USC – Bourdais and Action Express win at Daytona

The 24 Hours of Daytona offered breathtaking suspense from start to finish in three of the four categories entered in this first USC event. Action Express Racing found itself in a duel against Wayne Taylor Racing, but it was the No. 5 Corvette DP of Bourdais-Fittipaldi-Barbosa who finally won in front of the No. 10 from the Taylor family associated with Max Angelelli. Sébastien Bourdais managed to build a slight lead in his last stint, but a yellow flag occurred for a simple exit from the track of the Porsche #22 Alex Job Racing from Leh Keen artificially closed the gaps. Joao Barbosa managed to maintain the advantage in the final minutes against pressure from Max Angelelli to win.

The success is total for Action Express Racing which places its second Corvette from Frisselle-Giroix-Frisselle-Martin on the last step of the podium. Chevrolet hits hard since the Spirit of Daytona offers a quadruplet of Corvette DP with the No. 90 of Rockenfeller-Westbrook-Valiante. On the other hand, Chip Ganassi Racing had a sad end with a double retirement of its Riley-Fords. The LMP2s had a lot of difficulty distinguishing themselves on the Florida oval. However, Muscle Milk Pickett Racing still secured a top five with the Oreca 03-Nissan of Klaus Graf, Lucas Luhr and Alex Brundle. Oak Racing managed to move up to eighth place with the #42 Morgan of Gustavo Yacaman, Olivier Pla, Roman Rusinov and Oliver Webb. The HPD ARX-03b from Extreme Speed ​​Motorsports where notably simon pagenaud finished just outside the top ten. If the Daytona circuit could be favorable to the DPs, theIMSA will undoubtedly think about a new Balance of Performance for the prototypes before the 12 Hours of Sebring contested on March 15.

The GTLM category also put on a nice show. Following the rout of the Corvettes, the last C7R fighting for victory having suffered a gearbox problem, Porsche won with the 911 RSR no. 911 in which Patrick Pilet competed alongside Richard Lietz and Nick Tandy. If BMW remained discreet, the reliability of the Z4 GTE of Bill Auberlen, Andy Priaulx, Joey Hand and Maxime Martin allowed the crew to reach the finish line in second place. SRT Motorsports completes the podium in the category with the Viper GTS-R of Dominik Farnbacher, Marc Goossens and Ryan Hunter-Reay despite mechanical problems which did not spare the American team.

Core Autosport easily won in PC with the #54 on which Colin Braun did most of the work even if Jon Bennett, James Gue and Mark Wilkins were also entered. On the other hand, the GTD category was talked about at the finish. At the end of a tough but solid duel between the Ferrari n°555 of the Level 5 of Alessander Pier Guidi and the Audi R8 LMS of the Flying Lizard of Markus Winkelhock, victory went to the Italian following a slight exit from the track by the German on the last lap. The organizers initially chose to penalize the Level 5 pilot, thus offering first place to the Flying Lizard on the green carpet, even if this sanction seems more than questionable. Officials ultimately reversed this decision.