DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Porsche Penske Motorsport’s Felipe Nasr was able to sweep past teammate Matt Campbell with 22 minutes to go Sunday (Jan. 26) at the Rolex 24 at Daytona. From there, he was able to hold on to win the 63rd annual edition of the race with teammates Nick Tandy and Laurens Vanthoor.
It is the second straight Rolex 24 win for the No. 7 team. For Tandy, he achieved the impregnable quadrilateral; victories in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, 24 Hours of Le Mans, Spa 24 Hours and the 24 Hours Nurburgring. He is the first driver ever to achieve this feat.
The win also continues owner Roger Penske’s recent string of success that includes two straight Rolex 24s, three straight NASCAR Cup championships and two straight Indianapolis 500 trophies.
The No. 7 Porsche’s margin of victory was 1.335 seconds over Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian’s Tom Blomqvist, Colin Braun, Scott Dixon and Felix Rosenqvist. The No. 6 Porsche of Campbell, Kevin Estre and Mathieu Jaminet were third, followed by BMW M Team RLL’s Philipp Eng, Kevin Magnussen, Raffaele Marciello and Dries Vanthoor. Wayne Taylor Racing’s Filipe Albuquerque, Brendon Hartley, Will Stevens and Ricky Taylor were fifth.
Dries Vanthoor led the field to green Saturday afternoon under sunny skies. At first, the race looked a lot like the ROAR Before the 24 with the BMWs showing the way.
Vanthoor had a 25-second lead when he made his second stop. Here, he misjudged his pit location and slid into the pit wall. That cost him 35 seconds and the lead to the Shank No. 93. They kept themselves in contention until a suspension failure put them in the garage.
Wayne Taylor Racing’s No. 40 with Kamui Kobayashi at the wheel was the class of the field after the sun went down. He was able to drive his Cadillac up to the very front of the field. Unfortunately, his teammate Louis Deletraz made a mistake that completely changed the race.
On a restart, Deletraz lost control exiting turn 2 and spun into the wall before sliding back across the track. He was then hit by United Autosports’ Nick Boulle. Tower Motorsport’s Sebastien Bourdais, Pratt Miller Motorsports’ Chris Cumming, AO Racing’s Laurin Heinrich, Paul Miller Racing’s Max Hesse and Pfaff Motorsports’ Jordan Pepper were all involved.
Big wreck going into turn 1 after the restart collecting multiple cars in contention!
All drivers have been evaluated and released from the infield care center.
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Afterwards, Deletraz took full blame for the incident.
The Penske duo were all but running in lockstep after that until a round of pit stops in the 19th hour. Campbell pitted for fresh tires and had to take it easy on the cold rubber. At the beginning of his run, he locked up his tires at turn 1 and went into the runoff. The recovery cost Campbell 10-15 seconds and seemingly set up the No. 7 for victory.
Pit strategy allowed the No. 6 to get back to the front. Here, Campbell weathered contact from Dries Vanthoor that ultimately ruined the nose of the No. 24 BMW to keep the lead.
From there, Campbell just had to hold off Nasr, a task that inevitably proved impossible with the speed of the No. 7. Nasr sat in his wake, then made the move on the backstretch with 22 minutes to go to take control of the race.
Nasr then used traffic to help expand his advantage in the closing laps. Campbell ended up in a battle for second with Blomqvist, leaving Nasr a cushion to take the overall win.
In LMP2, AO Racing’s “Spike” dominated a decent chunk of the race. However, Christian Rasmussen pitted with an electrical issue with less than 90 minutes to go that took him out of the hunt.
That gave the class lead to AF Corse’s Matthieu Vaxiviere in the AF Corse/Pecom Racing No. 88. Vaxiviere was running more than fast enough to win, but his car gave up the ghost shortly afterwards, forcing a full course caution when he pulled off at the International Horseshoe. Vaxiviere was clearly crushed.
Paul-Loup Chatin then inherited the lead after United Autosports’ Paul di Resta was forced to serve a drive-through penalty. He was able to hold off the pack, but spun out in turn 1 after contact from PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports’ Mathias Beche.
The incident took both drivers out of contention and allowed the race to fall into Bourdais’ lap with a 46-second lead. Bourdais still had to worry about fuel in the closing laps, but managed to hold on for the win with Sebastian Alvarez, John Farano and Job van Uitert.
Tower Motorsports’ margin of victory was 44.697 seconds over di Resta, James Allen, Dan Goldburg and Rasmus Lindh. Riley Motorsports’ Josh Burdon, Felipe Fraga, Felipe Massa and Gar Robinson ran third, while Beche, Ben Keating, Benjamin Pedersen and Rodrigo Sales were a lap down in fourth. Chatin, Ryan Dalziel, David Heinemier Hansson and Tobias Lutke ended up fifth.
GTD Pro was going to come down to a duel between Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports’ Tommy Milner and Paul Miller Racing’s Connor de Phillippi. The two drivers ran each other hard for the lead. However, the BMW squad had a backup plan.
Augusto Farfus, whose No. 48 BMW was caught up in the big wreck that eliminated Deletraz, was running 56 laps down, but found himself right ahead of Milner down the stretch. He proceeded to run blocker on Milner to draw him into de Phillippi.
That continued for multiple laps until IMSA penalized Farfus for blocking. Afterwards, Milner had contact with de Phillippi in the International Horseshoe, then gave Farfus a one-finger salute to show how he felt about it.
The race came down to a rough-and-tumble feud between half a dozen teams. Contact resulted in the nose being ripped off of Laurin Heinrich‘s AO Racing Porsche, ending his chances.
Dennis Olsen was in the lead with Alexander Sims giving chase. Kelvin van der Linde in the No. 1 BMW was right there as well.
However, the bad blood between Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports and Paul Miller Racing boiled over again in the closing laps as Nico Varrone got in the back of van der Linde and spun him out in turn 2. That spin resulted in a penalty for Varrone, leaving the No. 4 Corvette of Milner, Varrone and Nicky Catsburg seventh in class.
The scuffle allowed Olsen to pull away and score the GTD Pro victory along with Christopher Mies and Frederic Vervisch. It marks the first IMSA victory for the Ford Mustang GT3.
The No. 65 Mustang’s margin of victory was 1.909 seconds over Sims, Antonio Garcia and Daniel Juncadella. The No. 64 Mustang of Austin Cindric, Sebastian Priaulx and Mike Rockenfeller were third, followed by Van der Linde, de Phillippi, Madison Snow and Neil Verhagen. The Bartone Bros. GetSpeed Mercedes of Anthony Bartone, Maxime Martin, Fabian Schiller and Luca Stolz were fifth.
Trackhouse x TF Sport’ s Connor Zilisch was in position to make a charge late in the race in his GTD Pro debut. However, he had contact with Chatin with an hour remaining and drew an avoidable contact penalty. He, along with Keating, Scott McLaughlin and Shane van Gisbergen, ultimately ended up finishing ninth in class.
In GTD, a number of teams fought for the class honors. One of the strongest teams was Inception Racing. However, the team had a wishbone failure in the 14th hour and was forced to retire.
Unfortunately for fans of Andy Lally, he wasn’t able to have a grand farewell. Just before the one-quarter mark of the race, the engine expired in his Aston Martin.
Parker Kligerman greatly enjoyed his first run in the Rolex 24. He was in a front-running car with Forte Racing. However, his teammate Misha Goikhberg was caught up in a restart crash in the 19th hour. The car eventually returned to the race, but later dropped out.
Winward Racing’s Mercedes had a sticky throttle early on and actually spent time in the garage. They managed to climb back from seven laps down to put themselves in the hunt.
Looking elsewhere, the race had a number of surprises. Chief among them was the Corvette of Andrew Wojteczko Autosport (AWA), starting their second year in GTD. The team has only one top-five finish in the class, but Matt Bell and Marvin Kirchhoefer were able to keep themselves up in the mix.
After the final caution, The Heart of Racing’s Mattia Drudi ended up with the class lead after executing a bump-and-run on Bell. With 18 minutes to go, Bell was able to run Drudi back down and get the lead back in turn 6.
From there, Bell was able to hold on to take AWA’s first-ever victory in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship with Kirchhoefer, Orey Fidani and Lars Kern.
AWA’s margin of victory was 1.454 seconds over Wright Motorsports’ Adam Adelson, Ayhuncan Guven, Tom Sargent and Elliott Skeer. Drudi, Tom Gamble, Zacharie Robichon and Casper Stevenson were third, while Winward Racing’s Lucas Auer, Indy Dontje, Philip Ellis and Russell Ward were in fourth. Turner Motorsport’s Robby Foley, Patrick Gallagher, Jens Klingmann and Jake Walker rounded out the top-five teams.
IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Rolex 24 at Daytona Unofficial Results
WeatherTech teams will take the next month-plus off before reconvening at Sebring International Raceway for the Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring. The race will air flag-to-flag on Peacock on March 15 starting at 10 a.m. ET.
Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the site's FREE e-mail newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the site's Sports Car racing editor.
Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as the Super DIRTcar Series.