ESM prevail in thrilling Daytona 24 Hours

24 hour races being what they are, it’s a rare thing when the car which leads the first lap is still there at the end, but it seems nobody told the Extreme Speed Motorsport team of Luis Felipe Derani, Scott Sharp, Johannes van Overbeek and Ed Brown, who became the first LMP2 team ever to win the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona in their Honda-powered Ligier JS P2.  

Derani passed the polesitting BR Engineering BR01 of Mikhail Aleshin around the outside of Turn One to take the lead and bolted, setting the race’s fastest lap – a 1:39.192 – on Lap Six. But the ESM team didn’t have it all their own way, and had to recover from a lap down after an assault from John Pew’s Michael Shank Racing Ligier at the Bus Stop necessitated a stop to replace the rear bodywork.

ESM were the quickest car on track, but crucially kept
their time in the pits to a minimum (IMSA).

Comfortably the fastest car on track once the Shank car retired during the night with an engine failure, Derani resumed the lead with a pass on Ricky Taylor’s Wayne Taylor Racing DP with an hour and a half remaining. Even with a full night’s sleep to fall back on – Rubens Barrichello was a last minute addition to the team to help spread the load – an unwell Jordan Taylor had no answers for the Ligier in the final stint, and would be forced to make way early with exhaust fumes filling the cockpit.

Veteran Max Angelelli bravely brought the car to the finish in second, but was taken to hospital for examination after the chequered flag.

After Nick Tandy once again took advantage of atrocious conditions in qualifying to embarrass the prototypes in his GTLM Porsche, the 2015 Daytona 24 Hours was a race which never looked like running to type.

Both Action Express and Ganassi DPs suffered rare unreliability, with the defending event winner driven by Scott Dixon, Tony Kanaan, Jamie McMurray and Kyle Larson crashing out on Sunday morning, while the updated Deltawing starred in the hands of Katherine Legge, charging from 13^th to the lead by the end of the first hour before an unfortunate Andy Meyrick hit a PC car that was stranded in the middle of the road at Turn One.

With the rest of the Prototype class dropping like flies, the Visit Florida Racing DP of Marc Goosens, Ryan Dalziel and Ryan Hunter-Reay completed the podium in third, the only other car on the lead lap, with Christian Fittipaldi, Joao Barbosa, Filipe Albuquerque and Scott Pruett the best of the rest in fourth for Action Express.

0.035s separated Gavin (4) and Garcia (3) after 24 hours of racing (IMSA).

In GTLM, Corvette Racing provided one of the greatest finishes in the race’s esteemed history as Oliver Gavin held off team-mate Antonio Garcia at the line by just 0.034s.

When Gavin muscled past Earl Bamber with half an hour to go, it looked for all the world as though the race was won for the no.4 car he shared with Tommy Milner and Daytona debutant Marcel Fassler, but Garcia had other ideas.

Allowed off the leash by Corvette program manager Doug Fehan, the Spaniard made short work of an irate Bamber, and set about catching Gavin, who was struggling on older tyres. After pulling alongside on the banking several times, Garcia made his move to the outside of Turn One with two laps to go, but couldn't get the C7.R to the apex, allowing a grateful Gavin to slip back though.

Garcia, Jan Magnussen and Mike Rockenfeller would thus have to settle for second, with Bamber, Fred Makowiecki and Michael Christensen third in the no. 912 Porsche.

Ford showed glimpses of promise on their return, with Ryan Briscoe setting the second quickest time of the race for a GT car – his 1:44.391 on Lap 46 beaten only by Garcia in his frenzied chase of Gavin – but early problems for both cars effectively reduced the race to an extended test session. Joey Hand, Dirk Muller and Sebastien Bourdais in no. 66 would eventually take 7^th in class.

Best new car honours would thus go to the Scuderia Corse Ferrari 488 shared by Alessandro Pier Guidi, Daniel Serra, Memo Rojas and Alex Premat, which finished a lap off the leaders in fourth. Pier Guidi incidentally also set the fourth quickest time for a GT car.

The GTD class battle was a similarly close affair, as Rene Rast, Marco Seefried, Andy Lally and John Potter prevailed for Magnus Racing in a fuel strategy nail-biter. 

Rene Rast brought the Magnus Audi home on fumes to win GTD (IMSA).

With the Balance of Performance heavily favouring the Lamborghini Huracan, Magnus looked to have little chance, but after the first and second placed Lamborghinis of Bryce Miller and Justin Marks tangled in the eleventh hour, the Audi R8 LMS was the chief beneficiary and moved to the head of a queue which also featured the Porsches of Shane van Gisbergen and Nicky Catsburg, Richie Stanaway’s Aston Martin and the last remaining Lamborghini of Fabio Babini.

Van Gisbergen was the first to fall by the wayside when a bolt sheared on his rear wing and caused him to spin, but Rast still wasn’t in the clear. Lifting and coasting around the infield in a desperate attempt to make it to the finish without having to come in for a splash of fuel, he was losing time hand over fist to Catsburg and Damien Faulkner’s Viper, the first of the cars who were good to go until the end. Stanaway was the first to blink and pitted from third with five minutes remaining, but Magnus gambled on staying out and were rewarded as Rast brought the car home on fumes. 

Konrad Motorsport opted for a similar strategy and briefly snatched the lead away, only for Babini to run out of fuel moments later. That opened the door for the Black Swan Porsche of Catsburg, Pat Long, Andy Pilgrim and Tim Pappas to finish second, just three seconds shy of the winner and Faulkner, Eric Foss, Jeff Mosing, Gar Robinson and Ben Keating an unlikely third.  

In the attrition-hit Prototype Challenge class, the no. 85 JDC/ Miller entry of Stephen Simpson, Kenton Koch, Chris Miller and Misha Goikhberg won by four clear laps from a PR1/Mathiasen lineup which featured Tom Kimber-Smith. PC polesitter Johnny Mowlem finished third for BAR1 after both Starworks entries hit problems.