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Ganassi Quartet Romps In Rolex24 At Daytona

Winning car with owner Chip Ganassi aboard enters victory lane. [Joe Jennings Photo]

Daytona Beach, Fla. – Driving a powerful Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Ford EcoBoost Riley, accomplished drivers Scott Dixon, Tony Kanaan, Jamie McMurray and Kyle Larson raced to victory in the 53rd running of the Rolex24 at Daytona, giving the famed team its sixth win in 12 tries.

With the six wins, the Ganassi team took over first place in Rolex24 history and chalked up its 166th overall victory.

Said Ganassi about his team’s accomplishments, “These things take a team, a team of people, great drivers and a great grouping. The last three or four hours requires the complete concentration by every single person on the team and with the engineers coming up with their game of chess.”

For IndyCar star Dixon, he, too, had an endurance day, driving more than three hours in the final stages of the long race. And he won it for the second time as did the colorful No. 02 car.

‘This is such a team event and you want to do the best for everyone on the team,” he said. “The last two days were a lot of fun. The car was very consistent and had good speed. Everybody did what they needed to do and kept the car in one piece.”

Asked about the burden of carrying the load, he added, “It’s not easy whatsoever. I feel the load just as much as any of these guys. Pressure is what you make of it. As long as you have done the best that you could, you should be happy with that.”

For Kanaan and NASCAR stars McMurray and Larson, the win was their first and McMurray joined legends A. J. Foyt and Mario Andretti as the only three to win the Rolex24 and the Daytona 500.

“Daytona has never been too nice to me, so to get a win in such a big race feels great,” Larson said, admitting he thought he embarrassed the team and himself a year ago. “I was trying to figure out an excuse to not run this race but now I’m a winner of this event.”

Added Kanaan, “As a driver, you always want to be in on the big race, the Indy 500, the Daytona 500, the 24 Hours of Daytona, the 12 Hours of Sebring. When I signed with Chip, the first question I asked him was, ‘Do I get to do the 24 Hours?’ I watched Dixon, Dario and Montoya winning this race and getting a watch. It’s been a great journey.”

“It is pretty unbelievable,” McMurray commented. “You know when you get to run this race for Chip (Ganassi) you have a chance to win it. Victory lane at Daytona is very special for us with the Daytona 500, and this is a big deal for me because these cars are so different. I’m glad to be part of this group.”

Dixon was in the car when it counted, opening the race and closing it in the final three-hour run to the checkered flag.

The winning team finished 1.3 seconds ahead of the 2014 winning Action Express Racing Corvette DP of Sebastien Bourdais, Christian Fittipaldi and Joao Barbosa. They picked up the spot in the final minutes when the then second place car of Wayne Taylor Racing yielded second place when they made a required driver change.

According to the team, they discovered that Jordan Taylor was about to exceed the rule that disallows a driver to be in a car for more than four hours in a six-hour period. Team members went out of their not to fix blame.

Ricky and Jordan Taylor and Max Angelelli ended up in third place.

The top three finishers completed 740 laps around the 3.56-mile road course.

The second Ganassi entry of Scott Pruett, Joey Hand, Sage Karam and Charlie Kimball ran smartly throughout, leading at times, until clutch problems sidelined them with 90 minutes to go.

After making extensive repairs, the car had to be withdrawn, and they ended up seventh in the Prototype class.
Pruett was looking for his sixth Rolex24 victory, which would have broken a tie with legend Hurley Haywood, but will have to wait another year to go for the record.

In the Prototype Challenge class, an ORECA FLM09 of Tom Kimber-Smith, Andrew Palmer, Andrew Novich and Mike Guasch inherited the lead and the victory in the final minutes when the lead car of Colin Braun crashed and burned. He was uninjured and his team ended up third behind another ORECA of Johnny Mowlen, Tom Papadopoulos, Tomy Drissi, Brian Alder and Martin Plowman.

According to Braun, he was taken out by a slow DP car that either didn’t see him or missed his braking. “I was in wrong place at the wrong time,” Braun said.

The GT LeMans class victory went to a Chevrolet Corvette C7.R in a squeaker over a BMW Z4 GTE. The margin of victory was a scant .478 seconds.

Driving the winning Corvette were seasoned professionals Jan Magnussen, Ryan Briscoe and Antonio Garcia.
 
The runner-up BMW was co-driven by Bill Auberlen, Dirk Werner, Augusto Farfus and Bruno Spengler.

Third in class came the second Corvette of Simon Pagenaud, Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner.

This car held the lead with three hours to go until it tangled with a Prototype, damaging the right front fender of the yellow Corvette and forcing the team to make extensive repairs.

Coming from last place, a Dodge Viper SRT Viper 10 of Ben Keating, Dominik Farnabacher, Al Carter, Kuno Wittmer and Cameron Lawrence took the win by 7.5 seconds over the Alex Job Racing Porsche 911 GT America of Cooper MacNeil, Leh Keen, Andrew Davis and Shane van Gisbergen.

All-night rain and warm Florida-like temperatures on Friday changed to sunshine and cool breezy temperatures on Saturday, conditions more favorable to racing than doing so in the wet. On Sunday, the sun shined brightly all day.

During the night, the temperature dropped to around 40 degrees, which only affected the campers, who kept warm around roaring camp fires.

As the field reached the morning hours, Barbosa held the point in the Action Express car trailed by the Wayne Taylor and the No. 02 Ganassi cars.

Around 11 a.m., the No. 4 Corvette tangled with a slower car on a restart, damaging the right-front fender and forcing Tommy Milner to the pits for repairs. As a result, Magnussen inherited the lead in the No. 3 Corvette.

Thirty minutes later, Pruett’s chances for a record sixth victory was dashed when clutch problems forced co-driver Karam to the pits. Not only did Karam lose 3 laps in the process, the team was penalized for having too many crew members over the wall.

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