The Stars Come Out, Timepieces Can Lead to Titles, and GTP Deck Gets Reshuffled
By David Phillips
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – “Excitement?” “Intrigue?” The 63rd Rolex 24 At Daytona figures to feature a full IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season’s worth of excitement and intrigue in one race.
With 61 cars in four classes at the 3.56-mile Daytona International Speedway, it launches what promises to be an exciting, not to mention intriguing, season of sports car racing featuring the world’s leading marques, many of the sport’s top drivers and teams, and 11 of North America’s most iconic motorsports venues.
The Stars Come Out
The stars will come out at Daytona, and not just because the sun sets at 5:56 p.m. Saturday evening and reappears at 7:15 a.m. Sunday morning. Rather, as usual, a veritable motorsport “Who’s Who” from Formula 1, NASCAR, IndyCar and others will join a lineup of international sports car luminaries contesting the full WeatherTech Championship for the Rolex 24.
A partial list of top-flight drivers making cameo appearances includes:
- Multiple IndyCar champions Scott Dixon and Alex Palou, and race winners Colton Herta and Felix Rosenqvist
- 2008 World Championship runner-up Felipe Massa and fellow Formula 1 veterans Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen
- World Endurance Champions Kamui Kobayashi, Kevin Estre, Laurens Vanthoor and Brendon Hartley
- Double duty drivers and NBC Sports broadcasters James Hinchcliffe, Townsend Bell and Parker Kligerman
- V8 Supercar champions Scott McLaughlin and Shane van Gisbergen who now ply their trades in IndyCars and NASCAR, respectively
- Daytona 500 champion Austin Cindric and rising NASCAR star Connor Zilisch
- FIA Formula E champions Pascal Wehrlein and Antonio Felix da Costa
These stars aren’t just coming out to “play.” A full-time IndyCar Series driver has been part of the winning team in the past five Rolex 24s and also, F1 World Champion Fernando Alonso and NASCAR Cup champions Jeff Gordon and Kyle Larson all have won overall in the last decade.
It’s entirely possible – if not downright likely – that one or more drivers whose day jobs do not include the WeatherTech Championship for the balance of 2025 will be sporting a brand-new Rolex Daytona from Rolex, now the Official Timepiece of IMSA.
From Timepieces to Titles
Speaking of Rolex Daytonas, although it’s just one event in a 11-race season that stretches over 10 months, the Rolex 24 At Daytona can – and often does – play a major role in determining the WeatherTech Championship’s overall winners.
Recently, Porsche Penske Motorsport and Winward Racing (2024, Grand Touring Prototype and Grand Touring Daytona) and Acura Meyer Shank Racing and Pfaff Motorsports (2022, Daytona Prototype international and GTD PRO) have won both the Rolex 24 and their respective class titles in the same year.
As Acura Meyer Shank Racing w/Curb Agajanian team co-owner Mike Shank explained, preparation is everything.
“A strong finish gives the team momentum that carries through the heart of the season,” Shank said. “We’re bringing four transporters worth of equipment to Daytona to make sure we have everything we need to fix or repair our cars.
“We’re also bringing our full IndyCar team, so we’ll essentially have two full shifts of (fresh) people on hand throughout the 24 hours. We want to do everything we can to get a podium finish or, better yet, a win in the Rolex 24 to start the season.”
Conversely, a poor showing in the Rolex 24 can put a team in such a deep hole that they spend the remainder of the season playing catch-up.
Vasser Sullivan won the 2023 GTD PRO title but began 2024 with a self-described “dumpster fire” per team co-owner Jimmy Vasser, when one car crashed and the other caught fire after a pit stop, resulting in two DNFs. The team’s No. 14 GTD PRO class Lexus RC F GT3 won the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, but didn’t recapture the title-winning magic.
“We’ve won Sebring, we’ve won Petit Le Mans, we’ve won Watkins Glen but we haven’t won the 24,” said Vasser. “So, it’s number one on our list of things to achieve. We’ve gotta win the 24!”
No wonder. Although earning a Rolex Daytona is not a prerequisite for a WeatherTech Championship title, a team’s performance in the Rolex 24 Hours can certainly set the stage for the coming season.
Reshuffled GTP Deck
So shuffled is the 2025 GTP class, it’s all but unrecognizable when compared to last year’s lineup. Sure, there’s a dozen ultra sophisticated Acura, BMW, Cadillac, Lamborghini and Porsche hybrids are back for another season of ultra-fast sports prototype competition, with Lamborghini set for its Daytona GTP debut. And they’ll all be using VP R80 fuel to put their Michelin rubber to the tarmac.
But apart from those constants, every marque and/or team is different in some way from their 2024 version be it with a new driver lineup or new – or at least different – alliances between manufacturers and teams.
Shank explained the team’s changes since it made its last IMSA start in 2023.
“The (Acura GTP) program has certainly progressed since 2023, but we kept our GTP team intact last season and added to our capabilities as well,” he said. “We were back on track with the Acura ARX-06 two and a half weeks after Petit Le Mans last fall, and we picked up right where we left off. Our expectation is that we’ll be competing for podium finishes at the Rolex 24 Hours.”
A similar reunion comes with Cadillac and Wayne Taylor Racing, having won Rolex 24s and titles together in their past collaboration.
“It’s really like the family has come back together,” Taylor said. “Of all the programs I’ve done this program, I am more passionate about this than any other one.”
Additionally, the Cadillac V-Series.R uses the Dallara-built chassis. WTR’s Filipe Albuquerque had been in the ORECA-based Acura ARX-06 the past two seasons but feels at home in the Dallara.
“When I went back to the Dallara simulator in Indianapolis, I could see the box with my name and some (driving) gloves that I left there from the past,” Albuquerque said.
“We just picked up where we left off and the good people are still around. Obviously, there are more people around because there is now the electric part of the car, which in the past there was not. But it’s not totally new.”
The Plaid Shall Rise Again
Speaking of reunions, some of the best news in the offseason came in the form of the decision by Pfaff Motorsports to “go plaid” again. Fans will doubtless recall the plaid Pfaff Porsche 911 GT3 R that cruised to the 2021 GTD and 2022 GTD Pro championships.
After a season campaigning a papaya-dominated McLaren 720S GT3 EVO, the Canadian team’s plaid livery pops on its new No.9 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2.
See these and all the other competitors set to compete in the 63rd Rolex 24 At Daytona, with the race on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. ET live on NBC and streaming for its entirety on Peacock (U.S.) and YouTube.com/@IMSAOfficial (International).