Rolex 24: Road rage; four races within a race





 By Don Coble, Special to Florida Sports Wire

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Staying awake for more than 22 hours and driving bumper-to-bumper will likely cause road rage.

But when it appeared two team cars ganged up to knock the leading GT Daytona Pro car out of the lead with less than two hours remaining in the 63rd Rolex 24 at Daytona, road rage turned to seething discontent for Chevrolet Corvette Tommy Milner.

Milner seemed to have a reason to be angry. A BMW M4 GT3 EVO driven by Augusto Farfus for Paul Miller Racing was running three laps down and 12th in class. The car left the pit road shortly before Milner, and second-place Connor De Phillippi in another Paul Miller BMW made a pit stop. Farfus didn’t get up to speed when he returned to the track. When Milner caught him on track, Farfus moved left and right around the 3.56-mile Daytona International Speedway 3.56-mile road course, seemingly to block Milner and help De Phillippi make a pass.

De Phillippi saw an opening when Farfus dramatically slowed, and Milner bobbled to avoid him. In the process, De Phillippi clipped the rear of Milner’s car to sheer off a piece of the fender.

Milner made a pit stop for repairs that cost him the lead. IMSA ordered Farfus to make a drive-thru penalty for blocking, and as he drove down pit road, Milner opened his door and gave him a one-finger gesture. Milner made another pit stop to make a driver swap and more repairs that put the car a lap down.

After he got out of the car, he looked at the scoreboard and saw the BMW in the GTD Pro lead and his Corvette in fourth. It only compounded his fury.

When asked about his level of frustration, the Winchester, Virginia, native didn’t hide his emotions.

“There's not a number for that right now. You know that's our kind of racing. This is not what IMSA is about. It's not what sports car racing is about. First and foremost, the driver should be embarrassed. The team should be embarrassed. BMW should be embarrassed about that kind of racing. There is team racing here, but not like that. When you have a car that laps down out of the race, whose only job is to basically help the teammate, you know, lap after lap after lap, blocking, blocking, blocking, waiting for me. It’s just like I said, it's not how sports car racing should be. It's disappointing. The sister car is out there just to be a nuisance. That's poor sportsmanship, poor driving, just embarrassing on their part.”

Whether it was fate or coincidence, Kelvin van der Linde was driving the leading BMW with 11 minutes remaining when he spun, coming off the speedway’s trioval and onto the road course. The mishap dropped the BMW to a fourth-place finish in class and 20th overall.

Milner’s damaged car wound up 23rd overall and seventh in class.

RACES WITHIN A RACE: In addition to Roger Penske’s Porsche 963 GT Prototype winning the 63rd Rolex 24 at Daytona, three other IMSA classes competed at the same time on the 3.56-mile Daytona International Speedway road course.

John Farano, Sebastian Alvarez, Sebastian Bourdais and Job Van Uitert co-drove the winning LMP2 entry. It finished eighth overall and was 16 laps behind the winning prototype.

Bourdais moved down from the prototype class and said winning in LMP2 was a matter of surviving a lot of aggressive driving. With 29 minutes to go, Bourdais led Mathias BECHE and Paul-Loup Chatin into the infield when Chatin’s ORECA suddenly veered off course.

“It's almost like it was awarded to us, in some respect, because it seemed for a minute that nobody wanted to win it,” Bourdais said. “I've rarely seen someone torpedo another car like BECHE did with Paul-Loup. It was just one incident like this after another – in front of us or behind us or around us. And it was a weird race.

“I'm not used to that in GTP. I don't think I managed to pass someone without someone hitting me plain, straight and simple. I'm not a big fan of that.”

The top-finishing GT Daytona Pro was a Ford Mustang GT3, driven by Christopher Mies, Frederic Vervisch and Dennis Olsen. They won after the leading BMW M4 GT3 EVO driven by Kelvin van der Linde spun off course with 11 minutes to go. After Vervisch took the lead, he had to hold off a hard-charging Alexander Sims in a Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R to win by 1.9 seconds.

Moreover, there were seven GTD Pro cars on the same finishing lap.

“I drove the last few laps looking in the mirrors,” Vervisch said.

The Ford was 17th overall and 58 laps in arrears.

And, Orey Fidani, Matthew Bell, Lars Kern and Marvin Kirchhofer shared the driving duties in a Corvette Z06 GT3 Evo to win the GT Daytona class. While they were 62 laps behind the winning Porsche, their 26th overall finish was best in class.

There were five lead changes in the final hour. The Corvette led at the 23-hour mark, but Custodio Toledo drove his Ferrari 296 GT3 to the front with 41 minutes remaining. Mattia Drudi passed the Ferrari in an Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo with 38 minutes to go, but one minute later, Bell put the Corvette back out front. Drudi battled back with 29 minutes left to lead, but Bell rallied back for the last time with 17 minutes remaining to eventually win by 1.454 seconds.

There were 10 cars on the same finishing lap in the GTD class.


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