Taylors, Gordon, Angelelli Score Epic Rolex 24 Victory

A long 24 hours, made even longer by 12 hours of cold temperatures, steady rain and 21 caution flags – though not even close to a record, actually – combined to make the night hours of the most prestigious sports car race in North America miserable for drivers and crew.

But the 55th running of the Rolex 24 At Daytona was one of the most exciting, and certainly most important endurance races in recent memory.

And those last seven minutes – wow.

The wild card in the Prototype class, which featured all-new cars this season, was probably the three Cadillac DPi-V.R entries. The No. 5 Mustang Sampling Racing and No. 31 Whelen Engineering Racing cars, which, with Chevrolet power, have taken all three IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championships so far, plus the No. 10 car. The question was, would the teams be as fast as last year?

In a word, yes – in fact, the No. 5 Cadillac DPi of regular drivers Joao Barbosa and Christian Fittipaldi, helped out for this long race by Filipe Albuquerque, battled long and hard with the No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi of brothers Ricky and Jordan Taylor, longtime co-driver Max Angelelli in his final race, and four-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion Jeff Gordon, in his first Rolex 24 since his debut here in 2007.

With seven minutes to go, Albuquerque was leading in the No. 5, with Ricky Taylor on his tail. At the end of the long frontstretch, leading into a fast left turn, Taylor took the No. 10 car low and inside of Albuquerque. When the No. 5 set up for the left turn, Taylor hit the car in the rear, spinning it out. Albuquerque recovered quickly and at the end, finished only 0.671 seconds behind the No. 10.

The incident was reviewed by IMSA officials who decided to take no action against Taylor, which did not go down well with Albuquerque. “I don’t race like that, to be hit in the back. He didn’t even wait for me, he just took off,” Albuquerque said. “Clearly I was hit in the back. It was not a clean move. I think everyone saw that.”

Even team owner Wayne Taylor was nervous, as TV cameras showed him burying his head in his hands after the No. 5 spun, likely anticipating that it would be a controversial call.

Regardless, Jordan Taylor said the win was a relief.

“We’ve come close so many times. I’m just proud of my brother. He made it happen today.”

Indeed, Ricky Taylor’s pursuit of the No. 5 car was dramatic during the last 24 minutes after the green flag fell following the 21st caution period, this one for debris on the track. Taylor frequently braked hard enough to lock the wheels and several times overshot the corner as he charged after Albuquerque.

In the end, though, it was great news for Cadillac – finishing first and second place in its first time out.

For Gordon, it meant writing another unique page of racing history, as he becomes the fourth driver in history to have won both the Rolex 24 and the Daytona 500. He joins A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti and Jamie McMurray on that exclusive list.

“I just couldn’t believe it, Gordon said. “It was like a dream come true for me because I’ve always dreamt about driving a car, a beautiful, amazing car that could handle like this, that had the technology like this and could compete in a race like this.

“This is very surreal to me, this whole experience and moment, to have this on my résumé, it’s a very elite group that’s won the Daytona 500 and the Rolex 24 together. That’s something I’m very, very proud of.”

Third place went to the No. 90 Visit Florida Racing Multimatic/Riley LM P2 car of Marc Goossens, Renger van der Zande and Rene Rast.

“No one expected us to last for 24 hours,” Goossens said. “That just shows how strong this little team is. Right now we have to look at the big picture.”

Fourth was the No. 2 Tequila Patron Nissan DPi, the team that won both the 2016 Rolex and Twelve Hours of Sebring. Drivers Scott Sharp, Ryan Dalziel and the star of both races last year, Pipo Derani, were three laps behind the two Cadillacs.

The No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac DPi led often in the first third of the race until electrical problems, a bent control arm and a flat tire dropped the car to a sixth-place finish in class, 14th overall.

Ostensibly taking the hard luck award – again – were the two Mazda DPi cars, which during pre-season practice were among the fastest Prototypes. They finished 40th and 46th overall in the field of 55 entries after multiple problems, ranging from a broken transmission to a major fire from a blown engine.

In the other Prototype class, Prototype Challenge, it was slightly less compelling, with the No. 38 Performance Tech car finishing 22 laps ahead of second place, the No. 2 BAR1 car. The Performance Tech driver lineup of James French, Kyle Masson, Nicholas Boulle and 17-year-old Patricio O’Ward is one of the youngest in the history of the race, but they did what they had to do. “Twice around the clock, a lot can go wrong,” French said, “and to come here and win it was amazing. But we kept it clean and here we are.”
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Ford GT Wins Rolex 24 At Daytona With Ganassi, Young Porsche Racers Score In GTD

With a brand-new car for one of the top manufacturers in the GT Le Mans class, and three new manufacturers in the GT Daytona class, handicapping the GT cars in the Rolex 24 would be tough.

In the end, it was impossible.

The new GT Le Mans car was the Porsche 911 RSR for the two-car Porsche GT Team. It may look familiar, but the traditionally rear-engine 911 became a mid-engine race car, and Daytona was the world track debut of the car. Would it be fast? Would it last 24 hours on its first time out?

Yes, and yes. Both the Nos. 911 and 912 teams contended, and the No. 911 did better than that, challenging for the win at the end but settling for second, behind the favorite, the 24 Hours of Le Mans-winning No. 66 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT, which edged the Porsche by less than three seconds after 652 laps of the 3.56-mile Daytona International Speedway infield road course.

The win went to the team of Joey Hand and Dirk Mueller, aided by IndyCar star Sebastien Bourdais, the same trio that took the Le Mans class victory. It was a matter of unfinished business for Ford, which debuted the racing version of the Ford GT here in 2016, and did not fare well. Ford brought its two North American-based GTs, as well as its two European-based cars, in an all-out assault on the Rolex 24.

And it took all four. While the No. 66 won, second was the Porsche, third was a Ferrari, fourth was a Chevrolet Corvette. And the fastest lap of all four of those cars was less that one half-second apart, and the top seven cars were all on the lead lap.

The second-place Porsche No. 911 was driven by Patrick Pilet, Dirk Werner and Frederic Makowiecki. Pilet, the driver during the last stint, wasn’t happy with second place.

“I’m never happy with second,” he said. “I’m proud of the work the guys did our first time out. I did everything to overtake the Ford, I destroyed my tires trying to catch him. But I was glad I was able to maintain second for Porsche.”

Much happier was the No. 66 Ford GT team, including Joey Hand, who said the 12 hours of light but constant rain was an ordeal.

“I’ve done a lot of racing in my life, and that was some of the toughest stuff I’ve dealt with,” Hand said. “But we did what we had to do. The car is dirty but there isn’t a scratch on it.”

“We didn’t put a wheel wrong,” said Bourdais, “and it paid off.”

Third was the strong-running No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTE driven by James Calado, Giancarlo Fisichella and Toni Vilander, followed by the No. 4 Chevrolet Corvette C7.R of Corvette Racing, with drivers Oliver Gavin, Tommy Milner and Marcel Fassler.

In the GT Daytona class, last year’s decision to adopt the global GT3-class rules has generated more interest from manufacturers, and more entries. The Mercedes-AMG GT3 and Lexus RC F GT3 made their WeatherTech Championship debuts here, and the Acura NSX GT3 has never raced anywhere until this weekend.

Even so, the GT Daytona win went to the No. 28 Alegra Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 of Carlos de Quesada, his son Michael, Jesse Lazare, Daniel Morad and Michael Christensen, not a team among the early picks. The younger de Quesada, Lazare and Morad all are 2016 champions of IMSA-sanctioned Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge series in the U.S. and Canada.

“It was incredible,” said Michael de Quesada. “When my dad won here in 2007 I was here, and now being here today at the top of the podium, and getting that Rolex watch – it was the most amazing feeling.”

“I don’t even know how to describe it,” Christensen said. “The team and the crew kept the car in one piece, and I was the one who got to bring it home. The whole team did a phenomenal job.”

Second was the No. 29 Land-Motorsport Audi R8 LMS GT3 of Christopher Mies, Jules Gounon, Connor De Phillippi and Jeffery Schmidt, just 0.293 seconds behind the winning Porsche. Third was the top-finishing Mercedes, the No. 33 Riley Motorsports-Team AMG car of Ben Keating, Jeroen Bleekemolen, Mario Farnbacher and Adam Christodoulou.

The top-finishing Acura was the No. 86 Michael Shank Racing NSX GT3 of Jeff Segal, Oswaldo Negri, Jr., Tom Dyer and Ryan Hunter-Reay, which finished fifth. And of the two Lexus RC F GT3 cars of 3GT Racing, the No. 15 of Jack Hawksworth, Robert Alon, Austin Cindric and Dominik Farnbacher came in 36th.

Next up for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship is the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, held at the historic road course in Central Florida March 15-18.