Tom Blomqvist, Oliver Jarvis, Simon Pagenaud and Helio Castroneves won the Rolex 24 at Daytona in a breakthrough win for Meyer Shank Racing.
The battle for overall honors became a four-way dance, as Chip Ganassi Racing and Action Express’ #48 Cadillac all fell away with various troubles on Sunday.
In a frantic last few hours, Meyer Shank Racing, Wayne Taylor Racing, JDC-Miller Motorsports and Whelen Engineering all led the race at various points within the last four hours.
It was, however, the Ohio-based MSR squad that laid down the gauntlet in the penultimate hour. While the #10 Acura ARX-05 of Ricky Taylor led on the restart following the sixteenth of seventeen cautions in the race, new signing Tom Blomqvist pulled off a strong pass at the newly renamed Le Mans Chicane and dove up the inside of Taylor to take the lead.
Blomqvist then handed over to Castroneves, who maintained the lead on the seventeenth and final restart of the race and held off Taylor’s assault to take the win.
It marks the second overall victory at Daytona for Michael Shank’s operation, exactly ten years since its last win in 2012. It is also its first victory since its return to top-level prototype racing.
Ricky Taylor, Filipe Albuquerque, Alexander Rossi and Will Stevens finished second in the #10 Acura, bringing Wayne Taylor Racing’s three-year undefeated streak at Daytona to an end.
Loic Duval, Tristan Vautier, Richard Westbrook and Ben Keating completed the podium for JDC-Miller Motorsports, with the #31 Whelen Cadillac of Pipo Derani, Tristan Nunez and Mike Conway fourth.
Chip Ganassi Racing had a Rolex 24 to forget, with mechanical troubles befalling both cars. The #01 Cadillac of Sebastien Bourdais, Renger van der Zande, Scott Dixon and Alex Palou went down first with electrical issues. That was followed by the #02 sister car of Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn, Kevin Magnussen and Marcus Ericsson suffering a fuel pump failure on Sunday morning.
After leading the opening exchanges, the #48 Ally Cadillac also fell out of contention when Jimmie Johnson sustained suspension damage after contact with an LMP3 car overnight. Johnson, Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Rockenfeller and Jose Maria Lopez finished fifth in class, 22 laps down on the leaders.
DragonSpeed has won another LMP2 crown at Daytona, with Colton Herta securing the win with a pass in the final fifteen minutes.
Herta lunged up the inside of Louis Deletraz’ #8 Tower Motorsports ORECA at the Le Mans Chicane. Deletraz went off the track in response, but race control called no further action.
This secured the win for the #81 ORECA 07-Gibson of Herta, Pato O’Ward, Devlin DeFrancesco and Eric Lux. Deletraz was then also passed by the #29 Racing Team Nederland ORECA of Giedo van der Garde, Frits van Eerd, Rinus VeeKay and Dylan Murry.
Deletraz, Ferdinand Habsburg, Rui Andrade and John Farano finished third.
In LMP3, Riley Motorsports took its second consecutive Daytona victory in dominant fashion. The #74 Ligier JS P320-Nissan of Felipe Fraga, Michael Cooper, Gar Robinson, and Kay van Berlo won with a lap advantage over its nearest competition.
Colin Braun, Jon Bennett, Nic Jonsson and George Kurtz finished second in the #54 CORE Autosport Ligier, with Seb Priaulx, Joao Barbosa, Malthe Jakobsen and Lance Willsey completing the top podium for Sean Creech Motorsport.
Porsche scored a one-two victory in the new GTD Pro class after a intense and long battle between Pfaff Motorsports and KCMG.
Mathieu Jaminet and Laurens Vanthoor spent the last few hours of the race locked in battle, seemingly decided when Vanthoor’s #9 Porsche 911 GT3 R executed a physical pass within the final five minutes of the 24-hour contest.
Jaminet, however, took the lead back on the penultimate lap of the race and held off his Belgian colleague even as Vanthoor attempted a last-gap maneuvre at the Le Mans Chicane and spun.
Jaminet, Matt Campbell and Felipe Nasr took the victory, with the #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo of James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi, Daniel Serra and Davide Rigon slipping into second ahead of the KCMG Porsche of Vanthoor, Alexandre Imperatori, Patrick Pilet and Dennis Olsen.
Both Corvettes and BMW had difficult outings in their first outings in the new class, suffering numerous reliability issues. The #3 Corvette C8.R of Antonio Garcia, Jordan Taylor and Nick Catsburg finished sixth and 13 laps down, finishing on the same lap as the #25 BMW M4 GT3 of Connor de Phillippi, John Edwards, Augusto Farfus and Jesse Krohn in seventh place.
Jan Heylen, Zacharie Robichon, Ryan Hardwick and Richard Lietz won the race in the GTD category in their #16 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R.
The Porsche squad captured the lead overnight and held on, having their victory secured when the #21 AF Corse Ferrari dropped from second to fourth with a penalty in the final hour.
It promoted the #44 Magnus Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 of John Potter, Andy Lally, Spencer Pumpelly and Jonny Adam to second place. The podium was rounded out by the #32 Gilbert/Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Stevan McAleer, James Davidson, Mike Skeen and Scott Andrews.
46 cars out of 61 starters made it to the chequered flag.
