INSIGHT: How Era Motorsport took on these three consecutive endurance races

Motorsport Week explored what it was like for Era Motorsport when they were the only team who took on these key back-to-back endurance races.

Determination. Teamwork. Coordination. These fundamental traits run at the heart of every team competing in the illustrious yet gruelling discipline of endurance racing.

IMSA LMP2 and historic racing outfit Era Motorsport are no exception to this as the only team to run this year’s 24 Hours of Dubai, 6 Hours of Abu Dhabi and the 24 Hours of Daytona – all of which took place on consecutive weekends in January.

Take a deep dive into the stresses, heartbreaks and challenges endured during these major sportscar events by Era Motorsport.

Relive the insightful accounts from two of Era Motorsport’s most prominent racing drivers, team owner Kyle Tilley and team regular Ryan Dalziel.

Era Motorsport had three separate cars to race with two sets of crews, including two new engineers, for the Middle Eastern races and the United States-based affair.

They had two distinct racing entries for these events – the #81 Ferrari 296 GT3 and the #18 Oreca 07 LMP2 – with Kyle primarily managing the new Ferrari programme whilst his wife and team co-ordinator Sarah Tilley principally oversees their LMP2 programme.

The first two of seven 24H Series 2025 races run with the Creventic rules and regulations whilst Daytona is part of IMSA and their SportsCar Championship mixing prototype and Grand Touring machinery.

24H Dubai: A rough end to a smooth start for Era’s Ferrari programme

The 20th running of the Dubai 24 Hours was a major anniversary for the race and marked the beginning of Era Motorsport’s racing chapter with their Ferrari 296 GT3 programme, one of the newest GT3 cars customer teams can purchase.

Most notably, it marked the GT racing debut of reigning British Touring Car champion Jake Hill, whose partnership with Era Motorsport pre-existed in racing some of their historic cars in the past year as Tilley made his GT3 comeback.

Another team regular Dwight Merriman and Oliver Bryant joined and Tilley Dalziel as a five-driver line-up in the #81 Ferrari 296 Pro-Am GT3 class entrant for the race on 11-12 January.

“Logistically, it was a bit of a nightmare…”

Ryan Dalziel, Era Motorsport driver

“We were bringing in containers from different countries,” said Dalziel on the two separate Ferraris they had.

“We had the two cars were in different places for the Ferraris at one point, with [mechanical] parts in different parts of the world.

“It was definitely madness [in] the first couple of days.

“And you try your best to lend a hand but at the same time, [it’s] probably better the drivers don’t get involved in that stuff.

“At least my part of it, I try to make coffees for everybody and make sure everybody’s happy and I’m usually the class clown that motivates but from my side, it wasn’t overly difficult.

“I actually went to Dubai early, said the Scotsman who lives in Orlando, USA, “I wanted to make sure I got in the time zone.”

Dalziel on how he ‘led’ the drivers

Era Motorsport qualified 24th in a GT3 category mixed with Pro, Pro-Am, and Am entries, of which the #81 Ferrari belonged to the middle classification.

As with the majority of 24-hour races, qualifying played all but a small part in achieving a successful outcome for Era Motorsport.

“There’s a lot of new things, new elements to it, but not new to me.

“So I had done a season of the [Ferrari] 296, I’d also done a little bit of Creventic in the past and I’ve done a lot of GT3 racing.

“Nobody else in the car with me had done any of it.

“Dwight, it was new to him – he’d only done LMP2 racing.

“Jake Hill had never sat in a GT3 car, let alone do an endurance race, so on that programme I felt like I had to lead the drivers a little bit.”

Hill drew the eyes of many following the BTCC as Tilley gave praise to the 31-year-old.

“Jake’s massively talented. In my opinion, he’s slightly wasted just doing British Touring Cars.

“… So to be able to give him the step up into the GT3 car was something that’s been on my mind for a bit and he’s doing a great job.

“He had to learn his biggest hurdle that he’s never had to share a car before… that’s been a bit of a learning curve for him.”

An tough truth to process for Era Motorsport

At the Dubai 24 Hours, GT3 was the fastest class out of five for the ‘multi-class’ sportscar race.

Immediately after the race start, Era Motorsport suffered a leaky tyre which prompted an early pit stop.

Era Motorsport climbed back up and contended for a podium finish up until Merriman incurred a low speed impact with three-and-a-half hours remaining.

They were forced to retire despite the team’s best efforts and work to optimise strategy throughout the race.

No team out of the 65 entries which took on Dubai wants to be amongst the retirements and Era Motorsport unfortunately – though painfully close to the end.

“We like to say it’s the racing gods that decide the outcome of some of these things,” said Dalziel.

“And for me, I never bring my [emotional] baggage home.”

Tilley added his reflection: “The fact that we were there and in podium contention on the first time out shows what a good job both Ferrari and Oreca have done with the car, but also how well our engineering department got their heads around the car as soon as possible.”

The next stop for the Era Motorsport team was on the next weekend’s Abu Dhabi race on Sunday 19 January.

6H Abu Dhabi: Repeating GT3 podium contention

The second half of Creventic’s Middle East Trophy was at the Yas Marina Circuit, home to the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Dalziel mentioned a late, preferential decision by the team to bring him back to the USA for the Roar Before the 24 pre-event test weekend rather than competing in the Abu Dhabi race on Sunday 19 January.

“Honestly, had it been the European Le Mans Series, I wouldn’t have got back in the car because that’s far more intense than I really want to do right now,” Tilley quipped having driven with Merriman and Hill.

“But certainly with Creventic, it’s a lot of fun.

“It’s a chance to share a car with two good friends and the car’s a joy to drive.

“So it’s been really enjoyable getting back in a modern car again.

“I think the biggest thing I’ve had to, to readapt to is learning a modern tyre versus like an older cross-ply tyre, which a lot of the historic cars run.”

The GT3 field contained some of the most renowned teams in sportscar racing such as IMSA GTD champions Winward Racing, WRT and Garage 59 to name a few.

With Dalziel back on the US soil, Hill, Merriman and Tilley took on the race as a trio.

They repeated podium contention but were unable to translate their potential into a top result, having finished P25 in the GT3 field and P11 in the Pro-Am sub-category.

24H Daytona: A flawless run towards podium denial

The 63rd running of the Daytona 24 Hours marked Dalziel’s 20th consecutive start at the race hosted at the iconic Daytona International Speedway Road Course.

Era Motorsport were reigning LMP2 class winners having attained their second ‘Rolex 24’ victory in 2024.

A mostly different line-up for this year underlined many unknowns for their pursuit for victory again, but the team were as determined as ever to not go down without trying.

Alpine Hypercar driver Paul-Loup Chatin joined Dalziel and two prominent technology businessmen, David Heinemeier Hansson and Tobias Lutke.

Lutke is CEO of the Shopify e-commerce outlet which was incidentally built on Hansson’s Ruby on Rails platform.

Hansson has far more experience and success in sportscar racing as Bronze-graded driver Lutke faced the thrills of IMSA multi-class racing at Daytona.

A baptism of fire for Lutke

“I think that we threw him into shark-infested waters and then we dumped a bucket of blood on his head repeatedly,” Dalziel understated.

“He was unable to do the official test in November due to Shopify conflicts.

“So then we tried to get him in some other stuff. We got him in the Historic Sportscar Racing [series].

“It’s just not the same, you don’t have the same pressure, but the first time that he was around 60 other IMSA cars, different speeds, faster [or] slower, was the Roar.

“Up until the Roar, he had actually never done any kind of simulated pit stops or driver changes in anger.

“He had a little bit of LMP3 experience, but in VP Challenge where the rules are not the same as WeatherTech.

“So he had never really understood how to enter and exit a pit box.

“It’s not until you realise how inexperienced he is that you’d appreciate how good of a job he did.

“… I’ve worked with a lot of the tech guys and the tech guys are very data-driven, analytic.

“So he’s one of those guys and he’s constantly looking for more information.

“… he never put a foot wrong and I said to him at the start of the race, we’re going to be just fine if we don’t make mistakes,” which Era Motorsport followed through with their lack of penalties incurred at Daytona.

A different approach between the two 24-hour races

At the 24 Hours of Daytona, hosted by IMSA, a primary focus for all LMP2 teams is to ensure they meet the minimum driver time for their Bronze-graded drivers, which was 4-hours and 30-minutes.

IMSA’s caution periods enabled the top LMP2 runners – including Era Motorsport – to stay on their class-lead lap, as Dalziel described.

“The strategy in Dubai is not driver rotation or drive-time.

“It’s purely the strategic way you can use the fuel pumps… you have to use regular petrol pumps.

“The top teams have people stationed there the whole time and you have a fairly large window of how long you’re allowed to go per the rules and how short you can go without hurting yourself strategically.

“So we were pretty different in how we approached Dubai because in Dubai, there was no benefit to running the bronze heavy in the first half of the race.

“You didn’t gain anything by [that], there’s no way to catch up.

“Whereas in IMSA, you see that everybody tries to go heavy on their bronze drivers and their silver drivers, and then they try and keep their professionals for the end.”

Fighting for the win to the end

Chatin spent the most amount time on the track in comparison to his co-drivers.

During a triple stint to the end, Chatin kept on the lead lap as AO Racing by TF Sport’s #14 Oreca encountered issues at the front.

In the final hour, where the fatigue and tension infused the atmosphere of all the teams, Chatin was hit by Mathias Beche’s #52 PR1 Mathiasen Oreca at Turn 1.

Chatin continued albeit without the victory contention, let alone podium contention, Era Motorsport earned over the 764 laps they completed at the checkered flag.

“From a team stand point, Daytona was a faultless race for us – no penalties, no issues in the pit stops… And, you know, we were there for the win at the end until we got taken off which was hugely disappointing, hugely frustrating.

“But it happens. That would have been a fairy tale debut for Tobi, obviously.

“… We’ve been very fortunate now that we’ve won Daytona twice, but an opportunity to win Daytona doesn’t come up every year.

“So to be in the position to have done an absolutely faultless race from everybody – and then have it taken away with 20 minutes to go – was a very bitter pill to swallow.”

After Tower Motorsports’ post-race penalty, Era Motorsport ended fourth after a tough race concluding the team’s back-to-back triple of endurance racing weekends.

READ MORE: ‘Kaku’ Ohta joins Era Motorsport at 12H Sebring and Road America