IMSA Drivers Pick the Rolex 24’s Next Superstar Entry

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — The 24 Hours of Daytona International Speedway has not been a stranger to seeing drivers of various racing backgrounds arrive to take on the twice-around-the-clock challenge.

This year is no different. You’ll find names such as Austin Cindric, Shane van Gisbergen, Daniil Kvyat, Romain Grosjean and Scott Dixon on the entry list of the 2025 edition of the endurance event to name a few.

But who should be on the list in 2026?

It may not come to a surprise that if you ask many drivers in the Rolex 24 field, most would — and did — nominate Formula One drivers, especially reigning champion and superstar Max Verstappen.

“He seems to be a big fan of endurance racing,” Porsche Penske driver Mathieu Jaminet told Frontstretch. “He plays it on the sim. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him coming around in the future in prototype or in GT.

“I think he seems to be the best driver in the world. This is clear. It would be super interesting for the sport and all of us to see Max come here.”

Verstappen’s name came up multiple times throughout the last couple of days and rightfully so. Much of the world does consider the open wheel series to be the pinnacle of motorsports, and having its current champion compete would certainly bring even more attention to what is already one of the most coveted endurance races in the world.

However, Verstappen wasn’t the only Formula One driver to be named.

“There’s definitely some Formula One guys who got some free time now,” Wayne Taylor Racing driver Jordan Taylor told Frontstretch. “Like [Valtteri] Bottas or [Daniel] Ricciardo. … We’ve had [Fernando] Alonso. We’ve had Jenson Button. It’d be cool to have a couple more of them come over and give it a shot.”

Jordan Taylor wasn’t the only one to nominate F1 drivers either. He wasn’t even the only Taylor. His father and team owner, Wayne Taylor, also wished for the return of Alonso and Williams F1 driver Alex Albon.

.@waynetaylorrcng owner Wayne Taylor would like to have @alo_oficial return for another entry with his team but also mentioned @alex_albon #Rolex24 pic.twitter.com/SoqJkMbVmg

— Dalton Hopkins (@PitLaneCPT) January 23, 2025

There were, however, some other motorsport outliers as well. NASCAR outliers.

It really shouldn’t come as a surprise the Wayne Taylor Racing brother drivers Ricky Taylor and Jordan Taylor also nominated a couple of NASCAR drivers and an NTT IndyCar Series driver themselves. After all, the latter competed in a NASCAR Cup Series event in 2023 when filling in for the injured Chase Elliott at Circuit of the Americas.

Ricky Taylor, a former driver for Team Penske’s IMSA program, named Team Penske stars Will Power and Joey Logano as candidates.

“I’d love to see Will Power,” the two-time Rolex 24 winner told Frontstretch. “I’m a huge IndyCar fan. Back in the day, we used to have more NASCAR guys come over, and I feel like the NASCAR road racing side has become a lot more competitive.

“I don’t think Joey Logano has ever done it. Being a Penske driver, he’s won the championship a couple times now. That would be a pretty exciting one.”

One was @RickyTaylorRace, who said he’d like to see @Team_Penske drivers @12WillPower and @joeylogano make an attempt:#Rolex24 pic.twitter.com/uifck4Yres

— Dalton Hopkins (@PitLaneCPT) January 23, 2025

“Some of the strong road course guys should come try,” Ricky Taylor’s brother Jordan Taylor continued. “Like Tyler Reddick‘s been strong a lot of these years. He’s Toyota, so he could come drive one of the Lexuses.

“Bubba [Wallace]‘s done some of the support races here, but he hasn’t done the Rolex. I’d welcome any of them to come over.”

Cindric, who is one of only two full-time NASCAR Cup drivers in the field this year, agreed with Jordan Taylor.

“I know Tyler Reddick really wants to do it,” Cindric told Frontstretch. “His recent success on road courses in the Cup Series definitely fuels some of that. It’d be cool to see his impressions of that.”

However, what is surprising is who also picked NASCAR drivers. That being international, non-NASCAR drivers. Drivers such as two-time 24 Hours of Le Mans Champion Earl Bamber and 2014 Rolex 24 overall winner Nick Tandy.

“It’d be kind of cool, I think, to have Kyle Larson back in this race,” Cadillac Whelen driver Bamber told Frontstretch. “I think Reddick. He’s come to a big rise. I think that would be kind of interesting to see one or two of those really good road course guys.”

Believe it or not, Whelen Cadillac driver @earlbamber nominated some #NASCAR drivers such as @KyleLarsonRacin to return for another attempt at a #Rolex24 win and also @TylerReddick pic.twitter.com/faMEYLsop2

— Dalton Hopkins (@PitLaneCPT) January 23, 2025

“I think the greatest all around driver at the moment is Kyle Larson,” Porsche Penske Motorsports driver Tandy told Frontstretch. “But he’s done it before. Reddick is a cracking road course racer.”

Believe it or not, it wasn’t the New Zealander of Tandy who brought up any of his fellow countrymen in the Australian Repco Supercars Championship either. Instead, it was his French Porsche Penske teammate of Jaminet who first introduced the idea.

“I would say some V8 supercars guys, which, for me, is one of the most talented fields in the world,” Jaminet told Frontstretch. “Most people don’t know about [supercars]. I think it would be cool to have a few of those guys.

“[Jamie] Whincup. He’s definitely one of the greatest there. … [Brodie] Kostecki is an amazing driver. Very talented. I’m not sure he would suit these types of cars, but in terms of talent, he is probably the one I admire the most.”

Most of the drivers named were of familiar, closed-circuit racing series, but it was only when Brazilian driver Felipe Nasr sounded off did the idea of rally drivers entering the Rolex 24 first get introduced.

“I’m going beyond now. Maybe rally,” Nasr suggested to Frontstretch. “Just to see how different it is. They’d get the chance to drive these cars, and it’s difficult, and I know it’s the same if we went their way.

“I think all of those guys’ top runners are super talented. Why not let one of their manufacturers put on a car that they can try something here?”

Despite everyone named up to this point, however, there was one that seemed to be the most outlying than all the others.

Australian V8 Supercar champion and current IndyCar driver Scott McLaughlin named seven-time MotoGP World Champion and current GT3 racer Valentino Rossi.

“Valentino Rossi’s been doing some GT stuff,” McLaughlin said in a press conference at Daytona. “It’d be cool to see him come here and try it out.”

“I’ve heard he’s pretty good, actually,” McLaughlin’s Trackhouse teammate Connor Zilisch seconded. “I’ve talked to one of his teammates. He said he’s really good on four wheels.”

Asked the @TeamTrackhouse crew at this weekend’s #Rolex24 who they would like to see attempt this race in the future.

The answers? @Max33Verstappen and @ValeYellow46 pic.twitter.com/JzD5jRDtny

— Dalton Hopkins (@PitLaneCPT) January 23, 2025

Many drivers agreed there are a number of outlying stories year to year in the Rolex 24. In 2017, it was Jeff Gordon, who came out of racing retirement to give the endurance race one more shot with the eventual winners Wayne Taylor Racing.

In 2019, it was the likes of Alonso and Alex Zanardi, in 2021, it was Elliott and Jimmie Johnson, and so on and so forth.

In the end, however, no matter what year, the Rolex 24 has truly hosted the who’s who of racing year after year. Within this article are quotes from a Daytona 500 champion, multiple 24 Hours of Le Mans Champions and a former Formula One driver.

The Rolex 24 shouldn’t stop gathering more stars than what it has now, but many should probably appreciate the field it has had every year excluding the F1 and NASCAR stars.

While there were a number of drivers that hinted at this, nobody illustrated the point better than a very candid Tandy.

“It’s great that we get this influx of people from other series,” the Kiwi said. “But I think we already have such a good crossover. We have people from V8 [Supercars]. We have people from IndyCar. We have people from stock car racing.”

But then Tandy made a point no one else had for the past 72 hours. It was the point of wanting to race the 24 hours for the sake of wanting to do it out of passion, instead of out of obligation.

“The thing is, whoever it is, they’ve got to want to do it,” Tandy explained. “Because if you’re interested in something and you tend to try and be as good as possible at it, then you’ll be good at it.

“But if you’re not so sure or are being asked to do this by a sponsor or a series and you’re not fully into it, then you probably won’t enjoy it as much because you won’t be as competitive.”

So perhaps, with names like Verstappen and Larson being thrown around, the question truly shouldn’t be how much they want to attempt the Rolex 24, but rather how badly they want to win it.