Over four hours after the checkered flag flew at Daytona International Speedway ending the 24 Hours of Daytona, the final results for the GTD class were still up in the air. Until now.
IMSA officials have decided to rescind the unavoidable contact penalty on driver Alessandro Pier Guidi and the #555 Level 5 Motorsports Ferrari 458 Italia, awarding the team GTD class victory over the #45 Flying Lizard Audi R8 LMS.
On the final lap of the 24 Hours of Daytona, Pier Guidi and driver of the #45 Audi Markus Winkelhock were side-by-side for the class lead entering the kink with the Ferrari on the inside. As the exited the kink, Winkelhock slide off course and handed the victory to the #555. Officials initially though the Italian driver had made contact with the Audi and was given a stop and hold plus seventy-five second penalty, dropping the team from first to fourth in the class standings. However, replays clearly showed that contact never occurred.
Pier Guidi, Townsend Bell, Scott Tucker, Jeff Segal and Bill Sweedler are the winners in the GTD class with Winkelhock, Spencer Pumpelly, Tim Pappas and Nelson Canache being relegated to second position in class. The #58 Snow Racing Porsche 911 GT America of Madison Snow, Jan Heylen and Marco Siefried finish third after the removal of the penalty with the #72 SMP Racing Ferrari of Mika Salo, Mikhail Aleshin, Maurizio Mediani, Boris Rotenberg and Sergey Zlobin dropping down off the podium to fourth position.
The next round for the Tudor United SportsCar Championship will be the 12 Hours of Sebring on Saturday March 15th.
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