Recapping a Thrilling 2025 Rolex 24 at Daytona

Yahoo

29-01-2025

The calendar start to the new year may be January 1, but for the motorsports fans on the Car and Driver team, the real beginning for 2025 arrived with the green flag for the IMSA Rolex 24 at Daytona. Daytona is the first chance we have to see the year's endurance cars for both IMSA and WEC, which means it acts as an introduction to any major rule changes, new teams, and new drivers that might end up making news later in the year at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
There were no major shakeups in cars or classes for 2025. This year's race featured the same four classes as 2024, with the hybrid GTP prototypes in the top class, the spec LMP2 prototypes below, and then the two production sports-car classes, GTD Pro and GTD. There were some shakeups in teams, though, with big names like Ganassi missing from the Cadillac cars and dozens of new driver lineups, although there were plenty of familiar names, including several former Formula 1 racers including Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean.
Two Car and Driver staffers attended: senior features editor Elana Scherr (that's me) and social media editor Carter Fry, who was at Daytona for his very first time. We got together to compare notes and ran into Michael Aaron, who has the 24-hour-long title of senior content and social media strategist for Hearst Autos, which means he covers projects for C/D, Road & Track, and Autoweek. Aaron had his R&T hat on for the weekend, but he kindly agreed to share some of his experience with us as well. The conversation went something like this.
Elana Scherr: Okay, so Carter, it's your first time at the Daytona 24? But Mike, you've been before. I can't remember how many times I've covered it, more than five, but I think less than 10.
Carter Fry: This was my first time at Daytona at all, let alone the Daytona 24. The only other race I've ever been to was the United States GP in 2023 and a random Sprint Car race.
Mike Aaron: I went in 2020 right before the pandemic, and I've been to Formula 1 races and one other IMSA sprint race, but no other endurance races. [This is obvious angling for a Le Mans invite by Mr. Aaron–Ed.]
Elana: Anything stand out or surprise you? I feel like no matter how many times I come to a race, I still learn something new or notice something I never saw on previous visits. This year I learned that Bill France Jr. (whose father founded NASCAR and the Daytona International Speedway) was a huge fan of hot dogs, so much so that in the race control tower, there is a little hot dog rotisserie with a plaque dedicated to him. I also learned, during a ridealong with Mazda MX-5 Cup racer Sally Mott, that if you're racing nose to tail in a train of MX-5 Miatas, you have to look through the windshield of the leading car, in a kind of Miata tunnel vision.
Carter: I've watched previous Rolex 24s and generally knew the vibe of the race before I got there. Something I didn't realize was all the people camped out in the grandstands. I think that's pretty cool. I also didn't know Daytona was right next to the airport so not only did I get to watch cars race, but I also got to do some plane spotting. And the grandstands are built facing east, so morning brings a beautiful sunrise.
I was on Acura's trip with lounge access and the best seat in the house as the most contentious turns of the track—Turns 1 and 6—are in clear view. It was especially fun being with Acura executives during the last few hours as Tom Blomqvist chased down the Porsche Penskes and finished with a P2. It was champagne for all and handshakes aplenty.
Mike: I was expecting to have a good time watching tons of racing and catching up with some friends, and it ended up being even more than that. The racing was really great and the last couple of hours were action packed, to say the least. I was rooting for AO's #77 Porsche 911 GT3 R, aka "Rexy." They were leading for 150 laps of the GTD Pro class, but things ultimately didn't end up going their way. I was able to do way more than I thought I would, including talking with serious racing legends.
Elana: Oh, let's come back to racing legends, but on the topic of Rexy, I spent a bunch of time in the media room and was trying to convince the IMSA officials to make an all-dinosaur livery rule so that they all have toothy wraps like Rexy. It's such a cool idea. I think they did it initially for kids but I talked to adults who were super crushed they hadn't managed to score Rexy merch before it sold out. It's sort of a throwback to when racing paint schemes were fun, like the pink pig, or the Jungle Jim Funny Car.
Carter: We were all rooting for Rexy the whole race and were very pleased with their performance throughout the night. They managed to go from 33rd to first and stay there until morning but started to unravel with a brake rotor issue and then the front bumper was ripped off at the end, dropping them to eighth.
Elana: There was a lot of bodywork shedding at the end. That last hour was edge-of-your-seat good. How did you guys spend your other 23 hours?
Carter: I got to explore Acura's pit tent before the race, as well as the HRC trailer, which was complete with a coffee machine serving HRC-branded coffee. We went on one hot lap in the Integra Type S pace car, a car with 105 miles on the odometer at the time. I also had a chance to climb the flag tower on Friday. Boy, is it nerve-wracking climbing up and down a ladder with cars going 150-plus mph 20 feet from you. I took a trip to the infield Saturday night with a couple of the other journalists with Acura and found out a ticket for the Ferris wheel costs $8! It's also cash only, in case you're planning to go next year.
Mike: I went for a hot lap ride in a BMW M3 Competition. It was a blast. Those hot laps really give you some good perspective on how technical and difficult the track is. It also gives you a small taste of the speeds and g-forces they're experiencing (for just a single lap), while they're doing it for hundreds. The feeling of driving on a banked track also never gets old. I also got to visit race control, which I think you did too. That was one of my favorite parts of the weekend. I love the logistics behind big races like this, so seeing race control up close and getting a group tour was eye-opening. Race control essentially ensures the race runs smoothly and makes sure the rules are followed by all competitors. Former racing driver Scott Pruett was there helping make calls on racing incidents, and he gave us some really good insights into how race control looks at each racing incident as well as monitors the entire race. They're able to punch in a time code and see every camera view of an incident as well as telemetry data. Then they watch it back frame by frame from many different views to make calls and decide whether something was a true racing incident or if rules were broken and penalties need to be doled out.
Elana: I did get to see that too and it was so cool! It's like a NASA (the space one, not the car-racing one) control room, all packed with screens showing every possible angle and in-car and overhead. It's new tech too, comes from F1, and is way more detailed than what they were using last year. While I was there, one of the monitors was trying to figure out who had knocked down her camera on pit lane, and then the big crash happened and everyone jumped into action reporting stopped cars and tracking the off-course spins. It was impressive, and I'd like to do more of a deep dive on how it works at another race.
Did either of you stay up all night?
Mike: I left the track around midnight. Yeah, call me a wimp.
Carter: I successfully stayed awake for the entire race. Sitting outside with 102 decibels of motorsport did the trick. As well as plenty of coffee and Red Bull. I will never be doing that again. In fact, I woke up at 8:00 Saturday morning and did not sleep until 9:30 Sunday night. By about 6:00 a.m. on Sunday I started to have unwilling dips in and out of consciousness. My eyelids would droop, conversations around seem would to get louder and streams of thought began to become more visual. I pulled my chin up and cracked open another Red Bull. Did you stay up all night?
Elana: [laughs] No, I am old. I mean, I am, but also I have stayed up all night at many races now, and while I recommend doing it once at Daytona, if only to have the magical experience of watching the sun rise over the race in the morning, I think there are other events that are more action packed for an all-nighter. I need to save my waning energy for Le Mans or Nürburgring or Baja.
Hey Mike, earlier you said you got some racing legends time. Who did you talk with?
Mike: Hurley Haywood, Tom Kristensen, and Jamie Chadwick! Hurley, five-time 24 Hours of Daytona winner, talked with us about the race as a whole and how much it has evolved since he last won in '91. He said he prefers the analog racing days to this new technology-filled era of racing. The amount of control you have over the car through the buttons on the steering wheel and engineers in your ear at all times, there's a lot more to worry about then when he was racing. Tom Kristensen gave us a tour of the pits and discussed endurance racing tactics and strategy as well as rules and regulations. Although he has never raced in the 24 Hours of Daytona, he is a veteran endurance racer holding the record for most wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans with nine wins. Jamie Chadwick, three-time W series champion, was Grand Marshal for the race. She joined us briefly in the Rolex suite and talked about how male-dominated racing is and her desire to get more female drivers into higher levels of racing. She also talked about how different single-seat racing is from the more team-based endurance series.
Elana: That's a rad lineup. I got to listen in on a Kevin Magnussen BMW interview before the race where he talked about how Daytona being the first race of the season is like "when they let the cows into the grass on the first day of spring, they get wild." I think we really saw that toward the end of the race when everyone was taking turns three-wide and banging into each other like NASCAR racers. It was a really exciting finish.
Mike: The GTD Pro Corvette and BMW brawl. Tommy Milner throwing the bird at 180 mph while the BMW served its penalty was just hilarious. Especially since on the opposite end of the spectrum the FIA just tightened their rules on cursing or critiquing the FIA for the 2025 Formula 1 season.
Elana: Milner just released a T-shirt with that image on it, and the proceeds go to a bird sanctuary!
And there you have it, the year has officially begun. The 2025 Rolex 24 at Daytona was won by Porsche Penske Motorsport, claiming the overall and Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class in the #7 Porsche 963 (below) driven by Felipe Nasr, Nick Tandy, and Laurens Vanthoor. Genuinely fun fact: This win makes Tandy the first driver in history to win Le Mans, Spa-Francorchamps, the Nürburgring, and Daytona, all of the major 24-hour races.
Tower Motorsports took the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) win with the No. 8 ORECA LMP2 07 driven by Sebastien Bourdais, John Farano, Sebastian Alvarez, and Job Van Uitert. [UPDATE: The LMP2 team failed post race inspection and the win is being given to the second place finisher. The No. 22 United Autosports ORECA LMP2 07 will be named the winner in the category]
Ford made amends for a dismal 2024 Daytona by claiming victory in the Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) class with the No. 65 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Ford Mustang GT3. The Ford was driven by Christopher Mies, Frederic Vervisch, and Dennis Olsen, who said during the post-race interviews that the BMW-Corvette battle made all the difference. "They were faster," said Olsen, "but when I saw them starting fighting, I just ran away."
Chevrolet still got a trophy and a watch this year, as the Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) win went to the No. 13 Corvette Z06 GT3.R driven by Matt Bell, Orey Fidani, Lars Kern, and Marvin Kirchhoefer.
And now, time for a nap.
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