You be the steward: 2017 Rolex Daytona 24, Taylor vs Albuquerque

The final hour of the 2017 Rolex 24 hours of Daytona was certainly exciting but controversial.

With about eight minutes to go, Ricky Taylor nerfed fellow Cadillac driver Felipe Albuquerque and took over the lead for the eventual win when race control declined to intervene.

Predictably, reactions were split between the "rubbings racing" group and the "rules say" crowd.

There are no perfect views of the incident but let's take a look at what we do have.

Here is the (partial) view from Ricky Taylor's car



Looks fairly clear cut from this view,  there was a tiny gap and Taylor dived in.

Now, let's look from the outside.



Less clear cut from here,  Albuquerque takes a more "normal" line and does leave a gap.

Clearly  Taylor is nowhere near being far enough along side to "own" the line and from the expression on Wayne Taylor's face I'm guessing he agreed.
On the other hand, the argument that Albuquerque did not realize Taylor was there is not that plausible either, not with the tracking radar rear view screens they all have onboard.
That you will be passed because someone is under you in turn one is not a given:



That the stewards did not want to be picking the winner is understandable:  final laps of a 24 hour race  plagued by long yellow flag periods but also marked by a "let them race" attitude from race control (an earlier almost identical contact between the leading Risi Ferrari and the winning Ford GT also went unchallenged,  as did a wonky restart by Albuquerque).    A penalty would have meant denying Wayne Taylor Racing yet another win, never mind keeping a Rolex from NASCAR's own Jeff Gordon.    Many will suspect it might have been a different decision had the roles been reversed of if different manufacturers had been involved.

But that's neither here nor there.   The last two hours of the race were a treat to watch,  GTLM had four of the five manufacturers, Ford, Ferrari, Corvette and Porsche all within 5 seconds on track.  It was anyone's race,  brilliant stuff.

Check out Patrick Pilet in the Porsche Cayman 911 RSR chasing Dirk Müller,  doing turn one defense  properly in the Ford GT

Great stuff

Horrible call robs Level 5 Ferrari of a class win at Daytona. (UPDATED)

Tommy Kendall on the Fox broadcast could not believe it, Dario Franchitti, Marco Andretti, Jeff Segal and even Tiff Needell expressed their outrage via twitter at the bogus call IMSA official made on the last lap of the 2014 Rolex 24.

Audi's Markus Winkelhock tried a low percentage  outside pass at the infield kink on the very last lap.  Anyone who ever raced could see how that was going to turn out and, predictably, the Flying Lizards Audi ran out of road at the exit.
There was no contact yet IMSA officials saw fit to assign the Level 5 Motorsport Ferrari 458 driven by Alessandro Pier Guidi (of "spin and recover at Eau Rouge" fame) a penalty for accidental contact.

The cars never touched.

One of the worst calls I have ever seen in motosport.

UPDATE:   IMSA reversed the call three hours after the end of the race, no doubt feeling the pressure and ridicule from irate fans and professionals alike.  I'm sure Level5 would have preferred to be up on the podium and Lizards, not have to give their Rolex's back.

Read about it over at Racer.com

Scary crash at Daytona (updated)

Memo Gidley, likely blinded by the setting sun at the infield kink  hits the slowed Risi Competizione Ferrari driven by Matteo Maluccelli.  
We hope for the best for both drivers.

UPDATE:

At 8:43am this morning, IMSA issued the following update on the conditions of Memo Gidley and Matteo Malucelli following their horrific incident at Daytona yesterday:

"Memo Gidley, driver of the No. 99 GAINSCO / Bob Stallings Racing Corvette DP, underwent surgical procedures on both his left arm and left leg at Halifax Health in Daytona Beach, Florida. Gidley also has an unstable fracture in his back which will require additional surgery before he can be released from the hospital. He continues to be evaluated.

Matteo Malucelli, driver of the No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 458 Italia, remained at Halifax Health overnight for further evaluation. He continues to rest comfortably. An update on his condition will be provided later today."

Meanwhile, at Daytona...

Gary Grant/ Flickr

Andy Priaulx answers our reader's questions.

Taking time off the Roar Before the 24 practice sessions at Daytona International Speedway, four time FIA touring car champion and BMW works driver Andy Priaulx answered questions from readers on the Axis Facebook page.

Andy gave us his views on racing in America,  learning tracks, simulators, insulting your race car, differences between V8 Supercars and DTM,  the mental aspects of racing and even where the Race of Champions should be held in the future.    

Ten minutes well spent for any fan and aspiring racers.

Great Show at Daytona

The final minutes of the 2013 Rolex 24 at Daytona with the proper commentary.  Grand-Am put on a hell of a show at Daytona but Speed TV sure did their best to ruin it, cutting to commercial constantly in the final phases,  I'm sure I was not the only one who felt like throwing something at the TV if I heard about rednecks one more time...

In DP there was much grumbling about the performance advantage of the Ganassi BMW Rileys,  not to mention some allegations of funny business when the 02 stopped on track, causing a yellow flag which allowed the winning 01 car to un-lap itself.

Despite some heroic driving by AJ Allmendinger, you can see from the video that, in the very final phase of the race, it was no contest, Montoya just put the hammer down and that was that.

In GT, Audi almost pulled out an incredible 1-2-3 finish but the RumBum AudiR8 ran out of gas on the final lap giving the AIM Autosport Ferrari 458 the final spot on the podium.

GT was up in the air to the final minutes, Magnus looked like they might have been able to repeat last year's win but they ran low on gas and could not attack. Earlier, the AIM and the Scuderia Corse/Michelotto Ferraris looked in control but they came together under braking into turn 1 and the Scuderia Corsa car got hit with a stop and go.

Earlier still, the #30 Momo Motorsport looked like it was in the catbird seat. Kuba Giemaziak had the GT lap record with a 1:47.983 but then, disaster on the fastest part of the track when the front left suspension came apart at 180mph. Giemaziak did well to not hit anything but their hopes for a win were dashed. Gutted for Momo and Ramez at NGT, the home of the Axis GT3 cup car, and Henrique Cisneros, Sean Edwards and Patrick Pilet.

Hard luck for the second Alex Job car, 2012 Team Axis co driver Damien Faulkner was so close... I know my friend Declan must have been close to tears!

But it was the best day ever for AJR when Portuguese DTM star Felipe Albuquerque made a final splash and go and took the win, celebrating with some great donuts.... shame drivers cannot do that in F1, who does not love a good victory donut? ( I guess they are so close to weight limist they are afraid to vaporize any rubber at all)

Albuquerque drove the AUDI Sport Customer Racing/ AJR R8 Grand-Am with fellow DTM drivers Italian Edoardo Mortara and Briton Oliver Jarvis. What a great team to be on for American Dion Von Moltke whose future looks bright.

The first ever GX winner was the Napleton Porsche Cayman in the historic Hippie Livery you know from the Cayman Interseries. They also get the award for the cleanest car after 24 hours of racing.

Behind them, playing hooky from their usual Bimmerworld gig were James Clay and Seth Thomas in the Canadian Bullet Racing Cayman. Well done guys!


DP:

1. Chip Ganassi /Felix Sabates BMW Riley. Montoya, Dixon, Kimball, Pruett, Rojas
2. Velocity WW Corvette DP. Angelilli, Hunter-Ray, J.Taylor
3. Michael Shank Racing Ford/Riley Allmendinger, Ambrose, Negri, Pew, Wilson.

GT:
1. Audi Sport Customer Racing/ AJR Audi R8. Albuquerque, Jarvis, Mortara, Von Moltke
2. Audi Sport Customer Racing/APR Motorsport LTD.UK/ Baas, Basseng, Rast, Stippler
3. AIM Autosport Team FXDD with Ferrari Ferrari 458. Assentato, Lazzaro, Longhi, Wilkins

GX:

1. Napleton Racing Porsche Cayman, Canache, Donohue, Lewis, Norman
2. Bullet Racing Porsche Cayman. Clay, O'Young, Rogers, Thomas, Thompson
3. BGB Motorsports Porsche Cayman. Davis, Eversley, Foss, Mosing, Tecce

Full Results HERE

For anyone tuning in from Portugal or Brazil,  the final minutes of the race with Portuguese commentary in after the break.

Photos by Halston Pitman. MSM

Finish the 2013 Rolex 24 at Daytona onboard the Magnus Racing Porsche

Watch live streaming video from magnusracing at livestream.com

Follow the longest 4 hours ever with Magnus Racing as they go for a second GT win in a row at Daytona

Fog over Daytona

@swelk57/twitter

A thick fog has descended over the Daytona Speedway with about 8 hours left in the 2013 Rolex 24,  the safety car is out and has bunched up the field.   At the moment leading in DP class is the  Velocity WW Corvette DP of Max Angelilli but there are five cars still on the lead lap,  Ganassi BMW, Starworks Ford, Action Express Corvette and Spirit of Daytona Corvette.

In GT there even more cars on the same lap, six to be exact.  Two Ferraris are leading at the moment, with Nick Longhi leading in the AIM Autosport 458.   in .  He's followed by the Scuderia Corsa-Michelotto 458 of Olivier Beretta, the AJR and the Rum Bum Audis and the two Porsches from Momo Motorsport and last year's winners Magnus.

Check out some pictures from yesterday evening Halston Pitman shot for us yesterday evening after the break.

Ready for Battle!

The night before the storm by Halston Pitman/MSM

Tune in for the 51st running of the Rolex 24 at Daytona at 3 PM on Speed TV and at some point on Grand-Am TV.    

Don't have much interest in DP,  just hope Montoya wins.  GT is where it's at, as far as we are concerned with huge competition between Porsche, Ferrari and Audi  slugging it out with BMW and Camaros.  

NGT being the home of the Axis cup car,  we will be cheering for the number 30 Momo Motorsport-NGT Porsche GT3.   Super strong international driver lineup with Venezuelan Henrique Cisneros, Brit Sean Edwards,  Pole Kuba Giermaziak and and Frenchman Patrick Pilet,  a last minute substitution for Jeroen Bleekemolen who will instead drive for Alex Job/Weather Tech.

Sean Edwards qualified the car third on the grid but in post race tech the car were found to have the rear wing too far back and was disqualified.  The team appealed and now rather than starting from the very back, they will start 12th.   You would think qualifying is not that important in a 24 hr race but the reality is that these races are run as 24 hour long sprints so yeah, it does matter.

We'll also keep and eye on the all Brazilian GT3 number 21  team led by Rubens Barrichello and Tony Kanaan.

Audi will also be interesting to watch, obviously the factory has put in a big effort placing top drivers in the different teams, Mortara, Biela, Rast, Stippler, Basseng...  hopefully they will more reliable than last year.

Follow Axis on Twitter for updates
Click below to view pictures by Halton Pitman / MSM  who is at Daytona with Axis credentials this week end, cool!

God that sounds awesome: a lap of Daytona with Magnus Racing

Not going to waste your time, just turn it up.

OK no, wait! I do have something to add, you may have seen Magnus' Daytona promo on a couple other web sites yesterday and perhaps you read some of the comments. Seriously there are people who either read or write sites like Jalopnik and have never read a Magnus Racing press release? Let's just say they need to catch up... like a lot of the field at the Rolex 24.

Picture every self important, grandiose, overwrought, pompous, hyper dramatic racing "clip" you've seen online, OK now imagine it directed and edited by Trey Parker and Matt Stone...

2013 Roar

AF Waltrip Ferrari 458 Italia GT

Halston Pitman was shooting for us at the "Roar Before the 24" Test session at Daytona last week,  here are some of the contenders.

Meanwhile at Daytona...

Private testing for Park Place Motorsports shot by Halston Pitman and Jake Galstad / MotorSportMedia.  

Porsche factory driver  Patrick Long will be driving the Park Place Motorsports GT3 Cup  along with our old friend Spencer Pumpelly in the 2013 Rolex 24.

Park Place (the ex- Horton Autosport team) will be battling a healthy field of TRG, Momo-NGT, Magnus and Alex Job Porsches as well as Audi R8s and Ferrari 458 Grand-Am.

Add a Corvette ZR1, a Viper, a Camaro and a Mazda RX8  to the mix and top with the best GT drivers in the world, from Edoardo Mortara to Papis, Faulkner, Bleekemolen, Lieb, Lally, Keen...just to name a very few, GT Class should be more exciting then ever at the Florida classic coming up at the end of January.

Here is a night in car from Dion Von Moltke's Audi R8

24 flat out

Finally, finally, here is TRG's film clip about the 50th anniversary Rolex 24 at Daytona.

Artfully shot by James Kirkham and YAER productions,  Axis is all over it...
if you watch carefully. I recommend hitting the fullscreen button, lower right.

In case you missed it the first time around, this may be good chance to catch our Daytona wrap with Carlos Gomez (CG),  who drove the TRG #68 with Damien Faulkner, Kevin Estre and Chris Cumming.

2012 IMSA GT3 Cup Season Starts Today!

Photo: Danny Sullivan

The 2012 IMSA GT3 Cup Challenge by Yokohama season starts today. Sophomore year for the Axis GT3 cup with Carlos Gomez moving to a new support team, NGT and building on his rookie year efforts.

Carlos is coming from his first Daytona 24 hour race and before he dives into the Porsche cup season I asked him a few questions about his experience at that other Florida classic.

The first IMSA GT3 Cup race will be green at 4:10 PM today, Thursday.  Carlos will start P10.
Race 2 is Friday at 4:45 PM.  Live timing is available HERE

Photo: James Kirkland

Axis: Daytona was your first 24 hour race, give us your impressions.

Carlos Gomez: Amazing race, and the 50th edition was the most competitive ever in the GT class. 50+ cars and 7 manufacturers with 4 real (non tube) cars . Every well known world class endurance GT racer was there. Cool to go to the Rookie Driver's meeting with Emanuele Pirro sitting right next asking questions!
It was all and a lot more than what I had anticipated

Axis: What did you do to prepare for the race?

CG: First, you have to get the fitness not be an issue, so you can easily do a double or triple stint and still be 100% fresh and concentrated by the end of the last stint. Being and avid cyclist and training for my 1st ironman this year (Ironman NYC 2012) takes care of that. So being low on body fat helps with the heat and being in shape makes the effort uneventful. Then you can race.
After that, you have to really know the track and be VERY comfortable with the car setup. not only the "right" fast racing line, but he line you will be forced to take while passing or being passed by the faster DP cars. You have to be able to back off from your ultimate pace and get to a point where you feel you are almost 100% you are not going to have any "events" on track. Shaving 2-5 tenths of a lap time is irrelevant if you spin once in a 25 lap stint. Once you loose 25 seconds recovering from a mistake you would have been better off going slower by a full comfortable second.
The rule is DON'T MAKE MISTAKES!!. You have to prepare mentally for that and driving at such pace (a lot different mentality than Sprint racing)

Also critical is to learn and master the complexity of the yellow flag procedures by Grand Am. You can make more time by acing the right free passes than by driving faster on track.
Very complicated execution on the track and you are NEVER told what to do. Its always up to you to decide to go for a wave by or the lucky dog pass.

Photo:James Boone

Axis: How does the Grand Am spec GT3 differ from your Porsche Cup car?

Free flow (faster) exhaust
more aggressive ECU mapping (more power)
bigger brakes
slightly better aero
Daytona specific gears
Cockpit adjustable swaybars
AND CRAPPY TALL and bouncy rear tires!!!

All in is 2 seconds faster a lap than a standard GT3 Cup

Axis: Talk a little about the setup compromises needed for a 24 hour race.

CG: The car has to be easy to drive for ALL drivers, and comfortable during a FULL stint with new and old tires. So although you have adjustable swaybars the balance of the 911 Cup is towards understeer. Therefore, trail braking is mandatory and critical for good lap times. Car feels slow in the infield as you have to be a lot more patient with the throttle to avoid understeer, but it pays off in lowering risk of mistakes and saving the rear tires.
If I were going for a Quali setup I would have made the car "looser" and more reactive on the front end.

Photo: James Kirkland

Axis: There was a new spec tire for the race, discuss the differences between the Continental and the Yokohama (and Michelin) slicks

CG: Michelin: Best tire and custom made to match the Cup Car
Yokohama: almost as fast as the Michelin but the feel is not as good (more movement, less confidence)
Grand Am tire: SUCKS!!! but its consistently a sucker through its wear on the car, so that makes it good for endurance racing (doesn't slow down too much towards the end of its life)

Axis: Night driving....discuss!

CG: Not an issue at all in Daytona. Only hard thing about is to gage the distance of cars coming from behind, but that's what spotters are there for.

Axis: what lessons did you learn at the 24 that you will take to the upcoming IMSA Challenge season

CG: Don't crash the car before qualifying? LOL!!
I actually feel that I need to forget a lot of stuff that's critical for a 24 hr race where you share the car with team mates, through it out the window, so I can be 110% on the aggression scale for IMSA GT3 sprint races.

Axis: Will you do it again?

CG: Yes, definitively, but 1st I have to do the "other" iconic 24hr races before repeating Daytona.

Adventures in Motorsport: Duct Tape

Mark Donohue was at the wheel of this Penske Ferrari 512M and had a good chance to win at Daytona in 1971.
Unfortunately in the middle of the night Donohue slowed to avoid hitting Vic Elford who had just blown a tire on the high banks. Right behind Donohue was a Porsche 911 that didn't slow in time and struck the Donohue car which then hit the wall.

Donohue managed to make it back into the pits and the body was literally put back together using a couple of rolls of duct tape. The car finished third behind the winning Gulf Porsche 917K and a NART Ferrari 512S. DIS photo courtesy of the Ormond Beach Memorial Museum.

Photo caption by "Nigel Smuckatelli"

By the way, every reader of Axis, if they haven't already, should read Mark Donohue's "The Unfair Advantage". Thank us later! .

Be Leh Keen for 5 minutes

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86,400 Seconds Later

Some understand how motorsports can be shared in new ways and with a cool eye. James Kirkham is one and I'm not just saying it because he's working at TRG, "our" team.

Check out these pictures of battle scarred 911 GT3s, anything but fresh after 86,400 seconds of racing in the 2012 Rolex 24 at Daytona.

James and the team from yaer are working on a proper video clip from the race. Can't wait.





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Sunset

Rolex 24 at Daytona - TRG / Axis of Oversteer Porsche 911 GT3 by James Boone

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Rolex 24 at Daytona: Battle Axis 68 makes it to the end!

The TRG / Axis of Oversteer car driven by Chris Cummin, Kevin Estre, Damien Faulkner, Carlos Gomez and Ben Keating crossed the finish line at the 50th edition of the Rolex 24 at Daytona in twenty fourth position in class.

The team completed 640 laps and after starting on the last row and managing to make its way up to as far as 8th place had second gear fail in the middle of the night. Second gear is crucial at Daytona and from then on the race became an excersize in damage control. Unfortunately Sunday morning the gearbox on the Porsche GT3 let go and had to be swapped for a new one.

The TRG mechanics put in another stellar effort to get the guys back on track and in a position to cross the finish line even after the car was punted by one of the McDreamy/Dempsey Racing Mazdas with about an hour and a half to go.



The GT class was won by Magnus Racing in the 44 Porsche of Andy Lally, Richard Lietz, John Potter and Rene Rast from the TRG / Sargent & Lundy GT3 of Steve Bertheau, Jeroen Bleekemolen, Marc Goosens, Wolf Henzler and Spencer Pumpelly.

Don't miss our giant high resolution photo gallery, after the jump...

Rolex 24 at Daytona: Morning report

The TRG/Axis of Oversteer 68 lost second gear overnight and the guys have had to struggle. Unfortunately, second is key in the 911 at Daytona in turns 1, 3, 5 and 6. Not having it is at least a 2 second per lap penalty.

As of now 68 is in 12th place, one lap down from 11th. Damien Faulkner is in the car.

TRG's number 67 car is currently leading GT with Marc Goosens at the wheel.




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