www.porscheroadandrace.com Daytona 24 Hour Race 2020 Published: 3rd February 2020 By: Martin Raffauf Online version: https://www.porscheroadandrace.com/daytona-24-hour-race-2020/ Daytona is known for two things – the beach and racing! This year was the 58th Running of the Daytona 24. It started in 1962 at just three hours in length, expanded to 2000 km, then 24 hours in 1966. The 1972 race was shortened to six hours, and the 1974 race was cancelled due to the fuel crisis in the Middle East. Since 1975, it has continued as a 24-hour event, under the auspices of IMSA sanction (although for a time it was under Grand-Am, who bought IMSA in 2014). www.porscheroadandrace.com In what has now become an annual tradition, the ‘IMSA old timers’ dinner on Tuesday of race week this year featured an all-star cast! From the left: Brad Kettler, John Doonan, John Shapiro, Michael Colucci, Wolfgang Hustedt, Mark Raffauf, Roger Bailey, Gary Cummings, Steve Charsley, Alwin Springer, Martin Raffauf (partly obscured), Dan Binks and George Silberman. As Roger Bailey proclaimed at the end of the night, “Well I think 95% of the stories were true!” The race always runs at the end of January and the weather usually plays a part, it is sometimes wet, sometimes cold, or sometimes hot. Historically a lot of cars start this race and in years gone by, upwards of 80 cars have started. This year there were only 38, but they were very good cars as the quality of the cars, teams and drivers was superb. Of the 38 starters, only six failed to finish. www.porscheroadandrace.com This RSR of Diego Febles was one of the features of the 24-minute historic exhibition. This is actually a car built in period from parts on a street chassis The teams returned just two and a half weeks after the ‘Roar at Daytona’, which is a mandatory IMSA sanctioned test event held each year in early January. Many teams just leave all their equipment in Florida, and work there to complete preparations. See the 2020 Roar report here. www.porscheroadandrace.com #911 leaves the pit lane during the Roar practice Some slight BOP (Balance of Performance) changes were instigated by IMSA for the race post Roar. The Cadillac lost 10 kg of weight, the Acura received a slight boost reduction, but all three (Cadillac, Mazda and Acura) got to carry a few more litres of fuel. The Cadillac was the heaviest of the prototype cars at 940 kg. www.porscheroadandrace.com One of the Porsches goes through IMSA tech Inspection www.porscheroadandrace.com In GTLM (GT Le Mans), the Porsche, which is the heaviest car, got to carry an additional 10 kg but received an increased fuel capacity of seven litres. The Corvette was given a slight increase in restrictor size, the Ferrari got a boost reduction and BMW, as the baseline car, was unchanged. In GTD (GT Daytona or GT3), the Acura received added weight and its boost was lowered, while Ferrari and the BMW M6 were also given slight boost reductions. LMP2 of course has no BOP as it is a spec series using the Gibson 4.2 engine. The BMW twin turbo V8 that powered the M8 to victory The entry was made up as follows: Class No. of cars DPi 8 www.porscheroadandrace.com LMP2 5 GTLM 7 GTD (FIA GT3) 18 TOTAL 38 Five of the entries were Porsches comprising the two factory GTLM cars and three GTDs, one each for Wright Motorsports, Pfaff Motorsports and Black Swan Racing. The stripped Black Swan RSR after crashing in FP1. The tub was bent and could not be repaired The media interest was a little raised this year, as Kyle Busch, the 2019 NASCAR champion was making his first IMSA appearance driving one of the AIM-Vasser-Sullivan Lexus GTD www.porscheroadandrace.com cars. Since he is a factory Toyota driver, this was the only car he could drive as per his contract (Lexus is the premium brand of Toyota in the USA). FP1 (Free Practice 1) started on Wednesday in a misting rain. There was immediate trouble as the Black Swan Racing Porsche GTD crashed heavily in the wet. The car was stripped by the crew, and it was determined that the tub was finished. A deal was done, and Black Swan took the spare car of John Wright Motorsports, but the crew was left with a lot of work to get this ready and prepared, so they did not run again until Friday. John Wright is a class guy! I talked to him on Thursday, he said, he thought it was the right thing to do to help them out, so he did. Ferrari North America had a spectacular hospitality overlooking Turn 1 right at the track side. I got a lot of good photos there, so a big thank you to Ferrari! New curbs had been installed in the chicane on the back straight since the Roar two weeks earlier, and the race. This caught out some the next day, as Kyle Busch’s car (not with him www.porscheroadandrace.com behind the wheel) ran over the curbs and ripped the floor, which necessitated an engine change. He spent some time in the media centre explaining how things were going. He found the brakes on the Lexus superior to what he was used to, and was experiencing some difficulty in finding the limit. He also remarked that in NASCAR, he is used to front to back contact but was counselled by Jack Hawksworth that this is just not done in IMSA. In short order, he was within 1.5 seconds of the faster cars, so was learning quickly, but he reckoned he needed more time in the car. He would do fine in the race, at one point doing a triple stint at 04h00 in the morning, which he reckoned was about the length of a NASCAR cup race. Some of the IMSA haulers are quite spectacular, this is the Whelen Engineering unit In qualifying on Thursday, the new curbs also caught out Rickey Taylor in the #7 Penske Acura DPi car. He hit the curbs in the chicane, the car came down awkwardly and was pitched into the barrier with a lot of damage. The crew had a lot of work to do but managed to get the car semi-repaired to run the last seven minutes of the night practice on Thursday, but they then stayed most of the night continuing with repairs, as did the Black Swan crew. Oliver Jarvis took the pole in the Mazda DPi, but he was slower than they had gone in the Roar two weeks before. The top six cars were separated by less than 0.8 seconds. In LMP2, Ben Keating took the pole in his Oreca almost four seconds a lap slower than the DPi cars. www.porscheroadandrace.com The Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac – the overall winner www.porscheroadandrace.com In GTLM, the Porsches were 1-2 followed by the two new Corvette C8Rs, the two BMW M8 GTs with the Risi Ferrari bringing up the rear. The Ferrari was more than a second slower than they had gone at the Roar. However, with GTLM, you never really know what to make of the times, as they have three tyre compounds to choose from, so it is dependent on which compound the teams are running. It does not make sense to waste a set of tyres out of your allotment (note, by rule there is fixed number of sets the teams can use for the week) just to qualify faster, if you then cannot run those tyres in the race. But, some may have done that here, or at the Roar. GTD pole was taken by Zach Robichon in the Pfaff Motorsport Porsche GTD ahead of the Ferrari 488 of Cooper MacNeil and the Acura NSX of Hindman. However, in GTD the Bronze driver must qualify, so you never really know what to make of the car’s speed until the actual race. www.porscheroadandrace.com The factory RSR leads the Pfaff GTD car in the east Horseshoe corner at Daytona. The #911 would finish third in GTLM, the #9 Porsche 13th in GTD www.porscheroadandrace.com after some issues The big news on Friday after an uneventful FP4, was the announcement by IMSA and the ACO that they had come to an agreement for the convergence of the prototype cars starting partially in 2022, and completely in 2023. The formula will be: 1) Based on a new chassis common to both the ACO and IMSA, using elements of current DPi and Hyper cars to be built by the same four manufacturers as today: Dallara, Oreca, Ligier and Multimatic 2) The car will use a common hybrid KERS system on the rear axle 3) Silhouette and design will be modifiable by the manufacturer who is providing the engine power for the car www.porscheroadandrace.com The Wright Motorsports RSR in the paddock – they would finish fourth in GTD More technical details will be provided at Sebring in two months’ time. In attendance at the announcement were Jim France and John Doonan from IMSA, Pierre Fillon of the ACO, and Gérard Neveu of the FIA World Endurance Championship. The FIA is apparently also fully on board with this, the announcement being well received by almost everyone. The Race The Mazdas had been at the front, or near the front, of every session so seemed favoured on speed. But this car had never finished a 24-hour race, so the reliability was suspect once again.