Grand-Am, Rolex 24 at Daytona – Thursday Notes
An Unremarkable Start

The sight of the mighty grandstands of the Daytona International Speedway looming out above the retail outlets and restaurants along State Road 600 never gets boring, and the Floridian sun was climbing into a clear blue sky as track action got underway for the 51st Daytona 24.

The day began at 09:00 with an hour-long practice session, with most of the 57-strong entry taking part to some extent.

We still haven’t been able to fully confirm the entry list, as even the one printed and issued to the media this morning was obviously out of date. Michael Waltrip confirmed to DSC’s Gary Horrocks that the #55 AF-Waltrip Ferrari 458 is a non-starter (no more details were forthcoming due to the demands of the throng of fans around the NASCAR star) and the #74 Audi is also a no-show. There are two Mühlner Porsches, but we still await a confirmed driver lineup.

UPDATE  - finally we have confirmation of the entries:

#18 – Mark Thomas, Norbert Seidler, Kevin Estre
#19 – Mark Thomas, Eliseo Salazar, Eduardo Costabal, Ollie Hancock, Kevin Roush

We can also confirm that Boris Said is indeed in both the #31 Marsh Racing Corvette and the #94 Turner Motorsport BMW M3s. It would appear that this is allowed if he qualifies and starts one of the two cars, which he is likely to do in the Corvette.

The first practice session was largely unremarkable as regards times and incident, with one or two exceptions.

It was a mixed session for Chip Ganassi’s Riley BMWs. The #02 sat out the majority of the session and appeared to be in mechanical trouble – steering rack related, we found out later – but Juan Pablo Montoya banged in a 1:40.937 just a couple of minutes from the end to move the #01 1.001s clear of the rest of the DP pack.

This time was considerably quicker than anything seen at the Roar, but apparently is in line with the times seen at the December test here. As a reference, pole last year was 1:41.119, so we can expect this year’s to be mid-1:40.

It was a good session for the Riley runners, with three Ford-powered and two BMW-powered chassis filling the top five places. The Michael Shank Racing (MSR) Fords ended up second and fourth, with the #42 Team Sahlen BMW third and the #2 Starworks Ford fifth. The first of the Corvette DPs was the #10 VelocityWW car with, we think, Jordan Taylor setting the time of 1:43.110.

“We had a few dramas early in the session,” said Dane Cameron, who set the time in the #42. “Small linkage dramas; nothing serious, but it meant we only got out within the last ten minutes. The track is slippery compared to the Roar, but everyone is working on bedding in brakes etc. and we’re not too worried about our pace.

“It’s been a huge undertaking for team Sahlen to go from a GT to a DP programme – particularly starting with the biggest and longest race of the season – but it’s been an encouraging start. We’re getting the guys up to speed and I’m finding out how to get what I need from the chassis; but we need to use the track-time available here to work things out – when we get to the sprint races, the amount of track time we get drops considerably!

“But it’s great to be in on the ground from the start of a project like this and it’s great to have a full season of DP racing to look forward to.”

Things were more interesting in the GT class, with the times dipping below 2012 pole pace almost immediately.

Andy Lally issued a notice of intent with a 1:48.263 in the first half of the session. This was more than a full second clear of last year’s GT pole and remained the quickest of the session by two-tenths. Damien Faulkner came closest to matching Lally’s time in the #23 AJR Porsche near to the end of the session, demoting the #63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari in the process.

Pole last year went to the #59 Brumos Porsche, but it was a quiet start for the Florida team with a 13th quickest 1:49.238 (still quicker than their 2012 time); “All good,” said Marc Lieb. “I wasn’t at the test, so have just done my first five laps of the year. We’ll have to wait until the race to see the real pace – it’s going to be quick though.”

Tommy Milner would have to wait until the evening practice session before he climbed aboard the #57 Stevenson Camaro; “Robin and John were just working through a few changes made since the test, so we can’t complain so far. The car’s good and we know it’s reliable, but it’s going to be tough to match the speed of the [Porsche 911 GT3 Cup] with the allowances they get compared to us. It’s a tough field and there’s sure to be five, six, seven cars fighting at the end. I just want to go racing!”

The GX class looks like it’s going to be a Porsche benefit, with David Donohue slashing almost two seconds off his Roar time to pull almost four seconds clear of the nearest class competitor in the #16 Napleton Cayman.

It has been a fraught beginning for the Mazda 6 GX efforts thus far.  It is still very much a work in progress, but John Doonan from Mazda is seeing progress in the program.  “We’re much farther ahead of where we were at the “Roar” test.  We’re still having new car blues, but we’re much closer to the pace than we were at the test.”  In the morning session, the #25 turned the best lap of the Mazdas – a 2:01.866.  The #70 was sidelined most of the session with a boost issue, while the #00 also spent time in the garage.

According to John, all three of the MX6s here are all based upon old RX-8 Riley chassis, but stretched six inches to match the needs for the new car.   SpeedSource has been developing the Riley chassis, with the assistance of Riley and is in the midst of building a new chassis.

As far as the P2 program is concerned, it is still on track to debut later this season and is essentially a higher output/higher boost version of the Sky-Active diesel 4-cylinder that is running in these GX class cars.

The second practice session followed after lunch, with this time just 30 minutes available to the combined field.

If anything, this was even less eventful than the first session with no improvements in the fastest class times. Nick Tandy came very close to doing this in GT, but his best – 1:48.299 in the #32 Konrad Porsche – was just a few thousandths shy of Lally’s P1 time.

Sean Edwards also came close with third-quickest in the #30 MOMO Porsche.

MH/GH