Mustang Sampling Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R, Daytona 24 Hours, 2018

New distance record in Daytona 24 Hours but no joy for F1 pair

Weekend Racing Wrap

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The distance record for the Daytona 24 Hours fell this weekend but the two current F1 drivers who took part were unable to contend for victory due to a series of misfortunes.

IMSA Sportscar Championship

Round 1: Daytona 24 Hours

Last year Joao Barbosa, Christian Fittipaldi and Filipe Albuquerque missed out on victory by less than seven-tenths of a second at the end of 24 hours of racing in Daytona. This time they stamped their superiority on the event. They were able to moderate their pace long before the finish but still broke the all-time distance record, covering 808 laps, and came home over a minute ahead of their closest rivals.

Felipe Nasr, Mike Conway, Stuart Middleton and Eric Curran made it a one-two finish for Cadillac. The third-placed quartet of Romain Dumas, Loic Duval, Colin Braun and Jonathan Bennett also finished on the lead lap in their ORECA.

Fernando Alonso’s bid to win the race with United Autosports team mates Lando Norris and Phil Hanson was derailed by a series of problems including a puncture and then brake master cylinder failure. They finished 90 laps down, though Alonso and Norris both led early on as the team ran long stints in their Ligier. The team’s second car of Paul di Resta, Bruno Senna, Huge de Sadeleer and Will Owen came fourth.

The other active F1 driver in the race, Lance Stroll, also suffered a luckless 24 hours including a series of punctures. The same problem eliminated the pole sitting car of Renger Van Der Zande, Ryan Hunter-Reay and Jordan Taylor, which suffered no fewer then seven right-rear tyre failures.

The GT LM class was won by Scott Dixon, Ryan Briscoe and Richard Westbrook in their Ford GT, leading a one-two for Chip Ganassi’s squad. The GRT Grasser Lamborghini Huracan of Mirko Bortolotti, Rolf Ineichen, Rik Breuers and Franck Perera won the GTD category.

Video not available yet.

World Rally championship

Round 1: Monte-Carlo

Sebastien Ogier began his World Rally Championship title defence in the best possible fashion by winning the Monte-Carlo Rally for the fifth year in a row, despite a spin early in the event. He led home Ott Tanak, who claimed a strong second place on his debut for Toyota.

Jari-Matti Latvala joined team mate Tanak on the podium ahead of Kris Meeke, who was almost three minutes behind in his Citroen.

Carlos Sainz Jnr made his much-trumpeted “Monte Carlo Rally debut” which involved driving a course car through a 13 kilometre stage.

Toyota Racing Series

Races 7-9: Hampton Downs

For the second weekend in a row Toyota Racing Series championship leaders Marcus Armstrong and Robert Shwarzman endured win-less outings. But the two Ferrari junior drivers held onto their places at the top of the points standings after the three races at Hampton Downs, Armstrong on top thanks to his 100% podium strike rate over the nine rounds so far.

Former Red Bull junior driver Richard Verschoor took two wins which leaves him 70 points off Armstrong (with 75 available for a win). Clement Novalak followed up his Teretonga victory with a second triumph and lies fourth in the standings.

The highlights of last week’s Toyota Racing Series rounds can be found here.

Also last weekend

David Schumacher, F4 UAE, Dubai, 2018
Two poles and a win for David Schumacher in Dubai
Ralf Schumacher’s son David scored his victory in a racing car during the Formula Four United Arab Emirates champion round at Dubai Autodrome. He won from fifth on the grid but was unable to convert pole position for the other two races into wins.

His Rasgaira Motorsports team mate Leon Koehler won the other two races. These also marked the first car racing triumphs for the 18-year-old, who is the reigning CIK-FIA European KZ2 karting champion.

Over to you

What racing action did you watch last weekend? How are you coping with the off-season? Let us know in the comments.

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Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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25 comments on “New distance record in Daytona 24 Hours but no joy for F1 pair”

  1. Thanks for the coverage @keithcollantine, one of the MANY reasons that F1FANATIC is just the best place to be man!

  2. Alburquerque and Barbosa Caralho!!

    @keithcollantine here is a trick to spell João Barbosa’s name right. Before writing the letter “a” press alt gr + 4 and then the letter, some magic happens there you have it.

    Btw does F1Fanatic accept those kind of characters now? I remember my comments were suspended when I had it in my name

    1. Proud of them! Deserved win after last year’s near miss.

    2. “Alburquerque”
      @johnmilk here is a trick to spell Filipe Albuquerque’s name right. Before writing the letter “r” check if the letter is required, some magic happens there you have it ;)

      And now to “Caralho” …….

      1. It was out of excitement, I even added letters

        Caralho is very well written if that is what you talking about wink wink

        1. ;) I assumed it would be Carvalho.

  3. Yet another pelt on Scott Dixon’s wall. The man is extremely good at what he does.

    1. True, and IndyCar drivers have been doing what Alonso has been trying recently (driving in other categories) for decades. They prove every year they are some of the most talented pilots on earth.

  4. Lando Norris was very impressive in the Ligier. During the unexpected rain, in the darkness, with a car he hasn’t driven before, he was was conistently faster than the rest of the field. Didn’t make a single mistake in his succesive stints either.

    1. @br444m I haven’t seen his lap times from the wet stint but I heard they were good – as they were in F3 last year…

      1. I have no evidence, but I was so impressed by his pace that i thought he might be overdriving the car and putting strain on the components, forcing mechanical failure.

  5. Lando and Nando were very good. In a reliable car they would be top 4.

  6. My main take from Daytona was how good the IMSA app was for coverage. Could choose footage between the main coverage or 5 onboard shots, all for free.

    1. And you could even hook up to their website on a Smart-tv and watch the race in very decent resolution + choose from the extra cams. Excellent service.

  7. I loved Continental chiding the teams on social media for causing the blowouts with too much camber. The onboard view from the #23 was terrible. You couldn’t see down the road, just the side of the drivers head and the 3 LCD screens he had to look at.

    1. They blamed the teams for the failures, but then confirmed that the #10, which had the most failures, was running the tires within the recommended parameters.

      1. Really? Missed that @flatdarkmars, that’s sadly hilarious.

  8. Sundar Srinivas Harish
    29th January 2018, 2:22

    Its also a shame how the Acuras had to pit for repairs mid race. Penske has an incredible line-up in both cars, and they deserved a podium, at least. Unreliability shouldn’t dog Hondacura like it does in F1. Also, I hope Joest manages to get those Mazdas running, if not running well. They can’t afford to lose the reputation they’ve built up in their WEC campaign since they’re not present in any other major series.

  9. Keith Crossley
    29th January 2018, 2:40

    You had to be extremely dedicated – watching Fox, FS2, FS Go, IMSA online, FS1 (oh! – we don’t get that; too bad you don’t see the end of the race and good luck finding the full results online – IMSA scorecard doesn’t show all drivers) to view the event. Then you have the commentators who seem to be on a raft in the Pacific somewhere. Then there’s the TV direction, which at times was very interesting with competing cars; and there were graphics. But rarely could anyone – dedicated as could be – get any idea of what the classes were, where the competition was, or what the heck was going on.

    A few times I looked at the lame IMSA scoring page; there could be a car coming up within seconds of the lead car in class. Think we’d see that on screen? Nah!

    Think the commentators would tell you anything useful about the race? Nah. Lots of lovely inside banter / name dropping but rarely a mention of the race itself. Could have been at any bar down the coast for all the difference they made. Mazda bursts into flames… “blah blah blah..” on and on for a few minutes. “Oh! there is a car on fire!”. No kidding – *we* were watching. What were you doing?

    1. I had more luck, being in a country (NL) this weekend that didn’t have a tv viewing option (good, as we have no tv here) meant the imsa feed, which as @emu55 said above, is excellent. That said, I didn’t have much time to watch, and slept during the night. Had I been at home in Germany, I’d probably, that would have been for the better, because I think eurosport didn’t show it in that timeslot anyway.

      These exclusive country broadcast deals meaning no, or troubled, access to the good quality feed that’s really the the 1st and best choice otherwise are annoying. I mean, something is wrong if you find yourself cheering there won’t be premium tv-coverage, due to it giving your access to good quality live feeds of your sport, isn’t it?

    2. Agree with you regarding the commentary, although I will say that I thought the pitlane reporting was exceptionally good, especially with the lack of coverage of cars ‘behind the wall’. However, as you say, it seemed at time that the commentators were more there for a general chat, often reminiscing about races from years or even decades ago, when they should be telling us about the race that is happening now.

      I feel as though there could have been more of an effort to explain why some cars were so far off the lead lap, for instance, having been asleep in the night, I had no idea that Alonso’s car had a brake failure, until reading about it after the race. I get that they can’t do that for every car in every class but he is the most well known name in the field by a long way.

  10. These cars have honestly started to look like trains.

  11. Sorry for posting the same thing twice, but I just can’t help myself:

    Piece of trivia:
    Robert Kubica was at the lead of this rallye in 2014 having won the first 2 stages, ahead of Bouffier and Ogier [sic!].
    In 2015 Kubica won 4 special stages of the rallye going neck and neck vs both Ogier and Loeb.
    And that both times in a privately run WRC team.

    For those who didn’t know ;)

  12. I am still more and more amazed by Ford GT performance :)
    This car is a beast!

  13. The GRT Grasser Lamborghini Huracan of Mirko Bortolotti, Rolf Ineichen, Rik Breuers and Franck Perera won the GTD category.

    The first ever race around the clock win for the marque.

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