24H Daytona: Race of the records đ„
TWO SWISS CELEBRATE With a new distance record, an American Cadillac team won the 2020 Daytona 24 Hours, with Simon Trummer and Rolf Ineichen finishing on the podium in their classes. The ten-and-a-half-minute summary shows the highlights of the second half of Sunday's race. After last year's race had to be stopped two hours before the end due to rain, the [...]
The ten-and-a-half-minute summary shows the highlights of the second half of Sunday's race.
After last year's race had to be abandoned two hours before the end due to rain, the best possible conditions prevailed in Florida last weekend. As a result, the 58th running of the 24 Hours of Daytona will go down in history as the record-breaking race to date.
There were only six caution periods in total, so the fastest sports prototypes from the DPi category had free run for hours. Renger van der Zande (NL), Ryan Briscoe (AUS), Scott Dixon (NZ) and Kamui Kobayashi (J) gave Wayne Taylor Racing its third triumph in four years with a Cadillac.
Races have to be this varied
The former Sauber F1 driver from Japan crossed the finish line one minute and 5 seconds ahead of the Daytona Prototype from Mazda Team Joest. Both covered 833 laps or 4772.48 kilometers at Daytona International Speedway, a record distance.
The lead changed no less than 52 times among seven of the eight cars from the premier class, with the winning team leading by far for the most laps (493).
First IMSA podium for Simon Trummer
In the LMP2 class, which is identical to the sports cars from the World Endurance Championship, the Oreca 07 from PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports with Simon Trummer from Bern was on the best grid position. He and his three teammates were in first place the longest and most times (486 laps compared to 312 of the winners).
In the final hours of the race from Sunday morning until the finish at 1:40 p.m. local time, however, the brand colleagues from the WEC-experienced Dragon Speed team could no longer be caught up after both tie rods on Trummer's car had to be replaced following contact with a wall. For him, second place in LMP2 nevertheless meant the first podium at Daytona and in an IMSA Sports Car Championship race. The team also won the Michelin Endurance Cup.
Good patch for Rolf Ineichen
In the GTD class with the largest number of participants, WRT's Audi R8 LMS was among the six fastest cars that took turns in the lead several times. Rolf Ineichen had to qualify the Belgian GT3 sports car as silver driver according to the regulations and did that very well with the sixth-best time.
The two works drivers Mirko Bortolotti and Dries Vanthoor, who set the fastest race lap in this category, then joined the Lucerne driver and Canadian Daniel Morad to take the lead at times. In the end, a lack of top speed compared to the Lamborghinis and a problem with the rear wing cost what could have been an even better result.
For Rolf Ineichen, this is the third Daytona podium in a row. In 2018 and 2019 he stood at the top with the Lamborghini team from Grasser Racing and had received the coveted Rolex watch as a special trophy for this.
Fire at Rahel Frey's car
The other two Swiss drivers had mechanical bad luck at Daytona. Rahel Frey's Lamborghini retired with an engine fire on the second day of racing. The scene in which Christina Nielsen was at the wheel can be seen in the following short video:
https://www.facebook.com/ChristinaRacing/videos/460050644883482
The women's quartet from GEAR Racing by Grasser was briefly in the lead twice in the first half of the race, due to different pit stop strategies.
Record for Corvette...
The debut also only went well for one of the two brand-new Corvette C8.R cars in the GTLM class, in which the faster of the two American and factory-backed BMW M8 GTEs ended up just 14 and 18 seconds ahead of the two Porsche 911 RSRs from the Stuttgart factory team.
Antonio Garcia, Jordan Taylor and Nicky Catsburg always stayed within striking distance of the front runners and brought the first mid-engine sports car from Corvette Racing to the finish in fourth position. Never before has a Corvette covered so many race kilometers at Daytona.
... but not with Marcel FĂ€ssler
The second Corvette with Marcel FĂ€ssler as one of the three drivers was also in the leading group in the first third of the race before an oil leak due to the cracked gearbox housing necessitated a long repair.
After almost nine hours, the car returned to the race once again to gain further experience with the new car and for their teammates' tire choice. The classification Unoff. Overall standings 24H Daytona 2020Â was no longer of any significance in the end. In 2016, FĂ€ssler had celebrated victory at Daytona with Corvette Racing.
