This year was, without a doubt, the year of the GTD and GTLM classes. There were many new cars in the field from multiple manufacturers. Audi brought out their new R8 LMS GT3 car. Stevenson Motorsports with 2 entries and Magnus Racing with 1 were both running the new R8.
I will admit that I am a little Audi bias to naturally the R8 grabbed my attention.
This would be the last 24 hour race for the Daytona prototypes. A few days before the event, it was announced that Rubens Barrichello would be racing for Wayne Taylor Racing for this event alongside Jordan Taylor, Rickky Taylor, and Max Angelleli. Rubens ran a season in the Verizon IndyCar Series a few years back after retiring from Formula 1 racing. It was a treat seeing him paired up with the Taylors in their Konica Minolta Chevy Corvette Daytona Prototype.
3 hours into the race, the sun set and the drivers pressed on. Most of the teams, at this point, have already made their first driver change.
The talk of the pre-season was the reurn of Ford with their new GT that would run the GTD class this year. Chip Ganassi Racing is the only team that is running the GT this season.
The Deltawing has always been the oddball over the years. It is a very interesting design and proved to be very fast during the practice and qualifying sessions. The team was having a good run and even lead the race for a while before it struck the stalled Starworks Motorsport Oreca FLM09 Prototype Challenge car.
The racing would remain nothing less than intense over the course of the 24 hours. Speedsource ran two new Mazda prototypes. I remember following them when they were running their 3 rotor RX8's many years ago. To this day, I still think they were some of the best sounding cars to hit the grid. They have developed a solid motorsports program over the years,
As night fell on Daytona, I was excited to get my Ferris wheel shots in. This is one of the photography highlights every year for media, as well as fans,
Time was flying just as fast as the cars around the track. Before I knew it, we were 7 hours and 2 driver changes into the event.
There was not one car on track over the 24 hours that sounded better than the Porsche 911 GT3 RSR. You could hear the flat 6 from just about every area of the track.
Lamborghini had a handful of Huracan GT3's running in the GTD class that weekend. It was a real shame to see two of them take each other out of the race within the first few hours. The infield lights made for some nice photo opportunities over the course of the night.
The Corvettes were dominant during the whole event and would go on to place 1st and 2nd in the GTLM class.
Eighteen hours into the race, the evening's abuse came to light. It was evident on the Turner MotorsportsBMW M6 GT3. This would also be the M6's first outing.
Congratulations to Scott Sharp, Ed Brown, Johannes van Overbeek, and Luis Felipe Derani of Tequila Patron Extreme Speed Motorsports for being the first team to cross the finish line after 24 hours for the overall win.
I have had the opportunity to do the Indianapolis 500, and the 12 hours of Sebring, and all I have to say is that if you were to travel for one race in the USA, this one would be my recommendation. It's only been a week and already, I can't wait for next January to get here.