10 Things We Learned at the IMSA Roar Before the 24

Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque had a technical infraction in qualifying and had to start the one hour, 40-minute race from the rear, but you can’t keep a good car and a fast pair of drivers down. Ricky Taylor took the Acura to the checkered flag but not without a full-contact attempt to pass by Richard Westbrook in the No. 5 Mustang Sampling Cadillac.

That puts Albuquerque, Taylor and co-drivers Will Stevens and Alexander Rossi on the pole.

The pair took a 20-second lead to the last lap, earning pole position for next Saturday’s race. Co-drivers for the Rolex 24 are Scott Huffaker and Nicolas Lapierre.

The Andretti Autosport No. 36 Liger dominated the relatively new class, as Jarrett Andretti, son of the late John Andretti, and Josh Burdon took a decisive win in the LMP3 class for the top starting spot in that class for the Rolex 24.

The pair won the first race for the new GT Daytona Pro class, which replaces the GT Le Mans class for 2022. Two new GT3-class cars, the converted GT Le Mans Corvettes, finished eighth and ninth, and the two new BMW M4s finished twelfth and thirteenth in the 13-car class. Expect IMSA to use the Balance of Performance to speed the BMWs up a bit.

In a GT Am field of 22 cars, drivers Russell Ward and Lucas Auer in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes AMG won by a half-second, but it was enough to put those two drivers, plus teammates Mikael Grenier and Phillip Ellis on the pole for the Rolex 24.

That came in DPi was set by sixth-place Earl Bamber in the No. 2 Cadillac with a blistering lap of 1 minute, 34.628 seconds. In LMP2, Rene Rast in the No. 68 Oreca had the fast lap of 1:35.789 after finishing third. In LMP3, Moritz Kranz set fast time of 1:43.548 in the third-place Duqueine No. 6.

Fast time in GT Daytona Am was set by Jan Heylen in the third-place No. 16 Porsche at 1:46.242, and in GT Daytona Pro, fast time came from Julian Andlauer in the No. 79 Porsche 911 with a 1:46.436 and a second-place finish. Yes, Daytona Am was faster than Daytona Pro.

Not one, not two, but six grand marshals will serve for the 60th anniversary of the Rolex 24 at Daytona. Mario Andretti, Hurley Haywood, Scott Pruett, Bobby Rahal, Jack Roush and Wayne Taylor—Rolex winners over the last six decades, will give the 61-car field the command to start engines to open the 2022 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season.

The racers have a grand total of 20 overall Rolex 24 victorieas drivers and owners. Haywood and Pruett lead the way with five overall Rolex 24 victories apiece from behind the wheel while Roush reeled off 10 straight victories as an owner. Taylor, a two-time winner as a driver in the Rolex 24, will go for an unprecedented, record fourth consecutive triumph and fifth overall as an owner in this year’s race, and his No. 10 Konica Minolta car is starting from the pole. Andretti and Rahal each have a Rolex 24 overall win as a driver.

Keating, a bronze-rated gentleman driver who is a car dealer from Texas has competed with success in the past in two classes in the 24. This year, he’s racing not only the LMP2 car in which he won the 2021 IMSA championship, but a Daytona Prototype as well. He snagged a ride in the No. 5 JDC Miller Cadillac, with co-drivers Tristan Vautier, who qualified fastest overall Saturday, along with teammates Richard Westbrook, who finished a close second on Sunday, and Loic Duval. It’s a “dream come true” for Keating, one of the best amateur drivers in sports car racing.

The LMP2 car is about one second slower on the Daytona course, but it has less power, Keating says, and must be driven with finesse. Not so the Cadillac, which has the “best traction control system I’ve ever seen,” and can be driven like a brute.

Will there be BoP-ing this week? The weekend generated tons of data for IMSA that the sanctioning body will analyze in order to try and provide a level playing field. The Balance of Performance is the big hammer IMSA uses to speed up slow cars and slow down fast cars by altering aerodynamics.

Horsepower, fuel capacity, you name it. Some brands went for it this weekend, some seemed to hold back, or “sandbag,” in hopes of getting some BoP help that may really not be needed. Stay tuned.

Racing by themselves, as they occasionally do all season, the LMP3 polesitter was none other than Memo Gidley, who was nearly killed here eight years ago when his Gainsco Corvette Prototype, leading the Rolex 24, smashed into the rear of a slowing Ferrari that didn’t pull off the track.

Gidley underwent years of surgeries and therapy, and to see him back here on top made a lot of regulars a bit misty-eyed. He and co-driver Alexander Koreiba, a rookie at Daytona, finished a solid third. The winner was Tonis Kasemets and Bruce Hamilton, and a tearful Kasemets immediately dedicated the race to a close friend who has just died back home in Estonia.