It's a new year, and the 2018 racing season officially begins this weekend at Daytona International Speedway for the 56th Annual Rolex 24 at Daytona. The twice-around-the-clock event attracts sports car drivers, IndyCar drivers, Formula 1 racers and even NASCAR stars. This year's field is definitely bigger than ever, with good reasons. 3 classes, 55 entries, lots of sprint racing. Even though it's a 24 hour "endurance" race, it's pretty much a sprint race because the competition keeps getting stronger year after year. Here's the preview...
PROTOTYPE (P)
The Prototype category which deals with the fastest cars in the event, has a 20-car field in this year's race. Current series champions Wayne Taylor Racing features Jordan Taylor and newcomer Renger van der Zande, along with IndyCar driver Ryan Hunter-Reay, will try to defend the title, but they will have to outduel the Acura Penske programs. Penske Racing will field 2 entries this season. In the 6 car, the drivers are Juan Pablo Montoya & Dane Cameron driving full-time with IndyCar champion Simon Pagenaud joining for the enduro races. In the 7 car, legendary IndyCar driver Helio Castroneves makes the move to sportscar racing this year, pairing with current IMSA champion Ricky Taylor for the season, and IndyCar driver Graham Rahal for the enduro races. With Castroneves & Montoya joining the series full-time, they are definitely drivers to watch out for this season. However, they aren't the only big name drivers taking part in this weekend's race. Former Formula 1 champion Fernando Alonso will make his IMSA debut in a one-off race for United Motorsports. Don't forget about Action Express Racing, Extreme Speed Motorsports and even the newly-ravamped Spirit of Daytona Racing camps as well in this category.
GRAND TOURING LE MANS (GTLM)
The GTLM Category will feature battles all race long between Corvette Racing, Ford Chip Ganassi Racing, BMW Team RLL & Porsche GT Team, all of them have 2 entries each. All of these teams are strong, and definitely are the 2nd most competitive category in the race. Drivers in this group include Jan Magnussen (Corvette), Scott Dixon, Ryan Briscoe, Sebastien Bourdais, Richard Westbrook & Joey Hand (Ganassi), John Edwards, Alexander Sims, Bill Auberlen and Jesse Krohn (BMW) and Patrick Pilet, Nick Tandy, Laurens Vanthoor & Earl Bamber (Porsche).
GRAND TOURING DAYTONA (GTD)
The largest field in the race comes from the GTD category. Scott Pruett, in his final race before retirement, headlines this field, driving for 3GT Racing, joining Jack Hawksworth, Bruno Junqueira and Kyle Marcelli. Manufacturers in this field include Acura, Lexus, Lamborghini, Audi, Ferrari & Mercedes. Definitely a competitive group.
Should be a fun one for sure.
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