
Porsche Penske teammates Felipe Nasr, Nick Tandy and Laurens Vanthoor celebrate the overall win in the Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway. (Photo: Jared Bokanoski | The Podium Finish)
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — North America’s most prestigious sports car race, the Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway, wrapped with a similar sight to the 2024 edition of the event with Porsche Penske Motorsports parking their No. 7 Porsche 963 in Mobil 1 Victory Lane. While it was the same car taking the overall victory, it was with a new driver lineup, with the team’s stalwart driver Felipe Nasr being flanked by Nick Tandy and Laurens Vanthoor as the trio took the overall victory in what ultimately became an attrition-filled race for IMSA’s topflight prototype category.
It was not a victory that came comfortably as the team spent the majority of the 24-hour event being challenged by not only their sister No. 6 Porsche 963 piloted by Kevin Estre, Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet, but also the pole-sitting No. 24 BMW M Team RLL entry of Dries Vanthoor, Kevin Magnussen, Phillip Eng and Raffaele Maricello. The BMW team rallied back from an early pit road mistake by Vanthoor to remain in contention all the way up until the late stages on Sunday afternoon, when a tangling with the Triarsi Competizione No. 021 Ferrari led to both a penalty and damages that ultimately took them out of the running for the overall victory.
However, for the BMW factory outfit, their results and pace carried throughout both the Roar Before the 24 and the titular race itself. The team was able to keep the car at the front running through the night and into the closing stages for effectively the first time at Daytona since the launch of the GTP platform in 2023.

The Lamborghini SC-63 taking laps during practice for the Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway. (Photo: Tyson Gifford | The Podium Finish)
The first DNF of the race took place a mere 34 laps into the event with the long anticipated debut of the Lamborghini SC-63 GTP being brought to a screeching halt just one hour into the event. The team was bitten by water issues that ultimately became insurmountable as they deemed the car retired before three of their four drivers could even take laps around the World’s Center of Racing.
The opposite end of the reliability coin fell on Cadillac this year as for the first time in 13 years, they did not see a single one of their entries finish the race on the lead lap.
All three of their V-Series Rs faced damages ranging from detrimental to downright terminal, with the No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing entry falling victim to cold tires as Louis Deletraz spun through Turn 1 on a restart and collected cars from all manner of classes including the Pfaff Motorsports No. 9, Pratt Miller No. 73 LMP2 entry, the No. 48 BMW for Paul Miller Racing, amongst others.
The No. 31 Whelen Action Express Cadillac faced a manner of technical failure that threw the car in the hands of Frederik Vesti into the NASCAR Turn 4 barrier of the circuit, and while the team got the car back onto the circuit, they saw a 50-lap deficit resulting in a ninth-place finish in the class. The No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing entry did not see the level of technical failure or terminal damage that its sister cars suffered, but a pair of penalties at the dawn of Sunday late in the running trapped the team one lap down in the closing stages, ultimately leading to finishing fifth in the class.
As for the return of Meyer Shank Racing to Acura, it was a tale of two events as their No. 60 ARX-06 found itself in the running for the overall win after a late race restart, culminating in a second-place finish for drivers Tom Blomqvist, Colin Braun, and INDYCAR stars Scott Dixon and Felix Rosenqvist. Its No. 93 entry unfortunately experienced a rear suspension failure early in the night that wiped it from the front runners early on and set it on an uphill climb it was not able to scale.
Leaving the last two GTPs as the customer Porsche 963s, who much like every other outfit, represented a two-faced monster of what this race can do to a team. JDC-Miller Motorsports ultimately ran what could have been viewed as a “little stripe” kind of race in the stock car realm, maintaining a level pace and never really finding themselves entangled in anyone else’s messes, ending in a respectable sixth place finish.
Porsche’s other customer outfit was put through the ringer throughout the entire Rolex 24 weekend, with a suspension failure in practice that caused them to forgo a qualifying time. They ended up floating around the lower end of the top five throughout the race until just before the race reached halfway, as Nico Pino faced a left-rear suspension failure during his stint, ending the German outfit’s efforts before the clock hit twelve hours to go.

Tower Motorsports’ race-winning No. 8 Oreca LMP2 exiting the International Horseshoe at Daytona International Speedway. (Photo: Tyson Gifford | The Podium Finish)
As for the secondary prototype class, it was a true show of attrition with what seemed like every single team on the grid finding some form of adversity as the race went on, with multiple instances of the leaders facing issues at different points throughout the race. The Tower Motorsports outfit survived the odds to claim their first win in the category at Daytona with driver lineup Sebastien Bourdais, John Farrano, Job van Uitert and Sebastian Alvarez, with the latter three claiming their first career wins in the event, whilst it was Bourdais’ third class win in his career.
The team found themselves in the cat-bird seat after what felt like a revolving door of favorites to win in the closing stages. The No. 88 Af Corse entry held a commanding lead before facing a gearbox expiration, giving the lead to the consistently dominant AO Racing “Spike” entry, who then themselves stared down the barrel of a race-ending pit stop for an electrical issue.
Following a late-race full course yellow for the No. 45 Wayne Taylor Racing GTD entry stalling on track, Bourdais was beat to the punch on pit road by both the Era Motorsports No. 18 and the PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports No. 52, but on the subsequent restart, the pair tangled, allowing Bourdais to sail away to victory. Tower did not see a perfectly clean race, however, as they nearly had their hopes decimated by the eight-hour melee sparked by the No. 40 Cadillac.
Joining the No. 8 on the podium was the No. 22 pole-sitting United Autosports machine and the No. 74 Riley machine who merely kept their noses clean to find themselves in a position to capitalize at the end. The rest of the running order included the No. 52 finishing fourth following their penalty, with the No. 18 following suit. AO Racing closed out their spectacular run with what could probably be viewed as an unsatisfying sixth place given the standout performance from 2024 GTP champion Dane Cameron.
The Crowdstrike Racing No. 04 came home seventh after Colton Herta collided with the barrier in the Sunday running of the race. The once leading Af Corse No. 88 saw its day leveled with an eighth-place finish, with a pair of cars that were involved in differing incidents rounding out the top ten following repairs with TDS Racing and Pratt Miller Motorsports, respectively.
The remaining two DNFs were the No. 43 Inter Europol machine, which succumbed to mechanical problems, and the No. 2 United Autosport LMP2, which was involved in the eighth hour bedlam.
