Alonso wins the Rolex 24 at Daytona
FERNANDO ALONSO ADDS THE ROLEX 24 TO HIS TALLY OF VICTORIES
Too much standing water at different places of the track and very poor visibility brought a lot of spins and unfortunate contacts after the first red flag earlier this morning. IMSA officials decided not to restart the race Following the second red flag, again, due to poor weather and track condition.
They declared the no. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac and drivers Fernando Alonso, Jordan Taylor, Kamui Kobayashi and Renger van Der Zande. Second place goes to Whelen Engineering Cadillac of Felipe Nasr, Pipo Dirani and Eric Curran. Then, in third, the Acura Team Penske no. 7 of Alexander Rossi, Ricky Taylor and Elio Castroneves.
Two Canadians in the Dpi and teammates on the JDC Miller Motorsport Devlin DeFrancesco and Misha Goikhberg with ex-Formula One driver Rubens Barrichello and Tristan Vautier finished in fifth place, seven laps behind the leaders.
The Victory in LMP2 goes to no. 18 Oreca LMP2 of Dragon Speed with drivers Maldonado, Saavedra, Gonzales and R. Cullen.
GTLM honours go to Team RLL with their no. 25 of Augusto Farfus, Connor Diphillippi, Tom Blomqvist, Philippe Eng and Colton Herta. Finishing second, the Ferrari of Risi Competition driven by James Calado, Miguel Molina, Alessandro Pier Guidi and David Rigon. Third we have the no. 67 Ford GT Chip Ganassi Racing of Richard Westbrook, Ryan Briscoe and Scott Dixon.
Finally, In the GTD class, the winners are the no. 11 Lamborghini Hurricane GT3 of GRT Grasser Racing Team with drivers Christian Engelhart, Rick Breukers, Mirko Bortolotti and Rolf Ineichen. In second place we find the no. 29 MONTAPLAST by Land Motorsport driven by Daniel Morad, Dries Vanthoor, Christopher Mies and Ricardo Feller. Third place goes to the AIM Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 of Townsend Bell, Jeff Segal, Frank Montecalvo and Aaron Telitz. The second no. 14 Lexus of AIM Vasser Sullivan finished in sixth place.
As mentioned in a previous post the Pfaff Motorsport Porsche of Zach Robichon, Scott Hargrove, Lars Kern and Dennis Olsen did not complete the race as they were involved in an incident on the restart following the first red flag. They are only going to come back stronger at Sebring in March.
What a superb week it was at the Rolex 24. Keep following Canadian Racers News for updates leading to Sebring and other events in the coming weeks.
Images; PMstills Photography
