Daytona 24 Hours winning driver for Era Motorsport, Christian Rasmussen, related to reporters at the post race press conference how hje assessed the race the rivalry with the Crowdstrike by APR team, who finished second.
“Yeah, they were definitely the car to beat for us,” said the Dane.
“They were definitely the closest all race long really. We knew we had I think a slight advantage over them, so it was really about whenever we still had four or five hours left, it was just about keeping our noses clean and being there at the end.
The #04 Crowdstrike by APR Oreca 07-Gibson car had young Maltke Jakobsen in for the final stint. He had similar pace to Rasmussen as the race drew to a close, but ultimately the Peugeot reserve driver was not able to catch his fellow countryman.
“Then the last stint, it came down to a caution, and I had a huge gap from I think like 15 seconds, and then obviously all of that disappeared,” he continued.
“But I felt fairly confident. I was just slowly pulling away right before, so I kind of knew that we had the pace to do it.
“It was just about getting away from the start, which I did well, and then pulled out a two-second gap and just kind of managed it from there.”
The winning Era Motorsport car also had, alongside Rasmussen, Ryan Dalziel, his second Daytona win, Dwight Merriman, and 17-year-old Connor Zilisch. Dalziel spoke about how he acted as a kind of role model to the teenager throughout their time at Daytona, in response to a question about MotorsportWeek.com.
“I’ll say role model is probably strong,” said the Scottish veteran.
“There was a few times I had to censor myself this week and realize I was working with a minor. You don’t realize how bad jokes are and stuff at the track until you realize you’ve got 17 year olds’ dad who is 6’8 standing behind you grilling you.”
“I mean, I don’t feel as old as I am experience-wise. But yeah, I could be both their dads. We figured that out this week.
“I think it comes with — every year it comes with a different kind of maturity for me. I don’t think five years ago that I would have given up my stint to let somebody else, but at the end of the day, there’s no egos in a team sport, and I really felt that having those two guys finish the race was the strongest possible option, and it worked out for us.”
