2020 Rolex 24 at Daytona: The Live Blog
1:30 PM, Saturday: These are strange times in sports car racing. For the first time in what feels like many years, more manufacturers have left the sport than have joined, and the far-away introduction of new top-level classes of competition in both the US and Europe (Not to mention their just-announced plan for convergence) have left both the top category of IMSA racing and the FIA World Endurance Championship in something of a lame duck era. This means major changes on the horizon, but, in the short term, it means American sports car racing is smaller and closer than it had been since Grand-Am and the American Le Mans Series merged under NASCAR's control.
In the top-flight DPi class, the one that traditionally wins this race overall, that means a short field of just 8 cars from three manufacturers. With the end of CORE Autosport's long-time prototype program, Nissan is out of the series, leaving just Mazda, Acura, and Cadillac. However, all three marques have been competitive with one another throughout practice and qualifying, and the #77 Joest Mazda's pole time of 1:33.7 is just half a second ahead of the fastest Penske Acura (The #6) and the fastest Cadillac (The #31 of the Action Express-run Whelen Engineering Racing). The story of the pre-race sessions, however, was the #7 Acura, which driver Ricky Taylor crashed during qualifying and will start behind all other Prototypes. Penske Racing was able to get that car back onto the track before the end of that day's last session, and it ran laps in anger on Friday with no issue, but drivers Taylor, Juan Pablo Montoya, and Alexander Rossi will start well behind their expected spot on the front row.
LMP2, meanwhile, is entering something of a banner year as an IMSA class. The category that spent all of 2019 as a two-car group that never had a race decided by less than a minute of time on track has suddenly swelled to four competitive entries, all ORECAs. The #52 of PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports will start from pole.
GTLM has seen its own decrease in car count, a direct result of the end of Chip Ganassi Racing's Ford GT program. Without the team that had traditionally been among the fastest at Daytona, Porsche's factory 911s were able to lock out the front row, with the #911 leading the #912. The debuting Corvette C8.R, the first-ever mid-engined Corvette GT car, will start 3rd and 4th, ahead of the third-row lock of the "big" BMW M8 GTEs and the lone Risi Competizione Ferrari.
GTD, the GT3-based class for pro-am lineups, was led in qualifying by stalwarts Pfaff Motorsports, Scuderia Corsa, Michael Shank Racing, and Turner Motorsports, in a Porsche, a Ferrari 488, an Acura NSX, and a BMW M6, respectively. All four of those teams were every-race contenders throughout last season, a worrying sign for the other fourteen cars in the overstuffed class that also features Aston Martin Vantages, Lamborghini Huracans, Mercedes-AMG GTs, and, most vexingly, a Lexus RC-F co-driven by reigning NASCAR champion Kyle Busch.
Full qualifying results can be found here. The race will begin at 10:50 local time, and, naturally, finish at the same time.
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