Porsche Paces Field Through Opening Six Hours at 64th Rolex 24 At Daytona

Chamber of Commerce weather – sunny skies and temperatures in the low-70s – an excellent crowd, and intensely competitive racing from the drop of the green flag characterized the first six hours of the weekend’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season-opening 64th Rolex 24 At Daytona. Porsche set the pace through six hours with the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 up front, driven by Laurin Heinrich.

The defending race-winning Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963s quickly moved to the front of the 60-car, four-class field in the very opening laps of the race, setting a blistering early pace that left many of the other Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) drivers shaking their heads but also reminding … this sports car season-opener goes twice around the clock with lots of laps remaining and the always interesting over-night hours to get through.

Heinrich in his No. 7 Porsche 963 passed Tijmen van der Helm in the No. 85 JDC-Miller Porsche just before the six-hour mark. With van der Helm running off sequence, he pitted from what was second place and dropped down the order. Nick Yelloly in the pole-sitting No. 93 Acura Meyer Shank Racing w/Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06, moved up to second at the six-hour mark with Rene Rast third in his No. 24 BMW M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8, in the Belgian team’s first U.S. race fielding the BMW GTP entries.

“I think that may be the last of the Porsches we’ve seen,” Yelloly’s teammate, polesitter Renger van der Zande said with a smile after his race-opening two-hour stint.

Van der Zande made the remarks when visiting media as perhaps more quickly than he anticipated, he found himself having to fend off the Porsches. The Nos. 6 and 7 Porsches took the front two positions within minutes of the race start, and then swapped positions during pit stops. The No. 6 suffered some damage in contact with a slower car about three hours into the race that forced multiple pit stops and put it into catch-up mode.

By the six-hour mark, it was still Porsche out front by more than a second with the competition agreeing with van der Zande, acknowledging it may well be the field vs. Porsche in the final push to the checkered.

“I think we have an advantage in the cooler conditions, so I’d definitely prefer to have cooler conditions, as for the Porsches, they are pretty much fast in all conditions and pretty much controlling things up front right now,” said Sheldon van der Linde, driver of the No. 24 BMW M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8.

AO Racing’s Jonny Edgar held the lead in the 13-car Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class, whose entries were involved in the five yellow flags that flew early in the race. Edgar's No. 99 ORECA LMP2 07 had more than a second advantage on Alex Quinn in the No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR ORECA – impressive as the car was involved in a multi-car accident on the opening lap and actually went down a lap before recovering to its current podium position.

The Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) class initially looked to feature a classic American battle between Chevrolets and Fords with the two Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs consistently at the front of the field.

At the six-hour mark, however, Paul Miller Racing moved to the front in class with Neil Verhagen in the No. 1 BMW M4 GT3 EVO. Verhagen took the lead from German Marvin Kirchhoefer in the No. 3 Corvette with Nico Varrone in the No. 4 Corvette in third.

The top three GTD PRO cars were separated by less than three seconds, six hours in.

"The start was a little wilder than I thought it would be,” said Nicky Catsburg, who opened the race in the No. 4 Corvette. “Everyone seemed to be super-enthusiastic to try and win the race in the first few laps. There was a lot of debris everywhere and cars going off, so I tried to stay out of trouble. I got pretty lucky on a couple of the restarts where I had a little bit of a jump compared to the guys ahead of us and I managed to take some places.

“It was a good first stint... saved some fuel and jumped some places. The car feels really good but it's a little early to tell yet. There will be a lot of changing conditions but at the moment it feels very good.”

Ferraris ran 1-2 in Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) with its new Ferrari 296 GT3 EVO variant, with Frederik Schandorff in the No. 70 Inception Racing Ferrari ahead of Thierry Vermuelen in the No. 34 Conquest Racing. Dudu Barrichello, Rubens Barrichello’s son, is third so far in his Rolex 24 debut in the No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo.

The race was slowed five times for cautions with 55 of the 60 cars still racing.

All four class leaders at the six-hour mark were awarded points in the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup with points accumulated throughout the five endurance races – also at Sebring, Fla., Watkins Glen, N.Y., Elkhart Lake, Wisc. and Petit Le Mans season finale – with the winners claiming the highly prestigious sub-championship. The top three scorers earn five, four and three points respectively with all others earning two.

Results are HERE