Sometimes, not even 24 hours of racing are enough to decide who will win a race. Case in point is the 2023 edition of the 24 Hours of Daytona and the battle for the win in GTD class competition.
Over the course of the final hours, the GTD class lead changed hands between the No. 393 Mercedes AMG GT3 of MAD Sim Racing and the No. 67 Porsche of Kinetic Racing multiple times.
On the final lap, the two cars entered turn one, side by side and made contact with Patrick Fogel in the Sim Racing machine pulling ahead. But 2022 series champion Aedan Campbell did not give up and was able to pull within a couple of car lengths again by the time the two exited the bus stop chicane, setting up a race to the finish line.
Coming out of turn twelve, Fogel saw Campbell getting a run in the slipstream and tried to stay ahead, as the Kinetic Racing Porsche moved to the outside and used the momentum to move ahead by 0.041 seconds at the line, in an incredible photo finish for the ages, that wowed fans and competitors alike.
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| The No. 151 World Of SimRacing Team BMW by way of a very clean race, scored the second-most championship points at Daytona, despite finishing in third place - © 2023 VSCAracing.com / Benjamin Fischer |
“That’s got to be the best finish to a 24-hour race I’ve seen in a while. I can’t remember the last time we got a close finish like this. This was legendary stuff. Unbelievable.”, said a race fan.
For Kinetic Racing, it was race win number three in the VSCA SportsCar Championship after winning at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park and Road America last season.
For MAD Sim Racing, the bitter disappointment of coming within half a car length of winning the biggest race of the year, was softened by the fact the team put on an incredible drive in their series debut.
“We’ve come here, looking to get off to a good start in this series and for 2023 and we achieved that. Still, it pretty much sucks to come this close and not be able to get the win. Congratulations to the 67 guys. They drove a heck of a race.”, Fogel said.
Arriving at Daytona's victory lane, race winner Aedan Campbell had this to say: “I don’t know if I’ve ever been this nervous in a race car on a final lap. We knew we had the car and the speed to get the win. But the 393 made it tough on us; credit to them. I almost lost it in turn one on the final lap, but when I saw that I could get close by the time we got to the bus stop, I knew we’d have one more shot coming to the line, simply because the slipstream is so huge here.”
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| One of the biggest success stories in the 24 Hours of Daytona was the No. 974 Ferrari of Nerd Herd Racing, who earned a strong third-place finish in the event - © 2023 VSCAracing.com / Benjamin Fischer |
Leading the race as late as ten laps to go, the No. 974 Ferrari of Nerd Herd Racing claimed third place in the race, marking a huge accomplishment in the team’s first start in the series as the lone representative of the pouncing horse on the series grid and a lineup made up entirely of Bronze drivers.
World Of SimRacing Team and their No. 151 BMW M4 GT3 finished fourth, as the last car on the lead lap. Thanks to an incredibly low number of on-track incidents, the Spanish team scored the second-most championship points in the race.
In their best-ever result, Real Pixel Motorsport and drivers Wolfgang Wildenauer, Ronald Gross and Jan-Philipp Wied rounded out the top-five, by claiming fifth place in their No. 312 BMW M4 GT3.
In total the series saw four different manufacturers placed in the top-five of the GTD class at Daytona, with only Lamborghini missing out.
Screeching Moose Motorsports, another new team on the grid for the 2023 season, earned sixth-place honors. Their No. 5 Mercedes AMG GT3 finished seven laps down from the leaders.
The best Lamborghini Huracán GT3 in the field followed in seventh position by way of the No. 111 HAC Racing machine with drivers Christopher Demay, Jack Stawowczyk and team owner Richard Franke.
Three more series newcomers, the No. 33 BMW of Demon Tweeks eSports, No. 221 Lamborghini of Olympus eSports and the No. 127 Mercedes of EastSide Motorsport rounded out the top-ten finishers in GTD.
Adversity strikes several big-name teams
The 24 Hours of Daytona was slowed by ten full-course caution periods and saw several “big-name” teams involved in major incidents.
Torque Freak Racing, who have changed from Porsche to Lamborghini for the 2023 season, saw their No. 6 car wrap up Daytona with a disappointing P16 finish, no less than 30 laps down from the leaders.
Fischer Motorsport saw both its Porsche 911 GT3 R crash multiple times as neither team was in contention for the win, aside from the No. 85 machine and driver Niklas Solle leading some laps during the opening hour of the race.
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| During the night hours, Off in the Esses Racing's No. 83 BMW suffered a devastaging crash in the bus stop chicane - © 2023 VSCAracing.com / Benjamin Fischer |
At the end of the race, the two cars finished P11 and P14, with the No. 84 Porsche later on also receiving a one lap post-race penalty.
The No. 29 car of Firestorm Motorsport, who transitioned from Audi to Porsche over the offseason, also had a nightmare of a race, finishing 35 laps down in P18. The team’s biggest incident occurred in turn five with just over 40 minutes remaining in the race, involving the No. 1 BMW LMDh of Element SimRacing.
The two cars made contact and the Firestorm Motorsport machine suffered a heavy impact into the tire barriers going into turn six, resulting in huge damage to the race car - a sight all too familiar for many teams in this year’s edition of the season opener, that was marred by a lot of attrition.
Leading four laps early in the event, the No. 396 Fach Auto Tech eSport Porsche team was another one that saw its hopes falter eventually, after finding trouble. At the end it was a P20 finish for the team from Switzerland.
Champion Motorsports and their No. 78 BMW M4 GT3 with drivers David Anderson, Marc Johnson, Brett Stephens, Marc Nistor and Brian Blanchette finished the race in P12, 21 laps down.
For the oldest team organization competing in VSCA - Champion Motorsports was founded in 1999 - it was a significant improvement from a P24 finish in last year’s 24 Hours of Daytona. At the same time however, Daytona marked the fourth time in the last five races the No. 78 BMW M4 GT3 team failed to crack the top ten.
“We had a tough race. But we never gave up. Considering everything that went on in the race, with the incidents and the caution periods, we could have done a lot worse than P12. So this is somewhat of a case of damage control. We’ll attack again at Sebring.”, team owner David Anderson said.
Another veteran team in the series, the No. 16 Dangler Performance Mercedes AMG GT3 with drivers Theo Taylor, Paul Romaninsky, Mark Romaninsky, Jonathon Herickhoff and Marvin Bode claimed 13th place.
The team, which rebranded from Resolve Racing to Dangler Performance over the course of the offseason, completed 720 laps in total but ultimately saw a better finish slip away following a crash that required lengthy repairs.
MoneyHouse Racing and their No. 32 BMW M4 GT3 entry with drivers Austen Storey, Alex Prinsen, Paul Cocks, Nicholas Breidenbach and Alexandra Butters rounded out the top-15 in GTD class competition, crossing the line after 715 laps.
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| Not once, not twice but three times the No. 9 Grizzly Motorsports BMW suffered a devastaging crash in the bus stop chicane, en route to a disappointing P22 finish - © 2023 VSCAracing.com / Benjamin Fischer |
Two laps behind, was the No. 119 Trading Paints Racing Team Lamborghini, bringing home a P17 finish. The team based out of Allentown, Pennsylvania suffered damage during the night hours during an incident involving the No. 84 Porsche of Fischer Motorsport and driver Manuel Mayer, when the two cars collided coming to the tri oval.
Off in the Esses Racing - formerly Disco Motorsports - and their No. 83 BMW M4 GT3 finished the race in P19, 39 laps down after driver Matthew Elya lost control into the bus stop in the fifth hour of the race. The team spent nearly a half hour in the garage on extensive repairs following the incident, losing a lot of time.
HAC Racing’s second GTD class entry, the No. 112 Lamborghini with drivers Blane Erwin, Carl Giangrande and Matt Olmstead suffered a broken rear axle on lap three after a collision with the No. 88 LMDh car of DS Racing eSports Team that required nearly 15 minutes of repair, putting a hefty dent in the team’s hopes for a good result early.
Still, the team returned to the track hoping to make up lost ground through some full-course yellows. But in the sixth hour of the race, Erwin lost control on the grass heading into turn seven and hit the barriers hard, resulting in more repairs for the team once again.
The No. 9 Grizzly Motorsports BMW M4 GT3 ended up as the final scored car in class at P22, 119 laps down from eventual race winners Kinetic Racing, following major crashes at the bus stop chicane a little after 15 hours, just before the 18-hour mark and after the 19-hour mark, that cost the team 49 laps and nearly two hours of repair time.
On lap 625, with just over two hours remaining in the event, driver Rocco Procaccini brought the No. 9 BMW back to the pits and the team retired from the race, having completed the required 70% lap distance to score championship points.
Failing to score points were the No. 94 BMW of Full Send Racing (formerly FASTR eSports) who failed to meet the minimum 70% laps completed requirement and the No. 4 BMW of Delta Racing from Brazil, who were disqualified on grounds of an infraction of the driver rating requirements for the series.
Championship standings after Daytona
Despite winning the 24 Hours of Daytona, the No. 67 Kinetic Racing Porsche does not lead the championship standings. Instead, on account of a higher number of incident points in the race, the 2022 series champions sit fourth in the standings, with a 40-point gap to first.
MAD Sim Racing’s No. 393 Mercedes, who finished second, is leading the championship points at 431 points total, with the No. 151 BMW of World Of SimRacing Team in second, 21 points back.
Nerd Herd Racing and their No. 974 Ferrari team started off the season strong with holding third place in the championship with a margin of 38 points.
Screeching Moose Motorsports and their No. 5 Mercedes sits fifth in points, with a gap of 63 points to first.
Endurance Cup standings after Daytona
In the Endurance Cup championship, that includes the races at Daytona, Sebring, Watkins Glen and Road Atlanta, Kinetic Racing’s No. 67 Porsche leads with a perfect score of 20 points at Daytona, while the No. 393 MAD Sim Racing Mercedes trails in second by five points.
The next championship round of the VSCA SportsCar Championship, the 12 Hours of Sebring, takes place on March 25th at Sebring International Raceway.
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