Coble: Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona wrap-up - Penske, Porsche make a statement for upcoming season with dominant win
Germany's Laurin Heinrich, Brazil's Philipe Nsar and France's Julien Andlauer drove the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsports Prototype to a victory last weekend at the 64th Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona.
DAYTONA BEACH – Felipe Nasr was in the middle of the 2021 SportsCar Championship season when he got a call from Roger Penske’s race team. They were considering starting a new team with Porsche, and they were considering adding him as a driver and mentor to develop younger drivers.
Since he already had a ride with Action Express Racing – if fact, he won the Prototype Championship that year – they had to meet secretly.
"I think I showed up to this place, I can't just say all the details, but I was a little worried and I thought I could walk the distance, but I never checked the weather outside,” the Brazilian sports car driver said. “It was some kind of restaurant. I was taking a drink and just waiting on time. I said, ‘Ok, just start walking, but it was a very warm day. Those five minutes I walked, it was not a good move because I started to sweat. I was going to look like I was nervous.”
Nasr was sweaty, but it was too late to change clothes and freshen up. Then a car pulled beside him in the parking lot. It was Penske, the most formidable car owner in racing history. The car window rolled down and Penske spoke.
“Hey, you're the driver,” Nasr said. “Come on board. Let's talk. And from that moment on, I knew something special was about to unfold.”
Nasr started with Porsche Penske Motorsports in 2022, and on Sunday, he, along with co-drivers Julien Andlauer and Laurin Heinrich, gave Penske the team’s third consecutive Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona victory.
Nasr also won the Prototype Championship in 2024 with co-driver Dane Cameron, and he finished third with co-driver Nick Tandy a year ago, while Penske teammates Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet shared the championship.
Nasr also joined legendary Peter Gregg, and fellow Brazilian Hélio Castroneves, as the only drivers to win three consecutive 24-hour races.
Penske has already proven, with more than 650 combined wins, five NASCAR Cup Series championships, six IndyCar Series championships, 20 victories at the Indianapolis 500 and four 24-hour sports car endurance races, his cars have become the gold standard on the IMSA circuit.
The winning No. 7 Porsche 963 and its sister car, the No. 6, combined to lead a total of 521 of 705 laps on the 3.56-mile Daytona International Speedway road course that combines a flat, twisting series of turns in the infield and most of the high-banked superspeedway.
“I felt like we (did) our homework pretty well, like over the winter, looking after all the evolutions,” Nasr said. “For sure, the Penske was in a good form from beginning to end.”
Days before the 24-hour marathon, other Prototype teams expected dominance from Porsche. Jack Aitken got his Cadillac V-Series.R close enough to bump Nasr, but his charge was short-lived.
“The Porsches were very strong all race, very impressive,” said Aitken, whose Cadillac V-Series.R finished second, 1.569 seconds behind. “I was just trying everything I could. That was pure racing. I used everything I had. I just didn’t have enough to get the job done. A couple times, I stuck my nose in there. I never, never got a super run on him.”
Aitken’s co-drivers were Earl Bamber, Frederik Vesti and Connor Zilisch.
A BMW M Hybrid V8 finished third, followed by the No. 6 Porsche in fourth and an Acura ARX-06 in fifth.
The winning car traveled nearly 2,510 miles. The distance was affected by a 6-hour, 33-minute caution period during the night by dense fog that kept IMSA officials and spotters from seeing cars across the track.
All four of IMSA’s classes competed simultaneously in the 24-hour race.
The ORECA LMP2 07 George Kurtz, Alex Quinn, Toby Sowery and Malthe Jakobsen won its class by 5.59 seconds against a similar ORECA for Neil Verhagen, Connor De Phillippi, Max Hesse and Dan Harper. The winning LMP2 was 19 laps behind the winning Prototype.
Verhagen, De Phillippi, Hesse and Harper drove their BMW M4 GT3 EVO to a 2.223-second win against the Mercedes-AMG GT3 driven by Kenny Habul, Maro Engel, Will Power and Chaz Mostert in the GT Daytona PRO class. While the BMW was best in class, it was 43 laps in arrears to the best Prototype.
And in GT Daytona, there were seven cars on the lead lap, led by the Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Russell Ward, Philip Ellis, Indy Dontje and Lucas Auer. They were 1.367 seconds ahead of John Potter, Spencer Pumpelly, Nicki Thiim and Madison Snow’s Aston Martin Vantage GT3 EVO.
The next race for the IMSA Series is the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.
The No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsports Prototype was the class of the 60-car field at the 3.56-mile road course at the Daytona International Speedway last weekend during the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona.
