Porsche Penske Motorsport started 2025 the same way it started 2024: With a milestone-making, closely-fought and well-earned win at the Rolex 24 At Daytona.
Once again it was the reigning IMSA GTP Champion Felipe Nasr who fought for every piece of real estate in the closing laps to drive the #7 Porsche 963 to the victory, with co-drivers Nick Tandy and Laurens Vanthoor in tow.
Tandy watched along the Porsche Penske pit wall as he completed an unprecedented feat in the history of endurance sports car racing: The Bedfordshire, England native became the first driver to win the 24-hour races at Daytona, Le Mans, the Nürburgring, and Spa-Francorchamps overall.
Vanthoor had won pretty much every major endurance race in his career in class or overall at least once – but never Daytona, coming closest in 2022 when he came out on the wrong end of a famous GTD PRO skirmish with Mathieu Jaminet. Now, the older of the two racing brothers from Belgium finally has an overall win at Daytona.
Nasr became the first back-to-back overall winner of the Rolex 24 since a trio of Meyer Shank Racing drivers did it in 2022 and 2023 – including his fellow Brazilian Helio Castroneves, who won it three times in a row.
To do it, he had to get past his former co-driver Matt Campbell with a risky but perfectly-judged overtake that was set up coming out of the infield, and pulled off with a brave run to the very edge of Daytona’s backstretch and through the Le Mans (Bus Stop) chicane.
“There was always going to be drama, with one trophy and two cars,” he reflected, post-race. “I felt like I had the pace to go forward, though and that’s what I did. We all get the same opportunity, I didn’t want to create any trouble so I tried a clean pass and I knew I had to move forward because the Acura was close.”
Porsche Penske dominated the race from midnight onwards and throughout the 24 hours, the two 963s led 517 laps out of the 781 completed, 307 of them led by the lucky No.7. It was often just a matter of which car had the track position over the other. at any given stage building up to that finish – and yet it was never dull, especially towards the end.
A 1-2 finish would have been a worthy outcome.. but the returning alliance of Acura and Meyer Shank Racing took advantage of the race’s final 38-minute sprint to the flag, in particular Tom Blomqvist, who drove around Campbell with five minutes left to grab second in the #60 Acura ARX-06.
Blomqvist and Colin Braun, together with IndyCar Series standouts Scott Dixon and Felix Rosenqvist, seldom put a wheel wrong and drove a clean race together to make a statement in MSR’s return to IMSA competition.
And for Blomqvist, it keeps his incredible run of four podiums in four starts (including two overall wins) intact. The perfect antidote for being washed away in the struggles of an IndyCar switch that didn’t bear the fruit that his talent should have bred.
“We struggled a lot,” Blomqvist lamented. “We were relatively confident but we struggled to keep our rear tyres under us. The Porsche 963s were extremely strong, we were good for the first few laps but they could pull away. We struggled with traction.
“The last stint, the car was just better, I didn’t think I’d have anything for them. I gave it everything but that was the best we could have done today. There’s a lot to learn and if you asked all of us? I’m sure we’re super happy.”
Campbell, Mathieu Jaminet, and Kevin Estre would complete the GTP podium in third. For a while, it looked like taking fuel only during the last round of yellow flag pit stops would give Campbell the track position he needed to stay in front, but ultimately the #7 and #60 would use a new set of tyres to their advantage.
The #24 RLL BMW M Hybrid V8’s fourth-place finish, one lap down, was ultimately the consequence of a collision with a lapped GT car. The damage to the nose caused a vicious tyre rub that was too much for Dries Vanthoor to drive through.
The two BMWs had some hiccups throughout the race that proved to be the difference. The #24 had a botched pit entry and a stacking penalty for refuelling on its jacks in the second hour. The #25 was hit twice by other GTPs and had a planned brake change go wrong.
But the speed is there, the car is rounding into form, the drivers seem as if they’re on top of it – they’re at a point where BMW will be expected to run at the front going forward, and the Bavarian faithful should look forward to what the new-look RLL line-ups will produce.
Cadillac’s three cars could only combine for a best finish of fifth via the blue #10 Wayne Taylor Racing V-Series.R, not quite the result that GM’s premium marque wanted in the first race back with WTR.
We know there were missed opportunities. At times, Action Express Racing’s Whelen-sponsored car was carrying the flag while the WTR cars took time to get up to the front of the field, and the #31 led laps. Any hopes of victory went to the wayside when Frederik Vesti could only hang on as the suspension broke through turn four, sending the Dane plunging into the wall at Speedway turn four.
It came when the shock was just wearing off from Louis Deletraz’s frightening crash in turn two at the one-third mark of the race. Only moments before, Kamui Kobayashi’s incredible overtake for the lead against the walls of the 31-degree banked curves sent the crowd into a frenzy.
Deletraz spun on cold tyres and was collected by two LMP2s, taking the silver #40 Cadillac out of the running – the Swiss driver was thankfully able to walk away.
The #93 MSR Acura also fell victim to a suspension problem that required intensive care, enough to take the new team out of the running for most of the day. Proton Competition’s Porsche suffered a terminal suspension failure as well – reprofiled kerbs may well have been a factor – though at least JDC-Miller MotorSports’ “Banana Boat” salvaged some pride for the duo of privateer Porsche 963s in sixth.
There’s more to be said about how Lamborghini put a plan together to keep the Ligier-based, V6-powered SC63 racing in IMSA while reorganizing the team behind it, assisted by Riley. We’ll have more about the programme’s future on DSC in the coming days, but a first-hour retirement due to overheating, without ever challenging at the front of the field, is a deflating first chapter of this fresh start – and they will hope for more at Sebring in March.
Though, to be fair, anyone who’s an IMSA fan will hope for more of the sort of action we saw at Daytona.
The first battle for LMP2 in the 2025 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship turned into a “last car standing contest”. Maybe that’s why it feels appropriate that Tower Motorsports took it all running away after escaping catastrophe in the biggest crash of the Rolex 24 At Daytona.
“I had a car over my left fender, a car over my right fender, and I don’t think I even had time to back off before we made contact because I was in the gearbox of the Pratt Miller car – and it all came to a stop,” recalls Sebastien Bourdais of the incident that almost took the #8 ORECA 07 out of the race.
“It was like Days of Thunder,” the Frenchman said with a smile.
But he escaped major damage, pulled off a heroic 28-lap economy stint in the last hour, and eventually went on to win alongside co-drivers John Farano, Sebastian Alvarez, and Job van Uitert when the dust was settled.
“When it all cleared in front of me and the car still had four wheels on it and the steering wheel was straight, I was like, ‘Man, this is just a miracle!'” he added.
It’s Bourdais’ third Rolex 24 victory in as many different classes – he won overall in 2014, he won GTLM in 2017, and now he’s won LMP2 – while helping his three co-drivers earn their first Rolex timepieces.
And Tower didn’t just win – despite having to save fuel, they won going away at the end of a race where multiple contenders fell to the wayside, one after one.
United Autosports’ No.2 car and Pratt Miller Motorsports’ No.73 car were the cars over both fenders of Bourdais in the big accident.
The sister #22 United ORECA of Daniel Goldburg, Paul di Resta, Rasmus Lindh, and James Allen was able to salvage second but – it could have been more had the #22 not picked up a costly drive-through penalty for leaving pit equipment in the path of another car during their last pit stop.
AO Racing was the real hard luck story of the final stages “Spike the LMP2 Dragon” led a race-high 280 laps, the quartet of PJ Hyett, Dane Cameron, Jonny Edgar, and Christian Rasmussen were dialled in – but a battery problem with 81 minutes left relegated the purple No.99 car to a distant sixth place.
AF Corse’s blue #88 machine headlined by Nicklas Nielsen and Matthieu Vaxiviere stood to benefit from an earlier pit work penalty for AO Racing – yet Vaxiviere could only sit in disbelief when the car died just two hours short of the flag, while leading.
ERA Motorsport was then destined to pull off another incredible heist in the last hour, after jumping from fourth to first in the final round of yellow flag pit stops. With 23 minutes left, Paul-Loup Chatin was spun out by PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports’ Mathias Beche at turn one.
Both the #18 ERA Motorsport and #52 PR1 Mathiasen cars dropped off the podium in fifth and fourth (the latter after a drive-through penalty for avoidable contact).
Riley’s #74 car (Gar Robinson/Felipe Fraga/Josh Burdon/Felipe Massa) thus inherited the final podium position in third, a good start for the season to come – the WeatherTech Championship, the Michelin Endurance Cup, and for the Bronzes in LMP2, the Jim Trueman Award.
Buckle up – it’s only going to get more intense from here in 2025!
