Daytona 24 Hours: Ganassi's Dixon, Kanaan, McMurray and Larson win

The #02 Ganassi Riley-Ford EcoBoost DP shared by Scott Dixon, Tony Kanaan, Jamie McMurray and Kyle Larson prevailed over the lead Action Express Racing Coyote-Chevrolet Corvette DP by 1.3 seconds at the end of a five-lap dash to the flag following the 18th and final safety-car period of the rae.

Dixon took the lead from Jordan Taylor during the penultimate round of pitstops and ran with the Wayne Taylor Racing Dallara-Chevrolet glued to his gearbox through the next stint.

Another faster turnaround at the final stops gave Dixon a buffer of four seconds that looked like enough to give the Kiwi a second Daytona victory.

A final yellow with 20 minutes to go could have opened up the race, but Taylor was forced to pit to hand over to team-mate and brother Ricky because he was about to contravene a rule that prevents one driver from spending more than four hours behind the wheel in any six-hour period.

The WTR car, in which Max Angelelli joined the Taylor brothers, lost any chance of second place after it was forced to take a drive-through penalty for entering the pitlane when the pits were closed, leaving it more than a minute down in third place.

The Action Express car came back from three laps down after being stranded out on the circuit without fuel pressure, the result of an issue with an electrical connector, but ultimately didn't have the pace to challenge over the closing stages.

Fourth place when to the Spirit of Daytona Coyote-Chevrolet in which Richard Westbrook, Michael Valiente and Mike Rockenfeller were handicapped by electrical gremlins for much of the race.

The best LMP2 car was the pole-winning Michael Shank Racing Ligier-Honda JSP2 shared by Oswaldo Negri Jr, AJ Allmendinger, John Pew and Matt McMurry, which ended up 11th after two significant delays resulting from an off during the night.

Sportscar stalwart Scott Pruett missed out on the chance to challenge for a record-breaking sixth overall Daytona victory aboard the #01 Ganassi entry courtesy of clutch issues that raised their head in the 22nd hour and put him and team-mates Joey Hand and Charlie Kimball out of the race.

CORVETTE WINS GTLM

GT Le Mans honours went to the Chevrolet Corvette C7.R shared by Antonio Garcia, Jan Magnussen and Ryan Briscoe.

Garcia saw a 30s lead over the chasing Rahal BMW Z4 GTE of Dirk Werner disappear with the final yellow but managed to hold on to claim the win from the car Werner shared with Bill Auberlen, Augusto Farfus Jr and Bruno Spengler.

The BMW had been leading before the penultimate round of stops when a misthreaded wheel cost the car half a minute.

The second Chevrolet, which had started on class pole in the hands of Oliver Gavin, was in the hunt for victory for much of the race until Tommy Milner suffered bodywork damage late in the morning.

The PR1/Mathiasen team claimed Prototype Challenge honours with Tom Kimber-Smith, Andrew Palmer, Mike Gausch and Andrew Novick after the leading CORE Autosport entry was crashed out by Colin Braun with 20 minutes to go.

The Riley Motorsports Dodge Viper SRT GT3-R of Ben Keating, Kuno Wittmer, Dominik Farnbacher, Al Carter and Cameron Lawrence took the GT Daytona class victory by seven seconds from the Alex Job Racing Porsche 911 GT America of Shane van Gisbergen, Leh Keen, Andrew Davis and Cooper MacNeil.

RESULTS - 740 LAPS: