Daytona 24 Hours: Alonso wins with WTR as red flag ends race early

Alonso and his team-mates in the #10 Cadillac DPi-V.R - Renger van der Zande, Kamui Kobayashi and Jordan Taylor - were the prime beneficiaries of the worsening weather, which resulted in the IMSA SportsCar Championship season opener being red-flagged for a second time with just under two hours to run.

After more than an hour of inactivity, a decision was finally taken to abandon the race after 23 hours and 50 minutes, with efforts to clear standing water from the track proving fruitless.

Shortly before the stoppage, two-time Formula 1 champion Alonso had taken the lead from the #31 Action Express Cadillac of Felipe Nasr after the Brazilian ran wide at Turn 1.

That turned out to be the decisive move, with ex-F1 racer Nasr, Pipo Derani and Eric Curran forced to settle for second.

Completing the podium was the #7 Penske Acura ARX-05 of Helio Castroneves, Ricky Taylor and Alexander Rossi, which lacked the speed in the wet to challenge the leading Cadillacs in the final stages when IndyCar racer Rossi was at the wheel.

The arrival of rain on Sunday prompted an hour-long caution period, which was followed by the first red flag with a little more than seven hours left on the clock.

After an delay of more than 90 minutes, racing resumed in a stop-start fashion as frequent caution periods were called amid various incidents in the treacherous conditions.

By this point, the race had boiled down to a contest between the WTR and #31 Action Express Cadillacs and the two Team Penske-run Acuras, but the #6 ARX-05 shared by Juan Pablo Montoya, Dane Cameron and Simon Pagenaud was ruled out of the fight with a loose oil pump belt in the 20th hour.

That promoted the CORE Autosport Nissan DPi of Jon Bennett, Romain Dumas, Loic Duval and Colin Braun to fourth, although the #54 machine was four laps down on the leaders having suffered transmission problems shortly before half-distance.

A further three laps back in fifth was the #85 JDC-Miller Motorsports Cadillac driven by Rubens Barrichello alongside Misha Goikhberg, Tristan Vautier and Devlin DeFrancesco.

The #18 DragonSpeed ORECA-Gibson of Roberto Gonzalez, Pastor Maldonado, Sebastian Saavedra and Ryan Cullen was the best of the LMP2 cars in sixth.

Saavedra appeared to have blown his team's chances of class honours when he suffered a heavy crash just before the red flag, but he was able to recover the car to the pits to claim the win by four laps ahead of the Performance Tech ORECA.

DragonSpeed's other car, the #81 ORECA, led the class for much of the race but dropped out of contention when Henrik Hedman stopped on track in the 22nd hour.

The #6 Acura ended up eighth overall and 17 laps down after its issues, ahead of the #5 Action Express car of defending race winners of Joao Barbosa, Filipe Albuquerque and Christian Fittipaldi - who suffered a race to forget in his final Daytona outing.

The trio ended up ninth, 20 laps down, after a recurring issue with the rear lights that required a long trip behind the pitwall early on.

Mazda also suffered a double disaster with its pair of RT24-Ps, which both suffered reliability dramas within moments of each other before one-third distance.

The #77 car that Oliver Jarvis had qualified on pole dropped out with an engine failure, while the sister #55 car lost three laps with a fuel leak before finally bowing out after an incident involving a GT car in the early hours of the morning.

A closely-fought GT Le Mans contest was won by the #25 BMW M8 GTE of Connor De Phillippi, Philipp Eng, Colton Herta and last-minute addition Augusto Farfus.

Six of the nine cars in class were still on the lead lap when the two leaders collided during a chaotic restart at Turn 1, as Frederic Makowiecki's Porsche rear-ended Joey Hand's Ford, effectively ruling both out of the fight.

That handed the advantage to the Risi Competizione Ferrari, but James Calado was passed by Farfus shortly before the red flags came out for a second time, relegating Calado and team-mates Alessandro Pier Guidi, Miguel Molina and Davide Rigon to second.

A pitstop for the #67 Ford just before the red flag was shown dropped Richard Westbrook, Scott Dixon and Ryan Briscoe from the class lead to third, although the car was later penalised for pitting under caution when it was about to run out of fuel and dropped to fourth.

Third went instead to the best of the Porsches, the #912 car of Earl Bamber, Mathieu Jaminet and Laurens Vanthoor, which was shuffled back to fourth in the final green flag action.

Corvette endured a miserable race in what could be the final Daytona appearance for the current-generation C7.R, with Tommy Milner aquaplaning the #4 car into the tyre wall early in the morning and the #3 car losing three laps during nose repairs.

Alex Zanardi's #24 BMW was also removed from contention when its steering column was damaged in the pits on Saturday evening, before Jesse Krohn then suffered a puncture overnight, necessitating a long trip to the garage.

Grasser Racing defended its 2018 GT Daytona class triumph as Rolf Ineichen, Mirko Bortolotti, Christian Engelhart and Rik Breukers emerged from a frantic race-long battle on top in the #11 Lamborghini Huracan GT3.

The #29 Land Motorsport Audi R8 LMS survived multiple spins in the wet conditions late on to take second, while the final place on the podium went to the all-American-crewed #12 AIM Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3.

Result - 593 laps