2022 Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona

Photography by Martin Raffauf.

This year was the 60th anniversary of the Daytona 24 Hours race. The race in the beginning was shorter. It was started by Bill France Sr in 1962 as a 3- hour race. It was another 3-hour in 1963 followed by two 2000km events in 1964 and 1965. Since, it has been 24 hours except for the reduced event in 1972. While the cars and the racing have changed over the years, it is still a great endurance race. The key sponsor and official watch is Rolex.

Daytona International Speedway grandstand structure — Daytona International Speedway has changed over the years. This is the tower and main grandstand structure.

Annual IMSA “Old Timers” dinner — In what has now become a tradition every year, we had the annual IMSA “Old Timers” dinner between the ROAR and race. Limited to people who actually worked at races. No drivers allowed except by invite. From left John Shapiro, Debra Young, Steve Charsley, Wolfgang Hustedt, Roger Bailey, Alwin Springer, Don Caesar, Gary Cummings, Al Roberts, Martin Raffauf, Keith Andrews, Kevin Doran, Mark Raffauf, George Silbermann and Michael Colucci! A stellar group of sports car racers!

This year Daytona Speedway organized a special display for some of the winning cars from every 10 years of the history. The winning car was on hand from each of these years:

1972 – Ferrari 312PB of Mario Andretti & Jacky Ickx
1982 – Porsche 935 of John Paul, John Paul Jr & Rolf Stommelen
2002 – Dallara- Judd of Fredy Leinhard, Didier Theys, Max Papis and Mauro Baldi
2012 – Ford-Riley DP of Allmendinger, Wilson, Pew and Negri

This was the 1982 winning car, Porsche 935-JLP3 driven by John Paul, John Paul Jr and Rolf Stommelen. It is now owned by Zak Brown of McLaren and he graciously provided it for the show. Sitting here in the Daytona garages.

Bill Riley and Mark Raffauf of IMSA examine the four assembled “special winners”. Factory 1972 Ferrari 312PB, 1982 Porsche 935 of John Paul, 2002 Dallara-Judd of Fredy Lienhard, and the 2012 Ford Riley of Mike Shank.

The cockpit of the 1972 Ferrari 312PB. Quite simple compared to what we have today. Manual Ferrari Gearbox, analog gauges, no driver aids of any kind!

Quite a collection of cars, and it was a good historic review of what has gone on at the speedway for the last 70 years in sports cars. Several additional winners both overall and class winners were on hand for the normal Daytona Historic display, and some drove around in the 24- minute historic show on Saturday of race day, including Hurley Haywood in the RSR he won in 1977 with.

White Porsche RSR — Hurley Haywood was on hand to drive the RSR in the 24- minute Saturday morning historic show. He won the 1977 24 hours in it with Dave Helmick and John Graves.

Other Previous winners in the house. The 1983 Porsche 935 of Preston Henn, and the 2019 Cadillac of Wayne Taylor Racing.

Additionally, the speedway and Rolex had assigned no less than 6 grand marshals for the event. One to represent each 10 years. They were Mario Andretti, Hurley Haywood, Bobby Rahal, Jack Roush, Scott Pruett, and Wayne Taylor.

Three of the six Grand Marshals at the Rolex event Friday before the race. Wayne Taylor, Mario Andretti and Hurley Haywood. All the Grand Marshal’s had won the race at least once as a driver, and some had won several times as team owners.

The race since 1975 has been under the sanction of IMSA (International Motor Sports Association) and or it’s associates, the USRRC (US Road Racing Championship) and Grand-Am.

The old friends department. Alwin Springer (L) of Porsche Motorsports and Max Welti former manager of Mercedes Group C, Porsche Motorsport and Sauber Formula 1. Max is now consulting with BMW.

The rules for 2022 have changed very slightly. Cars are still regulated via a BOP (Balance of Performance) system. There are (as last year), five classes of cars, although they are slightly changed from 2021. The cars for 2022 are:

Dpi – Daytona Prototypes
LMP2 – Le Mans Prototype 2
LMP3 – Le Mans Prototype 3
FIA GT3 – with two sub-categories, GTD Pro and GTD (IMSA GTD cars)

The biggest change from 2021 is the demise of the GTLM (FIA GTE pro) class in IMSA. These were the homologated Factory only GT cars. As all the factories dropped out, except for Corvette, the class was disbanded for 2022 onwards. Factories can run pro programs in IMSA GTD using the standard homologated GT3 car. Another substantial change from recent covid years, the entry was up by 20%. By January there were sixty-one entries for the ROAR test. That is about the limit the current pit and garage layout can accommodate.

Racecar driver Oliver Jarvis on his phone — Racing is waiting? Oliver Jarvis works on his phone while waiting for the Acura press laps drive around during the ROAR weekend.

The changes to LMDH (LeMans Daytona Hybrid), from DPi prototype cars in 2023, and the demise of GTLM, has caused somewhat of a driver shuffle during the off season. Dane Cameron and Felipe Nasr have already been signed up by Porsche for their LMDH program for 2023. While they wait to begin testing on the new car, they have been assigned to drive GT cars. Nasr joined the Pfaff Motorsport 911 GT RSR team of Jaminet and Campbell for Daytona. This car will be the Porsche GT3 Pro team for 2022 in IMSA.

The Pfaff Porsche GT3RSR has been designated as the “factory” car in the GTD Pro category. It was driven by Jaminet, Campbell and Felipe Nasr. This team won the IMSA GTD championship in 2021.

Likewise, Corvette has some big changes, as they will now compete in GTD (although they do not have a homologated GT3 car). The GTLM car from 2021 has been modified and via BOP will compete in GT3 until they can build a new car. One car will run in IMSA, and one in the WEC. However, two have been entered just for Daytona. The Corvettes struggled in practice during the ROAR weekend. The cars are quite a bit different from the GTLM version, as some major changes were needed to make the GTLM car into something closer to a GT3 version:

Major reconfiguration of passenger side of the car to accommodate the required GTD ballast box.
The car had to run on the same customer Michelin tire as everyone else, not the “specials” GTLM ran on.
Power output is reduced for GTD. A smaller restrictor installed.
The rear wing angle is mandated 8-degree higher angle, cutting top speed.
An ABS system had to be installed as GT3 has mandatory ABS. (Rumor was the pro drivers did not like ABS and liked the car better without it).
A specific limited slip differential had to be installed, limiting any tuneability that was available in GTLM.
Corvette must run with torque axle sensors to measure and collect data for IMSA, as this is not a homologated GT3 car.

GM Factory Corvettes modified for the GT3 class — The GM Factory Corvettes had to undergo some big changes to be accepted into the GT3 class. These were originally GTLM class cars and had to be heavily modified to transfer into the lower class. They would struggle in the race. Corvette says they are building an actual GT3 car from the ground up.

The breakdown of cars entered by class was as follows:

Dpi – 7
LMP2 – 10
LMP3 – 9
GTD Pro – 13
GTD – 22

Note, technically the cars of GTD Pro and GTD are exactly the same, the only difference being that GTD has the Bronze and or Silver drivers in the lineup. Unlike previous years where the GTLM class ran different tires, these cars now all run the spec Michelin tire.

Note – not a GTD car! Strange things found hiding under the main grandstands. I believe this was a show car from the Hall of Fame Museum in temporary storage. A NASCAR Toyota Cup car of Kyle Busch.

BMW also has built a new GT3 car to take over from its previous M8 GTLM car. The car is the M4-GT3.

BMW M4-GT3 — BMW has built new GT3 cars, the M4-GT3 to replace the M8s run in GTLM. This was the first race for the cars in the GTD Pro category. They struggled with pace and mechanical issues, but both finished the 24 hours.

Front view of the BMW M4 GT3 grill — BMW M4 GT3 has a unique grill. Both cars finished, but many laps behind after a myriad of problems with the floors and diffusers.

Chip Ganassi has taken over the factory Cadillac program and entered two cars. Driver lineup included Indy car drivers, Alex Palou, Scott Dixon, Marcus Ericsson, and Sebastian Bordais. Action Express again had a second car for Jimmie Johnson sponsored by Ally. Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez from the WEC Toyota squad have been added to the lineup along with Mike Rockenfeller, who won this race with this team back in the 1990’s. Dpi class and GTD Pro are open, any rated driver can drive. Ben Keating in fact drove the JDC Miller Cadillac as a Bronze rated driver. LMP3 and GTD Pro/AM require at least one Bronze or Silver rated driver.

Cadillac of Chip Ganassi. This one was driven by Renger van der Zande, Scott Dixon, Sebastian Bourdais and Alex Palou. It finished 14th overall and 7th in Dpi.

The Factory Cadillacs run by Chip Ganassi, had a stellar driver line up, but both ran into problems in the race and finished some laps down. The #02 was driven by Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn, Marcus Ericsson and Kevin Magnussen. They finished 12th overall.

All the LMP2 cars were Oreca models. Both the Dpi and LMP2 categories would run on E20 fuel (20% ethanol). LMP3 and all the GT cars ran on E10 fuel. There is some loss of horsepower and efficiency (mileage) with E20 compared to E10, depending on car and engine.

LMP2 Oreca — All the LMP2 in the field were Oreca models with the spec Gibson V8 engine. Ben Keating drove this one from PR1-Mathiasen. He won the ROAR qualifying race but finished 4th in LMP2 in the 24- hour. He also finished 3rd overall in the JDC Miller Cadillac, driving in both cars as a Bronze rated driver.

LMP3 class was a mix of Duqueine D08 and Ligier JS P320 chassis. The field was led by last years winner, the Riley run Ligier. Interestingly Bill Riley’s car ran last in the ROAR qualifying race, only doing a few laps and parking. He told me, since there were no points for it, he did not want to take the risk, and was willing to start last in LMP3.

The LMP3 Ligier of Andretti Autosport. They led the class early on, but ended up 4th in LMP3.

The sizable increase came in GTD-Pro, which has replaced the GTLM class. Obviously, there is a much bigger interest here than in GTLM which only had five cars last year (only three for the season). The BMW factory entered two brand new M4 GT3 cars, again run by the Rahal-Letterman-Lannigan team. Guiseppe Risi entered a Ferrari 488 GT3 with four factory drivers. Notably, WeatherTech racing entered two cars of different manufacturers. One Porsche GT3 RSR and one Mercedes AMG GT3. Cooper MacNeil, the team principal, was entered in both cars. Minimum drive times are specified at 4h30m for LMP2/LMP3/GTD-Pro and GTD, except if you are a silver or bronze driver entered in two cars, in which case the minimum was 2h15m per car.

Porsche and Mercedes AMG GTD Pro cars — Cooper MacNeil was entered in two different GTD Pro cars, a Porsche and Mercedes AMG. Although both were fast, both had problems in the race. The Porsche was 8th in GTD PRO, the Mercedes did not finish.

The schedule this year was similar to 2021. The teams loaded into the speedway on the 20th of January and completed the “ROAR” pretest that weekend. Included as last year was a 100- minute race on Sunday the 23rd which set the grid, in lieu of qualifying during the race week. The teams then had 3 days open to repair/ prepare the cars for the 24- hour starting on January 29th. The key of course was to complete the testing and qualifying race without any significant issues that would impact the race.

IMSA car transport haulers — Some of the IMSA haulers have quite spectacular wraps on them. This is the Meyer-Shank Truck, with matching tool box!

The ROAR race on Sunday was quite spectacular. Sixty- one cars started. Traffic was an issue, as by rule, the bronze drivers started in LMP2, LMP3 and GTD Pro/Am. All the classes over the one hundred minutes were incredibly competitive except the BMW and Corvette teams in GTD-Pro. They finished near the back of the GTD-Pro race. Wayne Taylor’s Acura won the race by a few seconds over Richard Westbrook in the JDC Miller Cadillac, but failed post- race tech and was relegated to the back of the Dpi field. The new development centered around tire pressures. Temperatures were cool, and Michelin had mandated minimum cold start pressures, and hot running pressures. In the past there have been instances of tires failing due to low pressure, and the teams blaming Michelin, so one could understand where the Tire manufacturer is coming from. Several cars including the WeatherTech entries and John Wright’s Porsche were warned and subsequently given fifty second post- race penalties for failure to adhere to the Michelin guidelines. This was discussed at length in the drivers, and crew chief meetings, and it was clear there would be no leeway in the race to run under- inflated tires (which would heat up faster and possibly provide more grip, however, be more prone to failure).

Racecars on the track at Daytona — Traffic was always heavy in both the ROAR 100- minute race and the 24 hour. Here in the east banking four GT cars stay low while being passed by an LMP3 and LMP2.

Talk after the ROAR centered around several topics of the day. It seemed like everyone was accusing everyone else of “sandbagging” (the process of going slower than possible to perhaps impact a Balance of Performance (BOP) change. The other issue continued to be the temperature affect on the tires. The weather the week of the race was un-seasonably cold. The forecast was for temperatures in the 30’s during the 24-hour. Michelin did not seem to be too concerned with the temperature. Proper warm up however, was key. Tire pressures were what they worried about. It was a fine line of how hard do you push on new tires leaving the pits waiting for them to come up to operating temperatures and pressures. During the media frenzy on these assorted topics, the mechanics and crews spent the early part of the week stripping the cars, changing engines and gearboxes, and rebuilding the cars.

Rear view of a Porsche being worked on by mechanics — After the Roar, the mechanics were busy. A massive amount of work rebuilding cars for the race on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Here the KCMG Porsche gets an engine change. The water system purge tool sits ready.

Meyer – Shank Acura 3.0- liter V6 Turbo. This engine was used by both the Wayne Taylor and Meyer-Shank cars.

5.5- liter Cadillac V8. All Cadillac engines are built by ECR (Earnhardt- Childress) Engines.

AF Corse Ferrari team work on car preparation between the ROAR and race. Both their cars would finish. #21 was 4th in GTD, #47 14th in GTD.

JDC Miller Cadillac and Meyer-Shank Acura — Michelin kept a close watch on the tires with this RFID system at pit exit. The JDC Miller Cadillac passes thru the readers while the Meyer-Shank Acura passes on track. The Penalty for hitting these readers was quite severe. You had to pay for new ones which cost $70000!

The race would be somewhat unique compared to days in the past, in that the time gaps between all the cars from fast to slow, was less than 15 seconds a lap. It was estimated that the Dpi cars would probably pass some twenty other cars per lap, so traffic management would be key.

John Doonan, president of IMSA, speaking with drivers — John Doonan, president of IMSA, addresses the drivers meeting. Beaux Barfield, the race director would follow and review rules and regulations in detail. There really was no excuse for a lot of the penalties that ensued in the race, as all this was discussed beforehand in these meetings.

Race conditions on Saturday at the start were quite cold, 45 degrees and windy. Sure enough, as expected, an LMP2 car spun off on the pace laps on cold tires. It was again a split start prototypes first, then GT with a separate pace car. The starts were good apart from one of the G-Drive LMP2 cars, who jumped out of line to pass prior to the start line. This was reviewed in the driver meeting as not allowed, so of course they started their race with a drive thru penalty.

Racecars on track at Daytona — The Prototype start. The G-Drive LMP2 is already getting out of line and got a penalty for this.

Within 4-5 laps the Dpi cars started catching the back of the GT field. Traffic, as in the ROAR race was hectic. Several cars were off, penalties for contact. Pit work was shoddy, as several cars engaged gears with the engine running and the car on jack stands, resulting in drive thru penalties. Several others ran the red light at the pit exit. One actually ran the red light, stopped realizing his mistake, then engaged reverse gear and backed up returning to the pits. A double whammy! He got a penalty for running the light and engaging reverse in the pits, which by rule is also not allowed. After 50 minutes, there was a long pace car yellow, as an LMP2 impacted the wall in the west horseshoe area. A corner marshal leaning on the guardrail was thrown twenty feet thru the air and taken to the hospital, but eventually ok. The yellow lasted quite a while, as mechanized equipment had to be brought in to repair the wall and guardrail.

Several times, yellows begot yellows, as the restart would just cause another yellow due to cars off, or crashes. Around 5 pm as dusk settled in, there was a huge melee in the Le Mans chicane (the old bus -stop renamed the Le Mans Chicane), as some fifteen or so cars were off the road and rumbling thru the ensuing dust and the grass. As it got dark, things settled a little bit, although several teams continued to run afoul of the IMSA “wave around rule” during yellow conditions. IMSA allows lower class cars who get stuck in a caution period, when the overall leader gets between them and their class leader to pass the pace car and rejoin at the back of the pack, so as to not go a lap down thru no fault of their own. Problem was, quite a few people were taking illegal pass arounds and ending up one lap ahead! At around 8:30 pm the first chink in the armor appeared in the Corvette team, as the #4 of Milner, Tandy and Sorensen had a long garage stop to fix a broken alternator.

Around 11 pm at yet another restart, Alex Lynn in One of Chip Ganassi’s Cadillacs was leading to the restart in front of the Acura of Ricky Taylor. He then started to do “brake checks” (ostensibly to warm his brakes as it was now down into the high thirty’s temperature). In the confusion, Taylor ran into the back of him and cut his tire resulting in a pit stop before the start. He then earned another drive thru penalty, as they were told in the driver and crew meetings by race director Beaux Barfield to specifically NOT do this.

The Pfaff Porsche makes a pit stop in the night practice prior to the race. It was quite cold, 30 F. Taking care of the tires and warming them up was key, as grip was limited until the tires came into their operating range.

As the night wore on, more problems arose on cars that historically had proven reliable. Both the #3 Corvette and the Jimmie Johnson Ally Cadillac were into the garage for extended stops with broken suspensions after contact with other cars. Both Factory BMWs were in and out several times as the underbody and diffusers kept falling off. As Bobby Rahal had told me earlier, these were brand new cars, and some time on them will be needed to sort everything out. The #01 Ganassi Cadillac also had an extended stop with an alternator belt issue. The Turner BMW GTD had an incident in the tri-oval spinning thru the grass to turn 1. This caused a lot of damage, and the car was retired.

The Ally Cadillac of Jimmie Johnson, Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Rockenfeller and Jose Maria Lopez was fast but lost time due to a broken suspension from a collision in the night.

As the sun started rising around 630am, more cars were in trouble. The #02 Ganassi car, had an extended garage stop with fuel pump issues, and the GTD-Pro leading WeatherTech Mercedes #97 caused another caution period by dumping oil all over the west horseshoe and proceeded directly to the garages for repair, and was ultimately retired.

Sunrise over the Daytona racetrack — Something all the teams love to see. Sun-up on Sunday morning. The weather was clear but bitterly cold.

It was clear now that the winner would come from one of the four Dpi cars remaining on the lead lap, the #10 Wayne Taylor car, #60 Meyer Shank Acura, the #5 JDC Miller Cadillac, or the #31 Action Express Cadillac. All the rest were multiple laps behind.

#60 Acura at pit stop — Early Sunday pitstop by the #60 Acura. It would go on to win.

LMP2 was still quite competitive with multiple cars still in the hunt. In LMP3, the Riley Ligier had eked out a one lap advantage over the similar Sean Creech entered car. GTD-Pro was still extremely competitive with many cars still on the lead lap. The two Porsches of Pfaff and KCMG at the front with the Risi Ferrari right in the mix. Likewise, GTD was also still close among several cars including the Wright Porsche, the Magnus Aston Martin and the Gilbert/Korthoff Mercedes.

As the race wound down the intensity increased. The JDC #5 Cadillac had a twenty second lead wiped out by yet another yellow due to a stalled car on track. As this was with about 40 minutes to go (and the Dpi cars can only do about 35 minutes on a tank of fuel), the #5 of Loic Duval and #31 of Derani stopped for a little extra fuel and rejoined at the end of the Dpi line. Trouble was they now had the other 3 Cadillacs between them and the Acuras of Castro- Neves and Taylor at the front. I remarked to someone in the tower, that if GM had watched the Daytona 500 a few years ago, where the 5 Fords had pitted together, then worked in concert to run down the Toyotas and win the race, that Cadillac might do the same. Alas, I guess they missed the Daytona 500 that year, as there seemed to be no cooperation among the Cadillacs. It took Duval and Derani some number of laps to even get by the others, by then Castro-Neves and Taylor were up the road having their own battle. Although Ricky got close, he was never able to execute a pass and finished 2nd by 3 seconds or so. Duval in the JDC car was 3rd and Derani 4th. The top four were covered by 5.6 seconds.

The Race winner. The Meyer-Shank Acura driven by Helio Castro Neves, Oliver Jarvis, Tom Blomquist and Simon Pagenaud. Helio did the final stint and of course climbed up the start line fencing at the end (as he is known to do).

In LMP2, The DragonSpeed car used their two Indy car stars at the end to good effect to hang on for the win. Pato O’Ward and Colton Herta did yeoman work on that team and were rewarded with a Rolex. They beat the Team Nederland car by 7 seconds.

Riley Motorsports won LMP3 once again over Sean Creech’s team, the same result as last year.

The GTD races were TV highlight reel kind of stuff. In GTD Pro, Matthew Jaminet in the Pfaff Porsche battled hammer and tong with Laurens Vanthoor in the KMCG entered Porsche. They both had the lead at various points in the last five laps. Frequently they traded paint during side to side contact and both cars had front and rear damage from contact. They then ran into one another in the chicane on the last lap throwing dirt and dust everywhere. Someone on social media commented, “what a great race, it was just like the rental car race in the movie Talladega Nights”! Jaminet recovered to win, beating the Risi Ferrari by a few seconds. Vanthoor was 3rd. They embraced in victory lane; however, Porsche could not have been pleased as they almost threw the race away to Ferrari.

The KCMG Porsche in the Daytona Tri-oval on Sunday morning. They would catch the Pfaff Porsche and have an epic battle for the win, ending up 3rd after spinning in the chicane on the last lap.

In GTD, Jan Heylen drove the last stints in the Wright Motorsports Porsche GT3 RSR for a well-deserved win for a good team. It was not easy however, beating the Magnus Aston Martin of Andy Lally by only some 4 seconds.

Overall, it was an excellent show in front of what was said to be a record crowd for this race. There was not an open space inside the track, full of campers and motorhomes. Under John Doonan’s leadership the IMSA team has this going in the right direction. 2023 promises to be even more exciting, as the switch is made to the new GTP (old name LMDh) cars.

Ford has announced that they will build a GT3 Mustang for 2024. They will run a factory GTD Pro team and sell the car to customers. The Le Mans first chicane in France has been renamed the Daytona chicane. The good news keeps coming. Bring on Sebring Next!

NOTE: Visit results.imsa.com for full detailed race results. There is a lot of data available including things such as pit card reports, sector times, driver times, fastest laps, total drive times etc. Very informative.