Aussie Campbell pushes Porsche Penske to tense Daytona 24 win
Australia’s Matt Campbell has helped Porsche Penske overcome Cadillac in a thrilling fight for 2024 Daytona 24 victory.
The opening round of the 2024 IMSA Sportscar Championship went down to the wire as the #7 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 driven by Campbell, Dane Cameron, Josef Newgarden and Felipe Nasr went head to head with the #31 Cadillac V-Series.R steered by Pipo Derani, Jack Aitken and Tom Blomqvist.
Just 2.112s was the difference at the chequered flag, ensuring team owner Roger Penske tasted his first Daytona 24 success in 55 years.
The battle had lasted almost the entire race as the pair swapped the lead throughout the opening 12 hours.
Aitken passed Cameron when negotiating slower traffic on Lap 362 and still held the top spot 23 laps later at the halfway, 12-hour mark.
Later on it was actually the sister #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 of Mathieu Jaminet, Nick Tandy, Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor that was giving Cadillac the biggest fright, leading as the race approached the 18 hour mark.
However, they were forced to hand it back to Aitken when Jaminet was hit by a 10s stop go penalty for an energy usage infringement. They were as high as third before an Estre off reduced them to sixth.
Aussie Matt Campbell (right) Dane Cameron, Josef Newgarden and Felipe Nasr celebrate Daytona 24 glory. Photo by Michael L. Levitt / LAT Images)
Although the #31 Cadillac was now in the lead with less than six hours to go, Campbell was hot on its tail.
After around 20 minutes of lining up a move, Campbell swooped around the outside of Aitken on the banking to steal the lead with just over five hours left.
The Australian driver continued his race-defining stint by opening up a 5s gap on Aitken before handing over to Nasr.
The Brazilian continued the charge by extending the gap to 13s before it was wiped out by a caution for debris.
Nasr defended the lead at the restart when Campbell jumped back into the #7 Porsche as the race entered the final three hours.
Former F1 driver Nasr returned for the all important final stint when the race came alive.
With the Cadillac pitting three laps earlier, Blomqvist made good use of the warmer tyres to snatch the lead from Nasr with 72 minutes remaining in a thrilling three-wide move also around a GTD Ferrari.
He opened up a 3.7s gap over Nasr, who started to report a “massive vibration” over the radio.
However, Blomqvist then lost more than a second with a major moment at the International Horseshoe.
Just when their battle was about to ignite a caution arrived when a GTD class Lexus caught fire at the end of the pits with just 43 minutes left.
This proved to be a turning point as a shorter fuel stop allowed the Porsche Penske Motorsport crew to send out Nasr ahead of Blomqvist in the final pit stops and snatch the lead.
Nasr then capitalised on the opportunity by defending the lead at the restart and despite being under immense pressure with just half a second splitting the leaders with five minutes to go, the Brazilian held his nerve to secure a famous win.
In LMP2 Era Motorsport’s Dwight Merriman, Ryan Dalziel and Christian Rasmussen won a five-car fight for the winn as Scott McLaughlin’s crew had to settle for fifth.
Ferrari overcame BMW in GTD thanks to Daniel Derra, Davide Rigon, Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado.
2024 Daytona 24 results
Pos Pic Nr. Class Drivers* Team Vehicle Laps Total Time Gap Lap Time Mph
|
1 1 7 GTP D. Cameron / F. Nasr Porsche Penske Motorsports Porsche 963 791 23:58:24.723 – – 637 1:35.605 134.051 M. Campbell / J. Newgarden |
|
2 2 31 GTP P. Derani / J. Aitken / T. Blomqvist Whelen Engineering Cadillac Racing Cadillac V-Series.R 791 23:58:26.835 2.112 2.112 777 1:35.554 134.123 |
|
3 3 40 GTP J. Taylor / L. Deletraz / C. Herta Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 791 23:58:39.712 14.989 12.877 774 1:35.971 133.540 J. Button |
|
4 4 6 GTP N. Tandy / M. Jaminet / K. Estre Porsche Penske Motorsports Porsche 963 791 23:58:40.110 15.387 0.398 693 1:35.885 133.660 L. Vanthoor |
|
5 5 5 GTP G. Bruni / N. Jani / A. Picariello Proton Competition Mustang Sampling Porsche 963 791 23:59:09.202 44.479 29.092 638 1:35.715 133.897 R. Dumas |
|
6 6 85 GTP T. van der Helm / R. Westbrook JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche 963 789 23:59:19.406 2 Laps 2 Laps 638 1:36.105 133.354 P. Hanson / B. Keating |
|
7 7 25 GTP C. De Phillippi / N. Yelloly BMW M Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8 778 23:59:03.365 13 Laps 11 Laps 651 1:36.053 133.426 M. Martin / R. Rast |
|
8 8 24 GTP J. Krohn / P. Eng / A. Farfus BMW M Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8 776 23:59:20.969 15 Laps 2 Laps 763 1:36.139 133.307 D. Vanthoor |
|
9 1 18 LMP2 D. Merriman / R. Dalziel Era Motorsport ORECA LMP2 07 767 23:59:46.247 24 Laps 9 Laps 755 1:39.460 128.856 C. Zilisch / C. Rasmussen |
|
10 2 04 LMP2 G. Kurtz / C. Braun / T. Sowery Crowdstrike Racing by APR ORECA LMP2 07 767 23:59:53.047 24 Laps 6.800 683 1:39.392 128.944 |
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