IndyCar at the 63rd 24 Hours of Daytona

Today’s theme music: “If You Know You Know” - Pusha T

This weekend, drivers from all over the world and all walks of motorsport stepped into sports cars and up to the challenge of winning the 24 Hours of Daytona, the most prestigious endurance race in the Western Hemisphere. For the 63rd annual running, we had over 60 entries competing across four classes in pursuit of victory, fame, and free Rolexes, but today, we’ll be focusing on the IndyCar drivers in the mix, as names past, present, and maybe even future all threw their hats in the ring.

We start down in GTD, where Kyle Kirkwood served as a lynchpin for both Vasser Sullivan and Lexus. Kirkwood actually worked double-duty, piloting both the #12 in GTD and the #14 in GTD Pro, the latter of which he shared with Townsend Bell. However, nothing much of note happened in either car, as they both fell into backfield anonymity. Kirkwood personally retired the #12 with suspension issues at 15th in class and 46th overall, while the #14 saw things through to finish ten spots higher and 11th among GTD Pros.

Still, Kirkwood was at least more fortunate than James Hinchcliffe, the other commentator in a car. The Mayor of Hinchtown took the saner route of a single car—namely the GTD Pro #9 Pfaff Lamborghini, where he was pretty decent considering his status as a broadcaster first and occasional racer second. However, on a day where Lamborghinis up and down the paddock couldn’t catch a break, 2020 Bathurst 12 Hour winner Jordan Pepper caught the curse when he ran right into the biggest accident of the race, wrecking out in a dismal P57 overall. As a result, Hinchcliffe’s unfortunate streak of never finishing at Daytona, which now extends back over a decade, lives for another year.

Rounding out the GT3-derived classes, Scott McLaughlin’s #91 Trackhouse Corvette was one of the most hyped entries in GTD Pro, as he teamed with his old Supercars nemesis Shane Van Gisbergen in what looked like a favorite to win the class. A weak qualifying and a slow start from the other two drivers on the team seemed to set the tone for a forgettable campaign well before either ex-Supercars champion could get involved, but after the pair captained it through the night and SVG ran it as high as third in class, teenage NASCAR driver Connor Zilisch showed out and got back into the podium running with just over an hour left. However, a costly spin and subsequent penalty took Trackhouse out of that conversation. As a result, Scotty Mac, who’d finished 5th in LMP2 the last two years, had to settle for 9th among the red-sticker ranks and 25th overall.

Speaking of LMP2, we now move up into that prototype class of all Oreca 07’s, but back in time to the accident that wiped out Hinch’s team. There was certainly potential in the Pratt Miller #73, which featured recent RLL departee Pietro Fittipaldi, newly-signed Prema driver Calum Ilott, and Irish Indy NXT driver James Roe, but that wreck threw a wrench in all their plans. While the team would eventually get the car back out there, with Ilott bringing it home, they ultimately came in 103 laps off the overall lead, barely scraping out a P10 in class and P41 in all.

Faring exactly one spot better, we have young Kiwi driver Hunter McElrea, who rode the Dale Coyne carousel last year. McElrea came into the new IMSA season looking to defend his LMP2 Endurance Cup crown, but got off to a rough start when he crashed the TDS Racing #11 and caused the first full-course yellow of the race. While the car survived, it never worked off the debt McElrea put it into, and he and his teammates now have a tall task ahead of climbing back up the ranks.

After an overall podium last year, Colton Herta joined forces with exciting Dale Coyne find Toby Sowery in the APR #04. Herta’s quest for a second LMP2 victory at Daytona got off to a strong start, with multiple leads in the early and middle portions of the race, but while running in line for a class podium just past the 18-hour mark, Herta spun off track and hit the tire barrier, causing severe damage to the rear wing. Though he limped it back to pit row, the damage took ten laps to fix, and George Kurtz, whose Daytona class podium streak officially ended at three, ultimately brought the car home 14th overall and 7th among LMP2s. As of this writing, I can’t confirm exactly which endurance races Herta or Sowery will enter for the rest of the year, but given Herta’s overall win at Sebring last year, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him back in this car in March.

Christian Rasmussen had a hard-luck rookie season in IndyCar last year, but in the fan favorite AO Racing #99, AKA Spike the Dragon, the Dane was on track for a dream day, personally leading the LMP2s multiple times and counting elite talents like Dane Cameron, who’d won this race outright last year, as teammates. But on the last of the Dane’s leads, with less than an hour and a half left, disaster struck, as a low battery issue forced Spike into the pit for repairs. By the time the car got back out, it was nine laps down, and instead of taking home his second LMP2 Rolex in as many years, Rasmussen had to settle for a very disappointing P6 in class and P13 outright.

With those bases covered, we can finally move up to the flagship GTP class, where Romain Grosjean made some quick cash, but not in a way he’d want. Less than an hour into the race, the #63 Squadra Corse Lamborghini suffered a critical mechanical problem, taking it out of commission before Grosjean could even get in the car and tarring all four drivers with a dead-last finish. Meanwhile, Tristan Vautier, who briefly returned to IndyCar as a Coyne mercenary last season, had a much more genuine threat for victory scuttled, as despite his #5 Proton Porsche leading laps and threatening to help create a podium sweep, his team also suffered a mechanical failure, meaning they barely made top ten in class.

Reigning IndyCar emperor Álex Palou headlined a very competitive #93 Meyer Shank Acura lineup, and things started out rosy for the group with a front-row qualifying. They even spent an early chunk of time in the lead with Japanese endurance champion and Super Formula race winner Kaku Ohta behind the wheel. However, shortly after Palou started his first stint, the rear left suspension broke, setting off the second full-course yellow of the race. Meyer Shank took it back to the garage for repairs and eventually got it back out there, with Palou getting a chance to properly pilot the car in the process, but they ran 40 laps behind the rest of the field the rest of the way, finishing 15th overall and 8th in class.

Meanwhile, Indy NXT prospect Bryce Aron joined the #85 JDC-Miller Porsche, headlined by reigning Formula E World Drivers’ Champion Pascal Wehrlein. Despite occasional flashes of contention, with Wehrlein taking it into the top five at times, it was the clear weakest of the four Porsche hypercars—though given that it translated to 6th overall, that’s certainly not a bad place to be. If Aron learned well from his world champion teammate, he could have a real breakthrough in Indy NXT this year.

The #60 Meyer Shank Acura featured an all-IndyCar lineup, with full-timers Scott Dixon and Felix Rosenqvist joining forces with last year’s debutantes Colin Braun and Felix Rosenqvist. In the opening six hours, Blomqvist and Dixon both took brief leads, but it was Braun who made an impressive move on the race’s third restart to snag the lead and the GTP Endurance Cup points for the 6-hour mark. The #60 stayed prominent through the midgame, battling hard with the Porsches for control up front, but Rosenqvist emerged as the weak link, allowing the #24 BMW, headlined by one-time Indy guest star Kevin Magnussen, back into the podium fight. Things would trail off from there, as just past the 21-hour mark, the four officially went a lap down for about twenty minutes. However, hope sprung anew multiple times, as full-course yellows arrived at the 22 and 23-hour marks, and when the #24 ran into a Porsche and busted its own nose, Blomqvist eagerly seized the free podium place. As Felipe Nasr and Matt Campbell fought amongst themselves, the Brit got closer and closer to both, ultimately overtaking Campbell for 2nd with just four minutes left on the clock.

While Nasr would ultimately get away and take the victory, making teammate Nick Tandy the first driver to win all four of the world’s major 24-hour races, there were still plenty of spoils to go around in the #60 garage. Rosenqvist, despite his spotted history at this track, finally earned his first podium on his fourth try. Dixon returned to the Daytona class podium for the seventh time, and the overall one for the sixth. Braun earned his eighth class podium, third overall podium, and fourth straight of either flavor in a row. Perhaps most impressively, while Blomqvist fell less than two seconds short of his third win in four years, it still marks four straight finishes of at least 2nd overall in four attempts, adding to his case as a modern-day master of Daytona’s road course. Given that this crew will be sticking together for the whole season, with Blomqvist and Braun running the full calendar while Dixon and Rosenqvist join for endurance rounds, this puts them all in great position to win glory for both themselves and Acura in the months to come.

However, our biggest winner of the day was actually a Split-era legend back down in LMP2. Sébastien Bourdais, the man who famously won four straight Champ Car titles, ventured into the category for the first time in the Tower #8. His skills immediately translated, taking leads at various points throughout the race, and in the final hour, the Frenchman absolutely rocketed away, crossing the finish line just under 45 seconds ahead of the next Oreca. With this, Sea Bass collects his third Rolex of victory, his first since 2017, and makes his sixth trip to some form of podium at Daytona, all of which extends what’s already one of the longest and most impressive lists of achievements for any Indy racer this century.