Mazda Team Joest started on pole with its No. 77 Mazda RT24-P DPi and was immediately pitted against the No. 7 Acura Team Penske car as they lined up together on the front row. Early hours of the race saw the two manufacturers swapping positions while simultaneously battling off the charging Cadillacs. Wayne Taylor Racing proved its strength and endurance to win the rain-plagued 2019 Rolex 24 at Daytona. Drivers Fernando Alonso, Kamui Kobayashi , Jordan Taylor, and Renger van der Zande withstood the adverse conditions and outlasted their Prototype class counterparts on their way to standing atop the podium on Sunday afternoon. LMP2 ran close with the four global spec Oreca 07 Gibsons lined up at the beginning. With identical equipment, the class would be a story of strategy and driver performance. Forced to deal with the heavy traffic created by the other classes, all of the entries spread out and battled with other prototypes as well as GT cars rather early. Slightly further back in the field, Porsche led GT Le Mans from the initial green flag. Yet again, the nine-car class was competitive with each team spending their share of time in P1. Risi Competizione, the expected backmarker crew without major factory support, mixed it up with its No. 62 Ferrari 488 GTE from the beginning and into the night. Each team swapped rivals periodically as Ford Chip Ganassi and Corvette also showed their endurance expertise early on. © 2019 Rip Shaub. All Rights Reserved. Lap times were rapid in the first handful of hours with drivers fresh and conditions exceptional. The top Prototype entries laid down consistent one-minute, 35-second times and showed extreme speed dipping into the 1:34s. Each of the top four overall finishers completed at least one lap in that range, the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac DPi V.R setting a fastest time of the race at 1:34.504—within a second of the pole time and track record. Before midnight, attrition had already begun. Mazda Team Joest's race abruptly turned nightmarish when its No. 55 DPi headed to the garage for repairs and the pole-winning No. 77 was forced to retire. The latter dropped out of contention for the lead and relinquished its fighting spirit to the outfit's remaining entry, though an eventual decision to pull the plug after lost time repairing the car resulted in a double retirement. © 2019 Rip Shaub. All Rights Reserved. Fernando Alonso displayed his versatility in the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac by putting his team in the lead and building a significant gap to second place. The two-time Formula 1 world champion became the story of the night while Cadillac ran 1-2 into the 13th hour. GTLM leader Antonio Garcia dramatically ran his No. 4 Corvette C7.R out of fuel on the way to pit lane, forcing the eighth caution period of the race near its halfway point. It was then that Risi Competizione and BMW Team RLL started to establish themselves at the top of GT Le Mans, though the state of the race changed completely in the following hours. © 2019 Rip Shaub. All Rights Reserved. Not to be overshadowed, GT Daytona was also putting on a performance that has become expected of the competitive pro-am category. The No. 33 Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Riley Motorsports had, at that point, fended off the No. 63 Ferrari of Scuderia Corsa to stay atop the largest class on the grid. © 2019 Rip Shaub. All Rights Reserved.<doc-sep>J.J. O'Malley RACER DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Wayne Taylor Racing’s No. 10 Konica Minolta DPi Cadillac driven by Jordan Taylor, Renger van der Zande, Kamui Kobayashi and Fernando Alonso won the 57th running of the Rolex 24 at Daytona when IMSA deemed the event official after 23 hours and 50 minutes. The race was cut short after extensive rainfall caused some of the most extreme weather conditions ever seen at Daytona International Speedway. Battling some of the worst conditions in the history of the event, F1 veterans Alonso and Kobayashi joined Taylor and van der Zande in giving Wayne Taylor Racing its second victory in the three years of the DPi formula. Alonso earned his first Rolex Daytona Cosmograph in his second start in the event, seven months after taking the overall victory in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. He becomes the third F1 champion to win an endurance race at Daytona, joining Mario Andretti and Phil Hill, whose win in 1964 came in the 2,000-kilometer Daytona Continental road race. “Just an amazing experience with the team from the test now to the race,” said Alonso, a two-time F1 champion and 32-time Grand Prix winner. “A perfect execution of the race. Very different conditions for all the competitors, so I’m really happy for the team. "It’s too bad we didn’t get to race the full distance, but we led the race in night, day, dry and wet, so I think we all deserve this one. You had to survive every lap. It wasn’t a matter of lap times or anything like that. It was a matter of crossing the line, putting the lap together and at the end, it worked.” Taylor also won the race in 2017 — with a lineup including NASCAR superstar Jeff Gordon, his brother Ricky and Max Angelelli — while van der Zande won for the first time. “The closing hours were like a roller coaster in terms of highs and lows,” said car owner Wayne Taylor, who won as a driver in 1996, owner-driver in 2005, and owner in 2017 and 2019. “People will never be able to able to understand, and it’s impossible to explain what goes through my mind and my family, with all the efforts, the focus and vision we need to make this happen. The team is all like family.” Steady rain began to fall at 6 a.m. ET and only got worse, leading to a number of caution periods and two red flags for the first time in the event’s history, first for an hour, 45 minutes on Sunday morning and a second and final time at 12:39 p.m. ET with 1 hour, 57 minutes remaining. Moments before the final caution, Alonso took over the lead when Felipe Nasr went wide in Turn 1 in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac DPi-V.R. The 17th caution came out four minutes later — followed six minutes later by the red flag that eventually ended the event. Finishing second in DPi for the second straight year was the No. 31 Whelen Engineering DPi-V.R driven by Nasr, Eric Curran and Pipo Derani. “This wasn’t racing, it was survival,” said Curran, who is transitioning to an endurance-only role for the team. “Cars were spinning off on every lap.” Acura Team Penske took third, the last DPi car on the lead lap, with Ricky Taylor, Helio Castroneves and Alexander Rossi sharing the No. 7 Acura DPi. MORE ROLEX 24 COVERAGE:Visit Racer.com Mazda Team Joest entered the race with high hopes. Oliver Jarvis qualified on the pole in track record time in the No. 77 Mazda DPi, with Jonathan Bomarito a solid fourth. Both Mazdas ran in contention for many hours — battling the two Team Penske Acuras, the two Action Express Cadillacs and the eventual winner — before double disaster struck during the seventh hour. First, Olivier Pla came to a sudden stop in the No. 55 before taking the car to the garage to repair a fuel leak. Minutes later, Timo Bernhard came to a halt near the chicane when the engine compartment of the pole-winning car suddenly caught fire, forcing retirement from the event. The No. 5 Mustang Sampling Cadillac DPi-V.R attempted to win the race for the second consecutive year, which would have been the fourth Daytona 24 triumph for Christian Fittipaldi and Joao Barbosa. However, the team lost considerable ground in the early hours after a visit to the garage to repair the tail lights. The pair, joined by Filipe Albuquerque, scrapped their way back to finish ninth overall and seventh in class. It marked the end of a standout career for Fittipaldi. Also frustrated in a bid for a fourth Rolex 24 triumph was Juan Pablo Montoya. Joined by Dane Cameron and Simon Pagenaud, the team ran in podium contention all the way to the 20th hour, when an oil pump failure sidelined the No. 6 Acura DPi. The No. 18 DragonSpeed ORECA, which Sebastian Saavedra had crashed with minutes to go before the red flag flew, took the LMP2 class win and sixth overall with Saavedra, Roberto Gonzalez and Pastor Maldonado. In driving rain, Saavedra’s crash badly damaged the car, but the team had a four-lap gap that likely would not be overcome by Kyle and Robert Masson, Cameron Cassels and Kris Wright in the No. 38 Performance Tech Motorsports ORECA. In GTLM, Augusto Farfus took the lead one lap before the final caution to earn an emotional win in GTLM in the No. 25 Team RLL BMW M8 GTE co-driven by Connor De Phillippi, Philipp Eng and Colton Herta. The victory comes days after the sudden death of Karl ‘Charly’ Lamm, the longtime leader of BMW Team Schnitzer. The GTD class win went to Rolf Ineichen, Mirko Bortolotti, Christian Engelhart and Rik Breukers in the No. 11 GRT Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini Huracan GT3 for the second straight Rolex 24. The opening 15 and a half hours were run in cloudy and chilly conditions, with precipitation expected for the closing hours. But the rain came early.<doc-sep>Mazda backed up its ominous form at the Roar Before the 24 test earlier this month by securing pole for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship opener on Thursday, as Oliver Jarvis broke the lap record on his way to the top spot. Taylor put his #7 Acura ARX-05 second, only 0.188s behind the record-breaking benchmark laid down by Jarvis, while Juan Pablo Montoya in the sister #6 Acura likewise outqualified the second Mazda RT24-P driven by Jonathan Bomarito. Speaking to Motorsport.com, Taylor said Acura’s performance was “really encouraging” as he had been anticipating qualifying “amongst the Cadillacs” instead of challenging Mazda. “It was a pretty close margin, we didn’t think it would be that close in qualifying,” said Taylor. “I think we’re quite pleased to split the Mazdas. “I thought we’d be third, fourth, fifth; I thought we would be amongst the Cadillacs. But to be amongst the Mazdas is really encouraging. “Our game plan before the weekend was to let the Mazdas run away, but if we can race with them, that’s much nicer and takes a little bit of the pressure off. “Hopefully that’s the case and they don’t have anything more in the tank.” Wayne Taylor Racing’s Fernando Alonso, whose #10 car will start the Rolex 24 from sixth, voiced after qualifying concerns that Cadillac had been handed an unfavourable Balance of Performance in relation to turbocharged rivals Acura and Mazda. Taylor said he expected Cadillac to offer sterner opposition in qualifying but predicted the American brand will remain a force to be reckoned with come the race. “I thought they would be around us, but it’s so difficult to tell what people are doing throughout the weekend,” he said. “For sure they will be there in the race, their race pace is really strong. I don’t know what the #5 car [the Action Express car that didn’t set a lap] was doing, maybe they were saving tyres and thinking just about the race. “Cadillac has won this race many times, I’m sure they are going to be a factor.” Taylor also underlined he expects Acura Team Penske to be well in the mix for victory on Sunday now that the ARX-05 has had a year of development since making its race debut at the Rolex 24 in 2018. “Everybody expected Penske to come in and win the first time, but it’s such a difficult race to put everything together,” he said. "But with a year of racing, testing under our belts, [comparing] how prepared we were last year, it’s a whole new level this year. “We’re definitely expecting to be there at the end and fight for the win.”<doc-sep>IMSA was set to drop the green flag; Then they dropped the red flag instead First red flag in Rolex 24 at Daytona since 2004 Fernando Alonso has worked himself to the race leader of the Rolex 24 at Daytona. The race is currently at the 17 hour mark. About an hour prior, the skies opened and dropped buckets of water on the race track. One of the Corvette machines hydroplaned right off the race track. A few hour cars suffered similar results as they ventured off track and got stuck in the grass. Sportscars are equipped with rain tires. However, rain tires don’t help drivers navigate puddles. Cars rolled around under caution for about an hour. The idea is to keep some heat into the track while simultaneously washing some of the rain off the track via grooved rain tires. Wayne Taylor is the owner of the Cadillac machine that the current race leader is driving. Fernando Alonso has radioed to the team that the track is currently a wash. He pleased his case with an IMSA official. The arms waved as they aggressively talked it out. But, they temporarily agreed to disagree. Wayne Taylor “The entire team doesn’t have any clue and neither do the drivers on why we’re driving round and round and round,” team owner Wayne Taylor said from atop his pit box during the Rolex 24 at Daytona. “Anybody could look on the radar to see this is getting worse. You gotta respect what the driver’s telling you.” “Somebody’s sitting up in an office, looking down at the track. He needs to take the advice of the guy that’s literally on the track.” “What they should be doing… bring all the cars down pit lane, stop them and red flag the race.” “Yes. I could be saying this — Everybody’s thinking that, ‘We’re leading the race so we want it stopped.’ But, we’ve got a pretty good hot shoe in our car at the moment. He proved it by the lap time he was doing.” “But, when you listen to him on the radio explain what it like out there to our next driver, it’s just not right.” Fernando Alonso wasn’t the only driver to complain about the track conditions and request a red flag. Several drivers stated the track was treacherous even under caution. The GTLM division doesn’t have ABS. Where are the worst spots on the track as Fernando described? “Coming into the pit lane, turn 1, turn 6, bus stop.” “It’s silly. I’m not even mad. It’s just like, what are they doing?” Back green? With 7 hours and 15 minutes remaining, IMSA officials stepped in. They elected to drop the green flag on the race. Coming to the green, the rain began pouring harder. As soon as that happened, IMSA dropped the red flag on the race. The cars have pulled and parked on the pit lane. IMSA Race Director Beaux Barfield explained his reasoning behind the red flag. It’s the first red flag in the Rolex 24 at Daytona since 2004. The clock continues to run. More Jim France talks IMSA Links IMSA | Daytona International Speedway<doc-sep>
The No. 10 car has won two of the last three Rolex 24s. (EFE/ Gerardo Mora) The 2019 Rolex 24 will forever be remembered as another big race win for Fernando Alonso. But it’s also going to be remembered as one of the most miserable races in Daytona International Speedway history. The 24-hour sports car race was red-flagged for rain twice throughout the event. The second and final red flag came with less than two hours remaining and lasted the rest of the race. While sports cars – unlike stock cars in NASCAR – can run in the rain, the relentless precipitation made the continuation of the event a treacherous task. It was the first time the Rolex 24 had been red-flagged multiple times. And Alonso was in the cockpit of the leading No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac when the race was halted for the second time. It’s his first Rolex 24 win and the second win in three years for the No. 10 car. In addition to Alonso, the car was driven by full-time drivers Jordan Taylor and Renger van der Zande and former Formula 1 driver Kamui Kobayashi. IMSA officially called the race 10 minutes short of the full 24 hours. IMSA statement on early end to 2019 #Rolex24. pic.twitter.com/MrXV330qWj — IMSA (@IMSA) January 27, 2019 Alonso’s team won at Le Mans in 2018 As the two-time champion’s Formula 1 career has wound down he’s branched out his racing to other series. He raced in the 2017 Indianapolis 500 and had a car capable of winning until the engine failed. In 2018, he raced in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and his LMP1 Toyota team took home the overall victory by two laps over a Toyota that was co-driven by Kobayashi. With his Rolex 24 win, Alonso has now won at Daytona, Le Mans, Monaco and numerous other Formula 1 circuits. At 37, Alonso’s racing career is far from over and he’ll also compete at Le Mans again in 2019 after a second run in the Indianapolis 500. Story continues Alonso, Phil Hill and Mario Andretti are the only three Formula 1 champions to win the Rolex 24. The No. 10 won after the No. 31 went off-course Had the race been red-flagged three laps earlier, Action Express’ No. 31 car would be in victory lane. Felipe Nasr had the car in the lead in the pouring rain but overshot turn 1 not long before the second red flag happened. That miss of the hard left corner meant Alonso cruised past for the lead and was in position for the victory when the race was called two laps after the pass. The rain arrived at Daytona early Sunday morning and first halted the race (which started at 2:30 p.m. Saturday) at approximately 6 a.m. ET. After drivers reported back to their cars following the first red flag the race was plagued with innumerable caution laps and accidents as drivers struggled for vision and grip amidst the rain and spray off the track. Visibility is so low in the #Rolex24. Toni Vilander had no time to react when the 540 Porsche appeared in front of him. pic.twitter.com/pcOiHWaBsO — Motorsports On NBC (@MotorsportsNBC) January 27, 2019 Here's another angle at the crash on the restart of the #Rolex24. "I don't know why they put us back out there." – @alo_oficial pic.twitter.com/8Fl8kpfilJ — Motorsports On NBC (@MotorsportsNBC) January 27, 2019 Yeah, the rain was pretty bad. It was exceptionally hard for drivers to simply keep their cars on track. But IMSA was in a precarious spot. What’s better: no racing or bonkers rain-affected racing that leads to caution after caution? There was no obvious solution to put on an effective race in the miserable weather, though it’s worth wondering what the sanctioning body’s thought process was at the end of the race. After the race was red-flagged for the final 90+ minutes, IMSA waited until there were 10 minutes to go on the clock before stopping the race prematurely. It was evident with 30 minutes to go that the race wouldn’t be able to get back going. IMSA could have called it there or simply let the clock run until it expired at 24 hours. BMW No. 25 wins in GTLM The Rahal Letterman Lanigan BMW No. 25 was the winner of the GT Le Mans class. The car was the teammate to the No. 24 car that was co-driven by former CART champion Alex Zanardi.