Daytona International Speedway roared to life over the weekend with the annual Roar Before the 24 testing sessions seeing 61 teams split across four classes take part in seven sessions across three days.
Included in the mix were teams of seven Kiwis, including Brendon Hartley, Scott Dixon, Earl Bamber, and Tom Blomqvist in the GTP (Hypercar) class, Hunter McElrea in LMP2, and Shane van Gisbergen and Scott McLaughlin in GTD-Pro.
Qualifying for this weekend’s 24 at Daytona begins at 8.10 am on Friday NZST, with the race following at 7.40 am on Sunday morning, finishing at the same time a day later.
New Zealand viewers can tune in via IMSA.tv or on IMSA’s official YouTube channel.
A wrap up of each team featuring Kiwis from the Roar Before the 24 can be found below.
GTP (Hypercar) (Dixon, Bamber, Hartley & Blomqvist)
Acura Meyer Shank Racing w/Curb Agajanian, which features Kiwis Blomqvist and Dixon, teaming up alongside Colin Braun and Felix Rosenqvist in an Acura ARX-06, only completed eight laps in Friday’s morning session, but it gave Blomqvist enough time to set the fastest lap of all competitors. His 1:35.827 flyer on the 3.56-mile (5.73km) road course pipped the #25 BMW M Team RLL entry by nearly three-tenths of a second.
Bamber is joined by Jack Aitken, Frederik Vesti, and Felipe Drugovich Cadillac Whelen’s #31 V-Series.R, the team beginning their weekend of testing by going eighth quickest, completing 19 laps for a best lap of 1:37.414.
Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing’s #10 Cadillac V-Series.R, which sees Hartley join Filipe Albuquerque, Will Stevens and Ricky Taylor, was ninth quickest, completing 22 laps for a best effort of 1:37.452.
Friday’s fastest lap came early in the afternoon session and was set by BMW M Team RLL’s Dries Vanthoor at 1:35.424.
Blomqvist and Dixon’s team were fifth quickest at 1:36.407, less than two-hundredths ahead of Bamber’s in sixth, Cadillac Whelen’s #31 entry cutting 52 laps, the most of any Hypercar. Hartley’s Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac was seventh, a further two-tenths behind.
BMW were again at the front in Saturday’s two day-time sessions, the #25 BMW M Hybrid V8 claiming the day’s overall fastest lap at the hands of Sheldon van der Linde with a 1:36.196.
Acura Meyer Shank Racing’s #60 (Blomqvist and Dixon) again showed great pace, going fourth fastest in the morning run, seventh in the afternoon, and fourth in the night under lights.
Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing (Hartley) was fifth quickest in the day’s opening session, ninth in the second outing, and eighth in the night, while Cadillac Whelen (Bamber) was ninth, tenth, and twelfth across the three outings.
The night time session was topped by Penske Porsche’s #7 Porsche 963, shared by Felipe Nasr, Nick Tandy, and Laurens Vanthoor, with a 1:36.271 over two-tenths faster than the field.
With Sunday afternoon’s session dedicated to Bronze-rated drivers, the GTP field only took to the track once on Sunday, a one-hour run in the morning.
Thunderstorms in the area delayed the test for over two hours, and a rainy session followed, leading to the factory Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963s remaining in their garages. In all, 41 of the 61 teams took to the track in the session.
The two customer 963s, fielded by Proton Competition and JDC-Miller MotorSports, topped the timing screens. Neel Jani posted the day’s best lap of 1 minute, 45.433 seconds (121.556 miles per hour) in Proton’s #5 Porsche, just surpassing Gianmaria Bruni’s 1:45.879 (121.044 mph) in JDC-Miller’s similar #85 car.
Aitken went third fastest for Cadillac Whelen (Bamber), while Acura Meyer Shank Racing (Dixon & Blomqvist) were fifth, and Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing (Hartley) sixth.
The wet track contributed to a handful of spins in Turn 1, but there were no crashes as drivers took care to not damage their cars prior to race weekend.
The weekend’s fastest lap overall cam in Friday’s afternoon session, BMW’s Dries Vanthoor claiming the honour with his 1:35.424.
LMP2 (McElrea)
Kiwi driver Hunter McElrea joins Steven Thomas, Mikkel Jensen and Charles Milesi in TDS Racing’s Oreca LMP2 07 for the second consecutive year, the team looking to bounce back from their early exit in the 2024 edition, coming when Thomas crashed coming out of the exit of the Le Mans Chicane.
The team were tenth fastest in their class in Friday’s opening practice with a 1:39.759 flyer, before improving for a 1:39.047 in the afternoon session, the fastest LMP2 time of the run.
They were eighth in class in Saturday’s morning session with a 1:40.638, running an almost identical time in the afternoon session, 1:40.631, to go fifth, before performing strongly in the night run, their 1:39.962 the second-best of the LMP2 field, three-tenths off the pace of Inter Europol Competition’s #31 entry.
The team also performed strongly in Sunday’s wet conditions, going second fastest in LMP2 for ninth overall.
Thomas is a Bronze rated driver, which allowed him to run in Sunday’s final run, completing 38 laps to go fifth-quickest with his 1:41.495 effort.
The fastest LMP2 time of the weekend came in the opening session and was set by Crowdstrike Racing by APR’s Malthe Jakobsen, being 1:38.673.
GTD-Pro (Van Gisbergen and McLaughlin)
Once fierce rivals on the track, Shane van Gisbergen and Scott McLaughlin are now on the same team, partnering Ben Keating and Connor Zilisch in Trackhouse by TF Sport’s Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R.
The quartet are competing in a 15-strong GTD-Pro class, and, despite only completing 14 laps, their best lap, a 1:48.503, was the fourth fastest in the class.
The team were busier in Friday’s afternoon run, completing 51 laps for a best time of 1:48.917, the 10th quickest of the GTD-Pro field.
Come Saturday morning, the team cut 38 laps for a best time of 1:48.471, the second fastest in their class, before their 1:49.043 flyer in the afternnon run for 13th.
In the night session, Trackhouse ran 53 laps, a 1:48.435 flyer placing them fifth in class.
They ran just 19 laps on Sunday, in the rainy morning session, for a best time of 1:58.482, fourth in GTD-Pro. The team opted not to run in the afternoon session for Bronze-rated Keating.
Qualifying for this weekend’s 24 at Daytona begins at 8.10 am on Friday NZST, with the race following at 7.40 am on Sunday morning, finishing at the same time a day later.
New Zealand viewers can tune in via IMSA.tv or on IMSA’s official YouTube channel.
Header Image: Jake Galstad/IMSA/LAT Photo USA
