Coble: Penske Shakes Up Defending Rolex 24 Winning Team to Mount another Challenge
By Don Coble, Special to Florida Sports Wire
DAYTONA BEACH – Nobody knows racing better than Roger Penske. His 20 victories in the Indianapolis 500 are a milestone that won’t be matched. He also has 17 IndyCar Series championships and is the reigning car owner for the IMSA GT Prototype and NASCAR Series champions.
A year ago, he watched as his four-driver tandem took the checkered flag at the Rolex 24 at Daytona after they completed 791 laps – about 2,816 miles – in a Porsche 963 to beat a Cadillac prototype by 2.112 seconds after racing for 24 hours.
So what did the man motorsports calls “The Captain” do? Replaced three of the drivers.
The only driver returning to the No. 7 Porsche is Brazilian Felipe Nasr. Gone were two-time defending Indy 500 Champion Josef Newgarden, Dane Cameron and Matt Campbell, replaced by Nick Tandy of Great Britain and Laurens Vanthoor of Belgium.
The only thing that remained the same was that the car still had consistent speed.
“This is the best time of the year, I would say,” Nasr said on the eve of the Rolex 24 at Daytona, America’s premier sports car endurance race at the Daytona International Speedway. “It’s a great way to start our season. It’s the biggest race we have on our calendar, the one we all have a desire to win. To do it back-do-back would be even more special, for sure.”
Thursday’s 15-minute qualifying session was cut to just 5 minutes, 50 seconds, when one of the BMW M Hybrid V8s stalled on course. The other BMW, driven by Lauren’s younger brother, Dries Vanthoor, won the pole for the twice-around-the-clock race with a quick lap of 136.493 mph. Dries Vanthoor will share driving duties with Austrian Phillipp Eng, Denmark’s Kevin Magnussen and Italy’s Raffaele Marciello.
An Acura ARX-06 with The Netherlands’ Renger van der Zande, Nick Yelloly, Spain’s Alex Palou and Japan’s Kaku Ohta aboard will start second after running 1:36.071 mph in time trials, followed Nasr’s Porsche in third.
The No. 7 Porsche started the year by winning the 24 Hours of Daytona, and Nasr and Cameron also went on to win the IMSA GT Prototype Series Championship. Cameron is now driving in the second-tiered division, LMP2.
Penske will also start a second Porsche Prototype for drivers Mathieu and Kevin Estre of France and Campbell. They qualified 10th.
The Prototype class will have 10 cars, while the LMP2 class will start 12. The GT Daytona Pros will have 15 entries, while the GT Daytona class will have 24 when the green flag waves at 1:40 p.m. on Saturday.
Despite the speed disparity – the fastest GT Daytona qualified 32nd overall at 120.187 mph – they will race against each other.
The highest-qualifying LMP2 was an ORECA LMP2 07 for Daniel Goldburg, Paul Di Resta, James Allen and Rasmus Lindh in 11th at 129.879 mph, followed by the best GTD PRO Ford Mustang GT3 for Mike Rockenfeller, NASCAR’s Austin Cindric and Sebastian Priaulx in 23rd at 121.452 mph and the top GTD Porsche 911GT3 R for Adam Adelson, Elliott Skeer, Tom Sargent and Ayhancan Guven in 32nd at 120.187 mph.
Nasr said it’s unusual to be back at the racetrack and not seeing many of his teammates.
“I’ll see Dan (Cameron) on the other side of the class (LMP2) now,” Nasr said. “It was great to share the car with him, for sure. No doubt we had great memories together. I wish him all the best in his new chapter in LMP2. At the same time, I welcome Nick (Tandy), one of the greatest talents we’ve seen in racing. He’s probably won most of the big races he entered, so I’m excited to be partnering with Nick and drawing forces with a strong group.”
Nasr also knows if it’s good enough for Roger Penske, it’s more than good enough for the race team.
