How canny Porsche strategy snatched Daytona spoils from Cadillac

Porsche claimed a first outright victory at the Daytona 24 Hours since 2003 – and its first with a prototype since 1995 – after coming out on top in a late strategic battle with Cadillac. The American marque’s Action Express Racing squad rolled the dice at the penultimate round of pitstops, only for a final-hour safety car to undo what had appeared to be a tactical masterstroke. It was then the turn of Porsche Penske Motorsport to make the aggressive call when the leaders pitted for the final time under yellows. That, and a faultless performance from Felipe Nasr over the 32-minute sprint to the flag, finally ended the long victory drought.

Nasr prevailed in the Porsche 963 LMDh he co-drove with Matt Campbell, Dane Cameron and Josef Newgarden by the slimmest of margins. Tom Blomqvist, in the Action Express Racing Cadillac V-Series.R LMDh shared with Jack Aitken and Pipo Derani, was a tad over two seconds behind at the flag. But if not for the 15th and final safety car of the opening round of the IMSA SportsCar Championship, the finishing order would almost certainly have been the other way around.

It wouldn’t be quite right to say that the winning Porsche and the solo Action Express Caddy were easily the fastest things over the course of (almost) 24 hours of the 3.56-mile Daytona International Speedway ‘roval’ last weekend. But two cars that led the majority of laps between them – 592 of the 791 completed in the GTP class – were just that when push came to shove in the closing hours.

It was pretty much clear at breakfast time on Sunday that the race for victory was going to between these two cars. On 19 hours, the 963 with Nasr at the wheel led the Caddy pedalled by Aitken by 14 seconds. What’s more, Nasr and then Campbell were able to rebuild a handy lead when that advantage was wiped out by safety car number 14 during the following hour.

In the cool morning conditions, the Porsche was the faster car. But as the cloud that had threatened overnight rain burned off, the balance subtly changed. Blomqvist, who took over the V-Series.R with almost exactly three hours to go, started to nibble into the Porsche’s advantage, again with Nasr driving after a double stint from Campbell. The Brit, going for a hat-trick of victories after two with the Meyer Shank Racing Acura squad in 2022 and 2023, was pretty much with the leader when the team brought him in early for what would be his penultimate pitstop.

Action Express decided to roll the dice in the knowledge that the Porsche was, according to Derani, “the more raceable” car. That was a reference to the slight edge it enjoyed over the Caddy in terms of acceleration and straightline speed – the American car had the lowest minimum weight of the four GTPs in the field, but also the lower maximum power allocation under the Balance of Performance. Put simply, the team knew that overtaking the Porsche was always going to be difficult.

Photo by: Art Fleischmann

An aggressive undercut helped Blomqvist get ahead of Nasr, but meant he'd need more energy at the next pit cycle when PPM got its man out ahead

The target when the Caddy pitted what turned out to be three laps before the Porsche was to get the undercut. The plan worked – just. Blomqvist was still behind when Nasr left the pits but, with his Michelins already up to temperature, he was able to pull level around the outside on the front stretch as the leader completed his out-lap and then seal the deal through Turns 1 and 2.

The V-Series.R had claimed pole in Derani’s hands in cool conditions at the previous weekend’s Roar test, but perhaps more significantly had topped all four sessions in the more representative conditions of race week. With the sun out, Blomqvist was able to edge away. He extended the lead to as much as three and a bit seconds at one point, though was less than two to the good when one last safety car was called after Parker Thompson pulled up in the exit of the pitlane with his GT Daytona class Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 in flames.

Nasr was always going to need less fuel than Blomqvist when the cars descended upon pitlane for their final stops under yellows. Those three laps he had in hand over Blomqvist were always going to count, but Penske opted to short-fuel him: he left the pits with 5% less energy in his tank than Blomqvist. The tactic worked: the Porsche ended up sitting pretty at the the front of the queue waiting for the race to go green.

"It was ebb and flow all day, but if you look into it, the Cadillac and the Porsche were on top. It came down to execution at the end of the day" Jonathan Diuguid

Nasr held on at the restart and managed to eke out an advantage of a second inside six laps. It came down to under second before Blomqvist hit traffic on what turned out to be the last couple of laps. This race actually finished at least one lap early: the chequered flag fell 24 hours after the race should have started rather than when it actually did, nearly two minutes late. That explained the Porsche’s winning time of 23 hours, 58 minutes and 24 seconds.

“We knew we were going to need less fuel, but we short-fuelled the car to make sure he got out ahead,” said PPM boss Jonathan Diuguid. “Felipe had commented that he had nothing for the Cadillac the stint before; he felt that second last set of tyres lacked grip. But we put him in a position to win and he executed. It was ebb and flow all day, but if you look into it, the Cadillac and the Porsche were on top. It came down to execution at the end of the day.”

“It was a great call from PPM, just to give me the opportunity to be in the lead again,” added Nasr. “Then it was down to me to hit the fuel numbers and keep the #31 behind. I just kept the focus until the finish line.”

Nasr certainly had a lot of focusing to do over the final third of the race. Penske opted to concentrate its efforts on the Brazilian and Campbell, leaving its other two drivers out of the rotation after Newgarden vacated the car at 5:30am. Nasr would go on to complete three double stints over the remainder of the race after taking over from the 2023 Indy 500 winner.

Action Express knew all too well that its bid for a first Daytona victory since 2018 had been undone by the final safety car.

Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images

Slick pit execution from PPM proved decisive after the final safety car played in its favour

“That last yellow really did for us,” said Derani. “We had the quicker car but we knew it was going to take something special to get ahead of the Porsche. The team did that with a great call to bring Tom in early but it wasn’t to be. Close but no cigar.”

The win made it a big day for Porsche after two years of travails with the 963 during testing in 2022 and its first year of racing in IMSA and the World Endurance Championship in 2023.

“I said to someone in Victory Lane, if only people knew what we have been through,” said Diuguid. “To see our group succeeding in a big race like this is huge.”

Porsche ended up taking the win and, with the sister car crewed by Nick Tandy, Mathieu Jaminet, Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor, fourth behind the only one of the two WTRAndretti Acura ARX-06 LMDhs to finish. The second 963 was one of five cars to stay on the lead lap to the end, but ultimately didn’t have the pace of the top three when it mattered.

The car was hit by a series of penalties through the race for what IMSA described as “failure to adhere to the controlled powertrain parameters”. What that actually meant was that the car was sporadically operating outside the torque curve laid down in the BoP. The four violations were for two slightly different issues, but the cause was almost certainly the same: Penske believed it was the result of an incorrectly calibrated driveshaft torque sensor.

A drive-through followed an initial warning, while the subsequent violations resulted in a couple of 10s penalties. Porsche’s efforts to keep within the power curve, which included three downloads of new software, would blunt the performance of the car for much of the race. There was also a change of nose and tail as the result of minor on-track skirmishes, while Estre went off track twice in the latter stages.

Penske may have had a second car in the game at the end, but Cadillac, which entered only two V-Series.Rs this year compared with last year’s three, had all its eggs in one basket. The Ganassi-run Cadillac Racing entry that Sebastien Bourdais had qualified second to Derani was right in the mix for the first third of the race: it was the fastest of the 10 cars in GTP on the averages.

Photo by: Porsche Motorsport

The CGR-run #01 Cadillac had looked well placed to challenge but retired after it had got back onto the lead lap

It all went wrong for the Ganassi car, in which Bourdais was joined by Renger van der Zande, Alex Palou and Scott Dixon, in hour nine when the Frenchman had to go wide at the Turn 3 hairpin to avoid a GTD car and ran over some debris. A cut tyre sent him off circuit – but not into the barriers – at Turn 5, the second of the infield ‘horseshoes’. The slow lap to the pits was followed by a drive-through, dropping the car two laps off the lead.

Ganassi’s Caddy had got back on the lead lap by hour 13, when van der Zande coasted onto the Turn 1 apron. The car was returned to its garage and retired with what Cadillac described as a “mechanical powertrain issue”.

Acura was attempting to make it four Daytona wins in a row last weekend, but WTRAndretti was sceptical about its chances from the get-go even with a two-car entry for the first time. The ARX-06 was the heaviest of the four LMDhs currently racing in IMSA. Its minimum under the BoP was 1072kg, a whopping 42kg more than the Cadillac. It also represented a 26kg increase from the end of last season. The highest power figure allowed in class clearly wasn’t sufficient compensation.

"With what we were given for this race, we knew we had no chance. But we said if we execute properly and the drivers do a good job and don’t make any mistakes, we could maybe get a podium" Wayne Taylor

The #40 entry that came home third in the hands of Jordan Taylor, Louis Deletraz, Jenson Button and Colton Herta wasn’t a truly competitive proposition across the full race duration, even if there were times in the cooler conditions of the night when it was right there. Overall, it was a good half a second off on race pace. WTRA tried mixing it up on strategy: that and regular safety cars kept the car on the lead lap. But the team could do nothing about the Porsche and the Cadillac ahead of it at the finish.

“With what we were given for this race,” said team owner Wayne Taylor, referencing but not naming the BoP, “we knew we had no chance, but we said if we execute properly and the drivers do a good job and don’t make any mistakes, we could maybe get a podium. Third place feels like a win.”

The #40 car did suffer a delay with an electronic problem during the night that dropped it off the lead lap. Deletraz had already pressed every button possible and was out of the car when he pulled the external kill switch. That sparked the car into life, so he jumped back in and continued to the end of his stint.

The sister #10 car driven by Filipe Albuquerque, Ricky Taylor, Brendon Hartley and Marcus Ericsson didn’t see the finish. The car was running third in hour nine when it ground to a halt with no power while Albuquerque was at the wheel. The car had to be returned to the paddock on a flatbed and part of the wiring loom changed with a loss of more than two hours. There was little to be gained in continuing, and the car was parked in hour 22.

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

Acura wasn't in the hunt with more weight than its rivals, despite also enjoying more power, but still took third

Porsche took fifth and sixth with its two customer teams, Proton Competition finishing on the lead lap, JDC-Miller MotorSports two down. The German team was handicapped by floor damage sustained early in the race, while the JDC-Miller squad lost time in the final hours when the passenger-side door kept opening on track.

BMW got both its Rahal-run M Hybrid V8 LMDhs to the finish, but not without problems, and they crossed the line in seventh and eighth places. The #25 needed the gearbox oil cooler replacing after it was most likely damaged by a stone and then a change of rear brakes, ending up 13 laps down. The sister #24 Bimmer stopped on track during the night with an electrical issue that was rectified simply by changing the steering wheel. The problem was that an attempt to tow the car back to the pits failed, meaning it had to be put on a flatbed. It ended up 15 laps in arrears.

Daytona perhaps wasn’t the disaster that it appeared at the house of BMW. Both cars briefly led and the M Hybrid was on a par with the Acuras on pace.

A first IMSA enduro win for Penske since it returned to sportscar racing with Acura in 2018 means that thoughts have inevitably turned to another big enduro on the other side of the Pond.

“This is one of the biggest wins we’ve had,” said team founder Roger Penske. “Now we’ve got to go for the big one at Le Mans, you know that.”

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

It wasn't a day to remember for BMW as its pair of M Hybrid V8s were beaten by the two private Porsches

Era staves off APR for LMP2 glory

LMP2 turned into a battle of the Danes at Daytona. Christian Rasmussen came out on top when he went head to head with Malthe Jakobsen to seal the class victory together with Era Motorsport team-mates Ryan Dalziel, Connor Zilisch and Dwight Merriman, and restrict Algarve Pro Racing to a second consecutive Daytona runner-up position.

The Era ORECA-Gibson 07 and the identical CrowdStrike Racing by APR example co-driven by Colin Braun, Toby Sowery and George Kurtz were running out of synch for the final third of the race and swapping the lead back and forth on pitstops, but Rasmussen managed to establish a proper lead right at the end of the 20th hour. The Era car would stay there for all bar one lap, with the reigning Indy NXT champion holding a comfortable 13s advantage when the final safety car was called.

The disappearance of that gap with the caution wasn’t the only problem facing Rasmussen at the end. During the final stop a mechanic had somehow contrived to swipe off the right-side mirror. It wasn’t what was wanted going into a last-gasp dogfight.

Rasmussen, who is about to embark on a partial season of IndyCar racing, never came under threat again on the way to a 6.8s victory

Jakobsen did have a look up the inside of his compatriot going into Turn 3 as the race went green. He wasn’t able to get the job done and instead ended up tipping one of the BMW LMDhs into a spin. Rasmussen, who is about to embark on a partial season of IndyCar racing, never came under threat again on the way to a 6.8s victory.

Rasmussen posted an impressive performance, as did 17-year-old stock car driver Zilisch. So much so that prototype stalwart Dalziel volunteered to give up his place in the rota to allow his two young team-mates to drive the final nine stints between them.

Felipe Massa made it onto the podium in his first sportscar endurance race, taking third in the Riley Motorsports ORECA he shared with Colin Braun, Felipe Fraga and Josh Burdon. Fraga was fifth in the queue when the race went green, but was up to third inside two laps after first passing Tom Dillmann’s Inter Europol car and then the Tower Motorsports entry driven by Scott McLaughlin.

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

Rasmussen's defence against Jakobsen sealed LMP2 victory for the Era team

Risi ends long wait for Ferrari glory in GTD Pro

Risi Competizione had been trying to collect a Daytona 24 Hours victory with Ferrari on and off since 1998 and its initial steps as Doyle-Risi Racing with the 333SP. Now it has finally added one to its class and overall wins from the other big enduros – Le Mans, Sebring and Petit Le Mans – in GT Daytona Pro with the all-factory driver line-up of James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi, Davide Rigon and Daniel Serra.

The team’s victory with the Ferrari 296 GT3 over AO Racing’s Porsche 911 GT3-R shared by class pole winner Seb Priaulx, factory driver Michael Christensen and Laurin Heinrich is probably best described as comfortable. That resulted from two factors: the high rate of attrition in Pro, and Risi’s decision to set up the car for the heat of the day.

The problems encountered by their rivals in the 13-car class explained why Risi enjoyed a lap lead through the penultimate hour, the set-up choice why Serra wasn’t really troubled over the dash to the flag when that advantage was removed by the final safety car. Serra pulled half a minute on Heinrich and, with the overall race winner crossing the line between the two cars, the Ferrari was classified one lap ahead.

Serra had already shown the daytime pace of the Ferrari at the start: he started from 11th in the mixed grid of Pro and regular GTD cars but was up into the lead inside four laps. Risi was always there or thereabouts through the night, and the task for the team’s drivers was to stay on the lead lap until the conditions came to them.

“We set the car up for the warm conditions, not the night – that was always our plan,” said Calado. “The car wasn’t great during the night, the front end was washing out, but on Sunday morning the balance returned and the race started to come back to us as we knew it would.”

The Porsche did lead at various stages through the race, for 31 laps in total to the Ferrari’s 215, but wasn’t on the pace of the class frontrunners. The last genuine competitor for Risi fell by the wayside approaching two hours to go.

The Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 in which factory drivers Sheldon van der Linde, Neil Verhagen and Madison Snow were teamed with Bryan Sellers was second and still in with at least a sniff of victory when it needed a second change of front brakes. The right-hand disc didn’t seat properly, which delayed getting the wheel on. Van der Linde also had an off as a result of the problem, and suddenly BMW’s chance was gone. Not that the team really thought it had anything for the Ferrari at that stage.

The Miller BMW still finished third in Pro, though behind the top two in the regular GTD class in which Winward Racing reprised its 2021 victory, this time with Daniel Morad joining team owner Russell Ward, Philip Ellis and Indy Dontje at the wheel of the squad’s Mercedes-AMG GT3.

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

Risi secured the latest major 24-hour race victory for the Ferrari 296 GT3 in the GTD Pro class