As Daytona rolls around once more, heralding the start of the sportscar racing season I’m happy to say Motornerd returns to give my account of the Florida epic. The blog now has a year of experience behind it, and with so much to look out for across the event it brings a slight restructure to my race reporting! I’ll be breaking down each class in order, which should hopefully add more flow and proffessionalism to what once was largely a wall of text.

GTP – JDC Hold Surprise Lead Over Factory Porsches, BMW Sneak Inside Top Three, Aston Falls 15 Laps Behind.

Porsche began the hour under FCY in control with their #7, while the sister #6 car was still recovering from damage sustained after contact with an LMP2 while exiting the pits earlier on.

When conditions went back to green the pit cycle meant that Caddillac’s #31 of Earl Bamber was heading the field with the #7 having fallen to third behind the #93 Acura of Alex Palou. Privateers JDC Miller, using a 2025 spec Porsche 963 had benefitted and were up to an impressive fifth with Kaylen Frederick, who is making his sportscar debut this weekend and managed to hold back Laurens Vanthoor for an entire stint.

There were more GTP debutants, as Laurin Heinrich climbed aboard the #7 and Connor Zillisch took over the #31 and impressed immediately. The lead though was inherited by the #93 of Kakuoshin Ohta thanks to an early pitstop after Palou suffered a puncture before handing over the car.

BMW were slowly coming into things too, with the #24 of Sheldon Van Der Linde rising to fourth overall and closing in on the leaders, this the first race of WRT’s operation of the IMSA project.

Alex Riberas then pulled over with the Aston Martin Valkyrie on the car’s Daytona debut and stopped on the front apron, the fears were that the car was in serious trouble but it turned out to be a false alarm, with the Spaniard eventually pulling away as if nothing had occurred. Up to this point the #007, run by HoR, had been circulating flawlessly. Yet only a couple of laps later it pulled over again at turn three, pulling over to a halt while the #93 pitted early again, hoping for a FCY. This pattern repeated itself again, and eventually the team elected to bring it behind the wall in an attempt to find a cure.

Meanwhile as darkness descended Porsche fought their way back to the front Laurin Heinrich enjoying a strong run in the #7 while the #6 was still struggling from the floor damage sustained earlier, which was revealed to be unfixable by Vanthoor.

Incredibly thanks to pit stop stratgey, the plucky privateers of JDC Miller’s #85 led the race overall when the race went back to green, with Tijmen Van Der Helm leading from Heinrich, Rene Rast’s #24 BMW and the #31 and #40 Caddillacs of Connor Zillisch and Colton Herta.

LMP2 – AO Retain Dominant Lead As Pack Closes Up, Crowdstrike Back In The Hunt as Inter Sport Suffer Further.

Dane Cameron boarded the #99, taking over the leading machine from PJ Hyett’s triple stint to open the hour and set about rebuilding that lead, and looking completely unbeatable to this point, holding a strong lead throughout, rendering LMP2 a class of few stories to write about. The #99 continued to lead as the race went back to green flag running, with the #04 that had been minorly involved in the first corner crash that wiped out a few key contenders now giving chase having climbed to second. Alex Quinn in the cockpit.

Inter Europol hadn’t shown their hand all that much thus far but were now third with Tom Dillmann in the #43, with Ben Keating in fourth aboard the #52 of United Autosports.

The class had been a quiet one for some time, until drama returned to strike the #37 Inter Sport car, who spun on the restart after hitting the outside kerb at the Western Horshoe, but were able to carry on without damage to the floor – a lucky escape.

The lead meanwhile was finally falling into question, as Johnny Edgar’s #99 was under siege from the Crowdstrike APR #04, Inter Europol’s #43, #22 of United Autosports and the #8 of Tower Motorsports, the top 5 now separated by just 20 seconds as the seventh hour approached.

GTD PRO – Corvette Regain Lead, Pfaff Lambo Surges To Top Five as Ford Fall Back.

The hour’s beginning under FCY conditions allowed Team RLL’s #59 McLaren to return to the track after suffering electrical issues, albeit down in 57th overall and dead last of the running GTD Pro cars, with Juri Vips taking to the track in his first Daytona 24 Hours.

In a continuation of the defining battle of Ford against Corvette it was now the #3 Corvette of Antonio Garcia ahead of both factory Fords, #64 ahead of #65 with Dan Harper’s #1 BMW of Paul Miller Racing chasing the leading trio.

The biggest mover was that of Pfaff’s #9 Lamborghini, who clawed their way up to the class lead thanks to the monstrous efforts of Andrea Caldarelli, who pulled the car ahead of Marvin Kirchofer’s #3 Corvette. The other Corvette, the #3 was down fighting the #65 Ford Mustang for fifth place with Christopher Mies.

When conditions went back to green, Kirchofer had taken the lead back under the pit stops and led from the #1 Paul Miller BMW of Neil Verhagen, and Nico Varrone’s sister #4 Corvette.

GTD – Dragonspeed #81, Myers Riley Both Out, Manthey Delayed as #34 Holds Advantage, Inception and Heart of Racing In Hot Pursuit.

In GTD as with all other classes a lead change took place as the #96 of Turner Motorsports BMW conceded to last year’s GTD Pro runners up DragonSpeed with Albert Costa at the helm of the #34. Behind him was the #27 HoR Aston of Eduardo Barichello, then the Gradient Racing #66 Ford of Jake Walker, the team having gained 14 places in the opening five and a half hours in what was a solid running for the crew.

Both Winward’s #57 and the #96 of Turner Motorsports were now dropped back in the field.

Another official retirement was the Myers Riley #16 Ford Mustang which was six laps down when the team called it quits, while the Dragonspeed #81 Corvette of Matteo Cairoli also spun and stopped on track minutes later, sitting in a limbo mode of starting then stopping with considerable damage and dirt, ultimately a FCY was called to deal with the situation, and the crew lost considerable time.

By the time the race went green again, the #81 was back out on track, albeit running 53rd overall and last in class. Meanwhile, the #912 of the debuting Manthey EMA crew was forced into the pits with a stop and go penalty for failing to follow waveby procedure correctly. It had been a difficult race so far for Porsche as a whole and the hotly anticipated debut for the team was turning out to be one to forget.

image credit: Osajus Photography from Asheville, NC, United States, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons