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Mustang Spearheads Rolex 24 GTD Pro Front Row; Wright Motorsports on GTD Pole

Mike Rockenfeller celebrating winning pole for the Rolex 24 in his Ford Mustang GT3

Mike Rockenfeller celebrates the first pole for Ford Multimatic Motorsports at Daytona International Speedway. (Photo: Jared Bokanoski | The Podium Finish)

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Since their launch at last year’s Rolex 24 at Daytona, a vast amount of sports car fans were curious to see if the No. 64 and No. 65 Ford Mustang GT3s by Ford Multimatic Racing would be able to hit the ground running in North America’s premier GT racing ranks. While it may not have been the breakout debut season that they were hoping for, the team has opened the 2025 season with not only a MOTUL Pole Award to their credit, but a front row lock-out of the GTD Pro class in this year’s Rolex 24. Mike Rockenfeller and Frederic Vervisch took the top two starting spots in the No. 64 and No. 65, respectively.

The rest of the GTD Pro top five was a mixed bag of manufacturers with BMW, Ford’s classic rival Corvette and Lamborghini taking positions three, four and five. Paul Miller Racing’s No. 48, Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller’s No. 3 and Pfaff Motorsports’ No. 9 closed out the top five slots on the grid, showing that the continued parity within the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship continues to be alive and well.

Throughout the rest of the grid sat the second Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller entry in sixth position, Porsche’s lead representation in the class with AO Racing’s universally beloved No. 77 “Rexy” entry, and NASCAR fan favorite Trackhouse Racing in their partnership with TF Sport was wheeled to an eighth place starting spot by rising motorsports talent Connor Zilisch. Mercedes’ factory-aligned outfit 75 Express Racing will line up in the ninth position on the starting grid.

The top ten was closed out by the Aston Martin outfit of Heart of Racing. GetSpeed Racing’s No. 69 Mercedes AMG GT3, Ferrari’s GTD Pro outfit in the DragonSpeed No. 81 car, the second of two Paul Miller Racing BMWs in the flagship No. 1 entry, Porsche’s other GTD Pro outfit in Proton Competition’s No. 20, and the Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 round out the field for the 24 hour event.

 

Elliott Skeer celebrates winning the GTD pole for Wright Motorsports in Daytona. (Photo: Jared Bokanoski | The Podium Finish)

IMSA’s most populated class, GT Daytona, also took to the track to set their starting grid for the race twice around the clock with the fastest of the packed 22-car field being Wright Motorsports’ No. 120 Porsche driven by Elliott Skeer with a pole time of 1:46.634. He was followed closely by the car joining him on the front row, the defending Rolex 24 and IMSA GTD champion No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes AMG, which missed out on the front row by less that two hundredths of a second.

Rounding out the GTD top five was the No. 45 Wayne Taylor Racing Lamborghini, the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus, and No. 78 Forte Racing Lamborghini. Flanking them for the start of the race will be the pair of Aston Martin Vantage GT3 EVOs of the rookie outfit van der Steur Racing, and Heart of Racing’s second entry. Following them will be two of Ferrari’s seven entries into the GTD class this year with the combination of the No. 70 and No. 34 Ferrari 296 GT3s of Inception and Conquest Racing, with the ever-inspiring Iron Dames outfit closing out the top ten in their No. 83 Porsche.

The No. 021 Ferrari of Triarsi Competizione, the No. 44 Aston Martin of Magnus Racing in what is their swan song event, the Turner Motorsports BMW, Af Corse’s No. 21 Ferrari, and the DXDT Racing Corvette Z06 GT3 rounded out the top 15.

The remainder of the grid sees the No. 13 Corvette for AWA, the Gradient Racing Ford Mustang GT3, the No. 80 Lone Star Racing AMG, Cetilar Racing’s No. 47 Ferrari, Af Corse’s second No. 20 Ferrari, Korthoff Competition Motors’ No. 32 AMG, and the only car to not turn a lap, the No. 023 for Triarsi.

 

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