positions in order and the No. 38 Performance Tech Motorsports LMP3 of Cameron Cassels hitting the No. 62 Ferrari of James Calado at the bus stop, turning both cars into the tire wall.
The race’s first causality involved the defending champions of LMP2. The No. 81 DragonSpeed USA LLC LMP2 of Rob Hodes had steering issues. The team would complete 53-laps before bowing out of the race. They were the first of eight cars that did not finish the race.
As the day turned to night, more drama unfolded when Bill Auberlen was dosed in gasoline. His teammate Aiden Read attempted to leave pit road, but the fuel hose was still attached, and when he pulled away, it broke the seal spreading fuel on Auberlen and some of the crew.
During the overnight hours and into Sunday morning, Action Express had problems. They went a lap down but fought to get it back. The car started to have mechanical issues, and once the team took the car to the garage, they found the problem to be a gearbox issue. This took them out of contention for the rest of the race.
The battle for the overall win in DPi was down to Ally Racing, Wayne Taylor Racing, Chip Ganassi Racing, Meyer Shank Racing, and Mazda Motorsports. In GTLM, it was down to the Corvette Racing teammates, who were the only two cars on the lead lap and were dominant all race long.
As the race was winding down, teams began to push toward the front. With under an hour to go in DPi, the race was down to Wayne Taylor Racing, Mazda Motorsports, Ally Racing, and Chip Ganassi Racing. Filipe Albuquerque was driving for Wayne Taylor, and Renger van der Zande was driving for Ganassi. Van der Zande was right on Albuquerque’s tail when his car cut a right rear tire, taking him out of contention. Albuquerque then had a comfortable lead heading into the final minutes of the race.
Once the checkered flag waved, Wayne Taylor Racing won their third straight Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona race by 4.704 seconds over Ally Racing’s Kamui Kobayashi. In LMP2, the No. 18 Era Motorsport of Paul-Loup Chatin took the victory by 19.513 over Gabriel Aubry. For LMP3, Spencer Pigot in the Riley Motorsports No. 74 Ligier took the win by three laps over Joao Barbosa.
In GTLM, the Corvette Racing team of Jordan Taylor took home the victory by 3.519 over teammate Tommy Milner. In GTD, Maro Engel in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG took home the win by 16.329 seconds over the No. 75 Sun Energy 1 Mercedes-AMG of Raffaele Marciello.
The next race for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship will be a Sebring International Raceway on Saturday, March 20th, at 10 am on NBC Sports App, 7 pm on NBCSN or you can watch the full race on NBC Sports Gold Track Pass.
