[h=2]IMSA Acura NSX GT3 Tech Tour[/h]

 

Daytona Rolex 24 pictures are going up here:

https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/p...ml#post9386739

 

No. 10 Cadillac team - with co-driver Jeff Gordon - wins Rolex 24 at Daytona

by Nick Bromberg,

Jeff Gordon (L), Jordan Taylor, Ricky Taylor and Max Angelelli each won their first Rolex 24 on Sunday. (Getty) Ricky Taylor’s aggressive pass with about five minutes left won the Rolex 24 for Wayne Taylor Racing at Daytona International Speedway on Sunday.
The No. 10 Cadillac driven by Taylor, brother Jordan Taylor, Max Angelelli and four-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jeff Gordon, dominated the 24-hour race. But was second to the No. 5 Action Express team driven by Filipe Albuquerque, Christian Fittipaldi and Joao Barbosa as the minutes wound down.
But Taylor slowly reeled in the No. 5, driven by Albuquerque, and dove to the inside entering turn 1 as Albuquerque left the bottom lane open. For a brief moment, anyway. As Taylor got to the inside of the No. 5, Albuquerque closed the door and the two made contact. And Albuquerque went spinning.
In-car camera view (Fox) The winning pass. Controversial? (Via Fox) The pass was reviewed by IMSA race officials and no action was taken. The inaction was perhaps karmic retribution for a maneuver Action Express pulled on the race’s next-to-last restart. Mike Conway, driving the lapped No. 31 car for the team was ahead of the No. 10 heading to the green flag as the No. 5 was leading. As the No. 5 accelerated when the green flag flew, The No. 31 conspicuously didn’t, opening up a huge gap for the Albuquerque on Taylor.
Gordon, who finished third in the 2007 Rolex 24 driving alongside Wayne Taylor, drove two stints for the team, both on Saturday. Gordon drove in the car on Saturday afternoon and then later Saturday evening as rain started to fall at Daytona.
It’s the first Rolex 24 win for Gordon and his three co-drivers. And with it, Gordon becomes part of a select group of drivers — including A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti and Jamie McMurray — to win both the Daytona 500 and Rolex 24. It’s also a fitting way for Angelelli’s career to end, as the driver had said the 2017 Rolex 24 would be his final race before retirement.
While the racing was dramatic in Prototypes for the overall win, the GT Le Mans category was the most thrilling event for the entirety of the race as Ford, Corvette, Ferrari and Porsche raced within fractions of a second of each other for significant periods of time. Dirk Mueller, driving for Chip Ganassi’s Ford GT team, won, while Porsche finished second.



Looks like to me that he spun out because he tried to cut off an overtaking car....
looked at it several times...

 

[h=2]Taylors prevail, Cadillac 1-2 in epic Rolex 24[/h] Sunday, 29 January 2017


J.J. O'Malley / Images by Marshall Pruett

Jeff Gordon added a crown jewel to his hall of fame career, joining brothers Ricky and Jordan Taylor plus Max Angelelli in giving the Cadillac Daytona Prototype international a winning debut in Sunday's 55th Rolex 24 at Daytona, the debut of the DPi in IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship competition.


"This is a dream come true for me," said Gordon, who joined Mario Andretti, A.J. Foyt and Jamie McMurry in winning the event now known as the Rolex 24 and Daytona 500. "That's quite a group. I've always dreamed of driving a beautiful, amazing car that had the technology and could handle like this. It was an amazing experience."
The victory came with a bit of controversy, with Ricky Taylor nudging his way past fellow Cadillac driver Felipe Albuquerque with less than six minutes remaining. Taylor then held on in the No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillacv DFPi-V.R, beating Albuquerque to the checkered flag by 0.671 seconds.
"We've come so close so many times, I'm speechless," said Jordan Taylor. "I'm so proud of my brother – he made it happen."
Angelelli, who oversees the Cadillac DPi program, had the fastest lap in the winning car in the final race of his career.
Albuquerque joined Joao Barbosa and Christian Fittipaldi in the No. 5 Mustang Sampling Cadillac, with Action Express Racing seeking its third Rolex 24 triumph since its debut in 2010.


"So close, but no cigar," said Fittipaldi, a two-time Rolex 24 winner. "The 10 car did an awesome job throughout the race, they had us covered under different conditions. Was it a clean pass? I don't know. It certainly will sell tickets for next year's race. Now, we'll have to turn the page and move on."
"It was a good fight, until I got hit," Albuquerque said. "I had some GT cars ahead of me so I could not brake, and I closed the door, but then he hit me in the back, I spun and he didn't even wait for me. He just took off."
IMSA officials reviewed the pass, which was ruled a racing incident.
The event was a drama in three acts. It opened with a sizzling duel up front led by the three Cadillac DPis, with the Konica Minolta battling a pair of Action Express entries. The complexion of the race changed shortly after nightfall when rain began at 8 p.m., with the precipitation not letting off until nearly 10 a.m. Then it was time for Act Three, featuring the top two Cadillacs swapping the lead back in forth for the final two-and-a-half hours right down to the checkered flag.
Visit Florida Racing ran in contention throughout the event and took third, with Marc Goossens, Renger van der Zande and Rene Rast one lap behind in the team's debut of the No. 90 Gibson-powered Riley/Multimatic. Fourth, two laps down, was 2016 event-winning Tequila Patron ESM with Scott Sharp, Ryan Dalziel, Pipo Derani and Brendon Hartley in the first race for their No. 2 Nissan DPi.
Mechanical problems struck many of the new cars. Defending WeatherTech Series champions Dane Cameron and Eric Curran, joined by Michael Conway and Seb Morris in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac DPi, ran with the leaders early in the race before spending time in the garage with suspension and electrical troubles. They placed sixth in the class, 20 laps down. The No. 55 Mazda DPi of Tristan Nunez, Jonathan Bomarito and Spencer Pigot went out late in the event following a fire in the engine compartment while running fifth. The European-based Rebellion Racing and DragonSpeed teams showed promise with their ORECAs in testing and practice, but both teams had problem-plagued races.

 

[h=2]Rolex win 'dream come true' for WTR team[/h] Sunday, 29 January 2017


Marshall Pruett / Images by Pruett, LAT

The post-race news conference for the overall winners of the Rolex 24 at Daytona revealed five characters immersed in five different realities. For team owner Wayne Taylor, a huge sense of relief was evident; after years of finishing second with his sons Ricky and Jordan behind the wheel, the boys delivered the goods for his team and sponsors.

For the Taylor brothers, a similar sense of relief was mixed with a tremendous feeling of accomplishment; the second-generation drivers, already sports car champions, filled the one entry left on an incredible CV.
And Max "the Ax" Angelelli, in his farewell sports car drive, sat doused in champagne after completing a fairytale ending to his driving career.
And then there was Jeff Gordon, the most popular – and most celebrated – person at the event. The NASCAR legend, now a Rolex 24 winner, smiled wide, laughed, and soaked in the experience of taming America's biggest endurance race after trading decades of stock car competition for the broadcast booth.
Of the five, Gordon spoke like he was the recipient of an incredible gift made possible by the Taylors and the Ax.
"I was so thankful when I got that call from Wayne earlier this year or in 2016, and he asked me if I wanted to be a part of this, and then of course told me about the Cadillac program that they were working on," said Gordon, who finished second with Taylor's Daytona Prototype team on his Rolex 24 debut in 2007.


"I just couldn't believe it. It was like a dream come true for me because I've always dreamt about driving a car, a beautiful, amazing car that could handle like this, that had the technology like this and could compete in a race like this.
"This is very surreal to me, this whole experience and moment, to have this on my résumé, it's a very elite group that's won the Daytona 500 and the Rolex 24 together. That's something I'm very, very proud of."
Ricky Taylor fought back tears as he described the impact Angelelli has had on his life – and his brother's – as the two have become two of America's brightest young talents.


"Starting off with a win here in Daytona, and then you've got Max's last race, and we've been family for 20 years now, and he's taught us everything we know," he said. "We used to have classes with Max. He used to be the Professor X, and he'd come over to our house, and we'd have a pen and paper, and he'd teach us about downforce and he'd teach us about overtaking.
"And then to finish – I mean, it was an emotional day, regardless if we won the race, to have our last race with Max. But to win was really cool."
Gordon, with the Taylor brothers as his sports car teachers, witnessed the immense talent they possess and believes they would thrive in other forms of racing.


"All I've been thinking about the whole time I've been together with these guys is how do I get them in some ovals in a bigger, heavier car?" he said, referring to NASCAR. "But I mean, to me the way you recognize talent is to know what equipment that they're in, so when you're a teammate to them and you're in the same equipment and you go out there in conditions that are very, very challenging and you know your own capabilities, and then you see them excel the way that they did, I've got to say, to me one of the highlight moments for me that I thought was a crucial moment for this race was when Jordan was on slicks and it started raining, and they stayed out.


"And when he was out there on slicks and it started getting really wet, just the fact to get that car back to pit road without wrecking, to get the wets I thought was an amazing moment. And then watching these guys just do what they did throughout the night in crazy conditions.
"So there's no doubt that that transfers over to other series, other cars. I've built enough of a bond with this group that I would love to see them get whatever opportunities were available to them out there. I mean, they've got the personality as well as the talent, and that's what you're always looking for."


After acknowledging Angelelli's amazing swan song performance, Wayne Taylor admitted he was never worried about his sons' ability to join the illustrious club of Rolex 24 winners. He even says Ricky's charging drive to snatch the win with minutes left on the clock was never a question.
"It's funny, I was telling somebody outside that the weirdest thing is as a father, people always ask me what's it like to have your kids racing because most mothers worry about the fear factor, which I never do," he said.
"And the great part I am proud of is that when they're in the car, I'm actually very relaxed because I do believe they know what they're doing, and I had no question in my mind that Ricky was not going to come home second today. There was no way he was going to do it."
Five men, at different places and stages in life, headed in new and exciting directions, forever tied together and unified by an amazing win. The power of the Rolex 24 was fully realized on Sunday.

 

Angelelli goes out a winner at Rolex 24

Sunday, 29 January 2017


J.J. O'Malley / Images by Marshall Pruett

With just over four hours remaining, Max Angelelli pitted while leading the 55th Rolex 24 at Daytona. When he stepped out of the No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R and Jordan Taylor took over, it marked the end of the 50-year-old Italian's driving career.
"I'm happy for what I achieved with the boys and finish my career with a big win," Angelelli said.


But Angelelli is far from finished in motorsports. He is Cadillac's program manager in developing the new DPi, and even though the event finished with a trip to Gatorade Victory Lane along with the Taylor brothers and NASCAR legend Jeff Gordon, Angelelli was enjoying a win-win situation with the Wayne Taylor Racing and Action Express Racing Cadillacs battling for the victory.
Following his opening stint on Saturday evening, Angelelli talked of how Cadillac's Rolex 24 preparation was paying off.
"We have started this weekend with a major advantage," Angelelli said. "We started designing and developing the car very early. We had the first Cadillac on the track in the beginning of September. After the Roar test and this weekend we have over 8,000 miles of testing. As you can see, that is paying off the Cadillac prototypes are running 1-2-3. It would mean everything to win with this new car in my last race. I would leave with a smile on my face."
While one of the three lead Cadillacs fell behind with various problems, it proved to be a 1-2 finish.


Angelelli turned in the fastest lap of the winning car, with his time of 1m36.394s just shy of Filipe Albuquerque's lap of 1m269s.

His final lap proved to be a memorable one. Leading Joao Barbosa by 12.389s, he slid midway through the damp chicane and drove through the track to get back on the banking – directly ahead of the second-place Cadillac. But "Max the Ax" was able to retain the lead.
"This was one of my most difficult races," said Angelelli, who joined Wayne Taylor in winning the 2005 Rolex 24. "I was hoping to have an easier dry race, but that did not happen. It was very difficult to keep the car on the track with the rain tires, especially late in the stint. I made a slight mistake. I was able to recover and stay in P1. My career has been a roller coaster, from a complete disaster to a lot of success. How can I describe it? It has been long and difficult."
And Angelelli's prediction proved correct. He left Daytona with a big smile on his face.

 

[h=2]No. 66 Ford GT team savors grueling Daytona Rolex 24 win[/h]

 

Slwsnowman40
IMSA Radio reported around 8am PST that the other prototypes were dialed back in terms of performance to get to the end. One of the Nissan drivers confirmed that and the other NIssan car was having a problem they couldn't find.

Based on that, I'd think it comes down to Caddy had confidence it would run for 24 hours and everyone else didn't have that level of confidence.

 

[h=2]HPD Trackside - Acura NSX GT3s at the 2017 Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona[/h] Tuesday, 31 January 2017


RACER Staff


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL_c5FHOxRI

The 24 Hours of Daytona kicked off the 2017 racing season with a test of teams and machines. The debut of the new Acura NSX GT3 increased the excitement, with Michael Shank Racing fielding two complete teams of experienced drivers.

 

Here's the entire video of the Daytona Rolex 24 Part 1 here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3XyADBUCTI



ROLEX 24: Relive the race with telecast replay

Tuesday, 31 January 2017


RACER Staff / Image by LAT
Relive all the action from the Rolex 24 At Daytona, the first race of the 2017 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season and Round 1 of the Tequila Patrón North American Endurance Cup.