DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – It may have been the 54th Rolex 24 At Daytona endurance sports car race, but it still saw a first.
Honda, a part of Indy car racing as an engine supplier since 1994 and partner and manufacturer to the Verizon IndyCar Series since 2003, captured its first victory in the premier North American sports car event that annually kicks off the racing season. The No. 2 Tequila Patron ESM Honda Ligier JS P2 – co-driven by Johannes van Overbeek, Ed Brown, Luis Felipe Derani and 1996 Verizon IndyCar Series co-champion Scott Sharp – was the car to beat much of the 24 hours and won by 26.166 seconds over the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Chevrolet Corvette DP.
It marked Honda’s first win at the Rolex 24 in just the manufacturer’s third try. Allen Miller, Honda Performance Development’s race team leader, said his group was “ecstatic” and that, while HPD’s sports car program is smaller than its INDYCAR program, the same devotion and attention are paid.
“There’s not as many cars to take care of, so it’s a little bit smaller scale of a project,” Miller said. “But the amount of work that’s required, it’s an engine development and it takes the same level of effort and support. It’s a big task.
“Over the last three years, we’ve gone through a few different engine configurations, gone through restrictor size changes and weight changes on cars and trying to come up with a package that works well. This year we have a new 3.5-liter (engine) versus a 2.8-liter that we had in the past. It seems more raceable and the results today say it was a good choice.”
Sharp, a six-time Verizon IndyCar Series race winner before turning his attention to sports cars, agreed. His team ran Hondas in the World Endurance Challenge in 2015 and, while opting for Nissan in the WEC this year, welcomed the opportunity to return with Honda for the Rolex 24.
“I can’t say enough,” Sharp said. “They delivered on every front here. The motor’s obviously got great power, it has incredible driveability, it had great fuel mileage today. They’re reliable. They killed it.”
Hunter-Reay salvages podium finish
Rounding out the Prototype and overall podium was the No. 90 Visit Florida Racing Corvette DP. Verizon IndyCar Series driver Ryan Hunter-Reay (pictured above on the podium), the 2012 series champion and 2014 Indianapolis 500 winner, drove the anchor stint to finish on the lead lap.
Hunter-Reay teamed with former Indy car driver Ryan Dalziel and Marc Goosens in a car that struggled with balance and grip issues throughout.
“We just kept our heads down and got every drop out of that car that we had today,” Hunter-Reay said. “It was the team’s best finish here, being third. This is one of those races where it’s win or nothing, but these guys are in it for the long haul, for a championship and this is points racing. Good points today and I think we salvaged something out of it.”
While it settled for second and third in Prototypes, Chevrolet – the Verizon IndyCar Series manufacturers’ champion the past four seasons – came home first in the competitive GT Le Mans class, running 1-2 with a pair of Corvette C7s that finished 0.034 of a second apart at the stripe.
Rough race for defending champion Chip Ganassi Racing
The Rolex 24 wasn’t as kind to the 2015 overall winners from Chip Ganassi Racing. The team’s talented quartet of drivers from the Verizon IndyCar Series (Scott Dixon and Tony Kanaan) and NASCAR (Jamie McMurray and Kyle Larson) couldn’t overcome continuous brake issues in their No. 02 Ford EcoBoost Ford/Riley DP.
The third time it happened, Larson drove hard into a tire barrier that forced lengthy repairs to the car’s front end. The No. 02 finished seventh in Prototypes and 13th overall, 28 laps off the pace, with Dixon manning the last stint.
“Unfortunately, we kept losing brakes, which is not real good for confidence,” Dixon said. “We lost the rears, then we lost the fronts, which initially put us down 10 laps. We got six laps back during the night and then on my (next-to-) last stint, we lost the fronts. A bit annoying and then obviously Kyle (Larson) lost the rears and ended up taking the front of the car off, through no fault of his own.
“A car with no brakes is not good around here, especially with a lot of these hairpins. The last thing you want to do is go into a corner at 190 miles an hour and not have any brakes. But everybody on the Target/Claritin car worked very hard, we just had a lot of problems.”
The sister Ganassi DP car finished fifth in Prototypes and overall, in the final race for those cars. The team is focused now on the Ford GT, which debuted this weekend in the GT Le Mans class, but both GTs suffered numerous maladies and finished well off the pace – though the two cars managed to complete 1,250 valuable test laps.