Bill Auberlen, Alexander Sims, Augusto Farfus, and Bruno Spengler in the BMW Team RLL M6 GTLM, the John Baldessari art car, finished eighth in the GTLM class in the Rolex 24 at Daytona. The #96 Turner Motorsport M6 GT3 driven by Justin Marks, Jens Klingmann, Maxime Martin, and Jesse Krohn finished eighth in the GTD class.
The third BMW in the race, the #24 Team RLL M6 GTLM, exited the race very early. It stopped on pit road about a half-hour into the race, went to the garage for a gearbox change, and returned to the track briefly only to return to the garage, where it was retired with powertrain failure. Because of the car’s early exit Edwards’ co-drivers Martin Tomczyk, Nicky Catsburg, and Kuno Wittmer did not get to drive in the race.
The #19 car moved up over the course of the race, leading briefly, although it did not have the pace of the other cars in GTLM. It finished a lap behind the class winners, Joey Hand, Dirk Müller, and Sebastien Bourdais in the #66 Ganassi Racing Ford GT that had led much of the way. The same three drivers had won the GT class at Le Mans for Ford in 2016. The #911 Porsche driven by Patrick Pilet, Dirk Werner, and Frederic Makowiecki finished third.
Car #19 was the ninth of the nineteen BMW art cars to be raced. After Daytona the car will be retired from the track to become a show car. Auberlen and Sims, who will be paired for the entire season, will run a different M6 GTLM for the balance of the year. Edwards and Tomczyk will drive car #24 for the season.
Turner Motorsport brought one car, the #96 M6 GT3 for Justin Marks, Jens Klingmann, Maxime Martin, and Jesse Krohn. Justin Marks, who had not driven the car before Daytona, qualified #96 seventeenth in the 27-car class. The drivers moved up over the course of the race; the car ran among the front runners, leading at times, until a long pit stop in the ninth hour, when the crew had to replace a tie rod after #96 was hit by the #4 Corvette. The car fell well back, but recovered a number of the laps it lost. It was two laps off the class lead when it stopped running on the banking with two hours remaining. It restarted after it was returned to pit road and ran until the end to finish eighth. The win in the highly competitive GTD class went to Carlos de Quesada, Daniel Morad, Jesse Lazare, Michael de Quesada and Michael Christensen in the #28 Alegra Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R. A number of the marques represented in the class, including the new Acura NSX, the Audi R8 LMS GT3, and the Mercedes AMG GT3, led over the course of the race; it should be an exciting season in GTD.
Before Daytona Turner’s plans for the balance of the season were not clear. At Daytona Will Turner announced that he would be running the car for the entire season. Jens Klingmann will drive the car in all races, and Marks will run in the four North American Endurance Championship races (Daytona, Sebring, Watkins Glen, and Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta). In the series’ other races Bret Curtis, who drove for Turner last season, will return; he will be paired with Klingmann.
There were 21 caution periods over the course of the 55th running of the Rolex 24. A few hours of rain had been anticipated; as it turned out the rain came down for about ten hours, beginning around 8:00 PM Saturday night. At times the rain was light, but at times it was heavy enough to lead to substantial time behind the pace car in the hours before dawn. The overall win went to the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac DPI driven by Ricky Taylor, Jordan Taylor, Max Angelelli, running his last race, and NASCAR star Jeff Gordon. Another one of the new Cadillac prototypes, the #5 car driven by Joao Barbosa, Christian Fittipaldi, and Filipe Albuquerque, finished second. It was a very close second; the #10 car had bunted #5 off in the waning laps, but no action was taken.
IMSA competition resumes with the 12 Hours of Sebring on March 18.—Brian S. Morgan
