It was a busy weekend from Daytona, and the best race might not have been the main event. It might not have been one of the Mazda MX-5 Cup races either. After a rainy Roar, it was a dry race weekend. Porsche made history while Felipe Nasr went back-to-back in the #7 Porsche, as for the 17th time a driver has won consecutive 24 Hours of Daytona. Nick Tandy made history, and I will wait until Friday to rain on that parade. Laurens Vanthoor followed up a world championship season with an endurance race triumph. There were likely other things that happened around the world, but all attention was on Daytona.
Another 24 Hours Down
Though modern motorsports is set up to keep races close, it is incredible how on a yearly basis the 24 Hours of Daytona comes down to the final lap.
Felipe Nasr took the white flag a little over a second ahead of Tom Blomqvist. After nearly 24 hours of race, less than two seconds was the gap between the top two, and that was the case in three of the four classes! There had been a late safety car period that bunched up the field with less than an hour to go, but there was still time for things to spread out. Someone could have pulled away, opened up a ten-second gap and called it a race with 15 minutes remaining. Yet, it rarely finishes that way.
It is more than procedures. It isn't only the wave arounds and all the mechanisms in place to keep cars on the lead lap, though it plays a vital role. The cars are reliable. The little things do not break like they once did with regularity. We don't hear about the $5 parts costing a team a race. When things break, it something costly that is put under significant stress. See the suspension failure on the #31 Cadillac. Teams are not losing time on the nickel and dime stuff. If no one is losing time in those areas, they are going to remain close, and it allows the finishes we have seen.
There is something lost in the ten-tenths nature that these endurance races have become. There is a lack of consequences for most of the race.
Many things that go wrong early really have no bearing on the final outcome of the race.
Spin off course in hour six, eh, it's only time lost.
Blow the chicane in hour 11, no worries.
Pit lane speeding violation with a little more than five hours remaining, there is plenty of time. You will get that time back. There is going to be another safety car period.
That last example is what happened to the Meyer Shank Racing #60 Acura. Scott Dixon sped in the pit lane with just over five hours to go and it really had no bearing on the final results.
In all likelihood, the #60 Acura was going to be second in those closing stages whether or not Dixon sped or did not speed in the pit lane. That speeding penalty was a set back, a minor inconvenience, but it wasn't the deciding factor in the final outcome. If Dixon didn't speed, it isn't a case of the #60 Acura would have definitely been leading and been 45 seconds up the road on the final lap of the race. If the #60 Acura doesn't speed at best the roles are reverse and it is only a second-and-a-half ahead of the #7 Porsche in the closing stages, but nine times out of ten, the #60 Acura is still behind with Blomqvist having working to do.
That hurts because it makes the first 20 or 22 hours more of a formality. A viewer can miss hours nine through 12 of the race and not have missed anything that plays a key role in what happens as the clock is in the final minutes on Sunday afternoon. A 24-hour race will always have passive viewership, understandably so, but it feels like the race is becoming more passive. Whether that is a good or bad thing is up to IMSA and how viewership is on Saturday compared to Sunday.
The days are basically over where a team can overcome a significant failure or an accident. If you lose five laps at any point in this race, you are out of it. There is no coming back. A bad first hour can effectively end your hopes of anything great.
The #93 Acura suffered a broken drivetrain in the fifth hour. At the end of the sixth hour, it was 40 laps down and at the end of the 24th hour, it was still 40 laps down. It made up three positions in the GTP class as other cars dropped out, but the last position in made up was in the 13th hour. Despite all the work the crew did, it went essentially the final half of the race stuck in the same spot.
In almost every era, a 40-lap deficit was likely going to be insurmountable for an overall victory, but there was a time, and not that long ago, where fixing a problem and running all 24 hours likely would have seen a team making up positions in class deep into Sunday. That is not the case in 2025.
As long as you keep the car running and within touching distance, you will be fine.
Take the LMP2 class winning #8 Tower Motorsport Oreca. Prior to the weekend, it felt highly probably Sébastien Bourdais could lead that team to victory. Between the #8 Tower entry, the #04 CrowdStrike entry and the #99 AO Racing entry, it felt like one of those three teams was going to be the winner in LMP2. After about ten hours of racing though, the Tower wasn't in the conversation and was far from a threat.
Here is Tower's hourly class results out of the 12 LMP2 entries through the first half of the race:
12th, seventh, ninth, tenth, seventh, fourth, fourth, seventh, eighth, sixth, fourth, fourth.
For most of the first half of this race, Tower wasn't in the picture. LMP2 is a pro-am class. Teams are running different strategies and running drivers at different times, but to the viewer watching at home a car that has hardly been in the top half of the class doesn't look like a contender. Those positions are less surprising when you see from the start at 1:40 p.m. Eastern through 6:46 p.m. Eastern, the only two drivers to run the #8 Oreca were John Farano and Sébastien Álvarez, the two amateur drivers.
All their jobs were was to get the car to Bourdais and Job van Uitert in one piece. Farano and Álvarez did that. At no point in the first 12 hours was the #8 entry ever anymore than one-lap down in class, an easy margin to make up.
That is all you need to do in a modern 24-hour race. Remain within a lap, and you can possibly even fall two laps down without it causing much trouble. There will be safety car periods. There will be teams that have to run their amateurs while your professional drivers are in the car. As long as nothing breaks and you do not get into an accident, you will have a shot in the final hour.
What happened to the #04 entry? Colton Herta backed into the turn five barrier and broke the rear suspension. What happened to the #99 entry? It had its own mechanical issue. Tower Motorsport needed a few things to go its way to win this race, specifically the #52 PR1/Mathiasen entry and the #18 Era Motorsport entry getting together with less than 30 minutes to go, damaging one and penalizing the other, for the #8 Oreca to win the class, but the Tower strategy put Bourdais in the spot to capitalize when others faltered late.
The tortoise vs. hare dynamic still exists, but it isn't to protect the cars. The cars will make it. It is more about maximizing the ability of the drivers in each lineup.
It is different watching these 24-hour races. The waiting feels longer. The race doesn't feel longer, but everything that happens, it feels more like filler, something to keep you busy at night before getting to the important stuff the next day.
It isn't worse, but it might not be better. It is different. Different can feel good. Different can feel bad.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about the prototype winners at the 24 Hours of Daytona, but did you know...
The #65 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Ford Mustang of Dennis Olsen, Frédéric Vervisch and Christopher Mies won in GTD Pro. The #13 AWA Corvette of Marvin Kirchhöfer, Lars Kern, Matt Bell and Orey Fidani won in GTD.
Sébastien Ogier won Rallye Monte-Carlo for the tenth time.
Jett Lawrence won the Supercross race from Anaheim. Haiden Deegan won the 250cc race.
Coming Up From the Weekend
A fair number are going from Daytona to Bathurst for a 12-hour trip around the mountain.
Supercross will be in Glendale, Arizona.
NASCAR has its Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium, the first event at the quarter-mile in nearly 54 years.
