Detroit at Daytona: Penske wins, Cadillac second, Ford vs. Vette, Pitt films
Posted by Talbot Payne on January 29, 2024
Daytona Beach — Roger Penske won his second Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona on Sunday, leading a Motor City onslaught on the Super Bowl of American sportscar racing.
Team Penske’s #7 Porsche 963 GTP racer beat the #31 Whelan Cadillac GTP of Ganassi Racing to the line by just two seconds after 24 hours of nail-biting racing, with the two top dogs swapping the lead multiple times.
2024 Rolex 24 Horus of Daytona had it all from 11 automakers, Mustang vs. Corvette battle, a record nine female drivers and 15 IndyCar drivers; even Brad Pitt was there in a racing suit shooting a movie.
Victory: #7: Porsche Penske Motorsports, Porsche 963, GTP: Matt Campbell, Felipe Nasr, Dane Cameron, Josef Newgarden, podium. Courtesy of IMSA. Michael L. Levitt, LAT Images
The Rolex 24 set an attendance record, with the biggest crowd in its 62-year history. Here are the highlights:
Penske leads the D in the D. The last time “The Captain,” 86, won a Daytona 24-Hour race was in 1969 when he was just 32 years old.
Emotional after the race, he was nonetheless typically understated. “This was a good win for us, now we have to go win Le Mans.” Le Mans, in the heart of France, is the world’s most prestigious endurance race and one of the rare baubles not in Penske’s trophy case.
For Porsche, it was the 19th time they’ve been atop the Role 24 podium, a record. That number equals the number of wins Penske has at the Indy 500. Josef Newgarden, the IndyCar ace who won his first Indy 500 last year for Bloomfield Hills-based Team Penske, was on the four-man team that won the Daytona 24 Hour. Dane Cameron, Matt Campbell and Felipe Nasir rounded out the lineup, with the latter bringing the red-and-white Porsche across the finish line after a sterling duel with Cadillac driver Tom Blomqvist, who won the race a year ago for Acura.

The Captain in Victory Circle: #7: Porsche Penske Motorsports, Porsche 963, GTP: Matt Campbell, Felipe Nasr, Dane Cameron, Josef Newgarden, podium, Roger Penske, NBC. Courtesy of IMSA Michael L. Levitt, LAT Images
“To see Roger in tears, this means a lot. It’s very special, and congratulations to Porsche, it was a team effort,” said Newgarden, one of 15 IndyCar drivers in the highly competitive 59-car field.
The Porsche Penske win was hard-earned over the #31 Cadillac that Pipo Derani had put on the pole, smashing the track record by two seconds. Porsche entered four GTP prototype cars in the contest — two from Team Penske — but it was the #7 that kept up with the Caddy’s torrid pace from the start. The two hybrid-V8-powered machines never ran into serious reliability problems — even as their BMW and Acura competitors struggled with bugs.
Ford vs. Corvette. Detroit’s two most famous muscle cars squared off in the GT class for the first time with all-new GT3 cars that the brands now offer for sale to customer racing teams across the globe. Corvette fielded two factory-backed teams managed by New Hudson’s Pratt & Miller, plus two private entries from AWA. Mustang fielded two factory Ford Performance teams and one private entry from Proton Competition.

Ford Mustang at Rolex 24. #64: Ford Multimatic Motorsports, Ford Mustang GT3, GTD PRO: Harry Tincknell, Mike Rockenfeller, Christopher Mies, pit stop. Courtesy of IMSA Michael L. Levitt, LAT Images
In anticipation of the Detroit face-off, the Rolex 24’s official T-shirt featured the Mustang and Corvette.
The Mustangs qualified well down in the field, but it didn’t take long for them to find race pace with the #65 car at the hands of veteran Joey Hand spearing through the field of Lamborghinis, Porsches and Ferraris early on. Four hours into the race at sunset, the GT competition was a Detroit shootout with the #65 Mustang running first and the Pratt & Miller Corvettes just seconds behind in third and fourth.

Corvette at Rolex 24. #4: Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports, Corvette Z06 GT3.R, GTD PRO: Tommy Milner, Nicky Catsburg, Earl Bamber, pit stop. Courtesy of IMSA Michael L. Levitt, LAT Images
Alas, the night would not be kind to the Motown muscle entrants. One of the Corvettes punted the sister #64 Ford Performance Mustang while under caution, sending it careening into the Proton Mustang, forcing the latter to retire with heavy damage. The #64 soldiered on, but many laps down. Before noon on Sunday, mechanical issues had befallen all of the Detroit GT competitors, with the #65 Mustang and both AWA Corvettes joining the Proton Mustang behind the wall.
The #3 Corvette finished fifth in class, the #64 Mustang sixth and the #3 Corvette eighth.
Brad Pitt. The American heartthrob has been a fixture in Daytona Beach for the last two weeks, shooting scenes for his new racing movie, tentatively titled “Apex.” On Saturday night, he was in pit lane, filming footage. Pitt’s character is reportedly a veteran sportscar racer coaching an up-and-coming Formula One driver. Pitt attracted plenty of attention along pit lane, but so did Patrick Long (the legendary, ex-Penske Porsche racer who won Daytona in 2009 and is featured in the film) and Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who has produced classics like “Top Gun, “Flashdance” and “Pirates of the Caribbean.”
The movie crew also had cameras in the #120 Porsche GT entry and a paddock garage full of movie cars in similar livery.

Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona: Brad Pitt (in driver’s suit) filming in the pits. Henry Payne, The Detroit News
Funky trunk. Racing programs are key to technology transfer as production vehicles learn from the abuse race cars take over 24 hours of motor racing at the limit. But the Mustang GT3 could learn from the production Mustang on keeping its trunk shut.
Both Ford Mustang Performance factory cars had to take early pit stops after their rear bonnets shredded. Faulty rear pins were to blame.
Cadillac thunder. “I’m an audio geek,” said General Motors Co.’s director of performance and racing propulsion, Russell O’Blenes, and the Cadillac GTP car was proof. The 5.0-liter overhead-cam 670-horsepower beast could be heard all around the Daytona tri-oval, and that’s by design. Even as it revved to 8,800 rpm like a Ferrari, the big bopper had the low baritone of a classic GM V-8.

Record crowds at Rolex 24 Daytona swarm the grid. Henry Payne, The Detroit News
“We want the race car to have as close a correlation to the customer as possible,” he said as the Caddy thundered by on Daytona’s high banking. “And the customer passion for V-8s is incredible.”
“He doesn’t sleep.” So said Porsche Motorsport chief Urs Kuratle of the ageless Roger Penske when Porsche Penske first partnered last year at Daytona. The 86-year-old is renowned in the IMSA paddock for being awake for the entire 24-hour race in the team’s paddock command center. “The man is a national treasure,” smiled veteran AP racing correspondent Jenna Fryer.
The Super Bowl (of racing). Daytona International Speedway’s mile-long main grandstand and stadium would make the NFL proud. Built in 1958 for $15 million, the 10-story, 100,000-seat structure was renovated 10 years ago for $400 million with state-of-the-art corporate suites and tech.

The checkered flag. #7: Porsche Penske Motorsports, Porsche 963, GTP: Matt Campbell, Felipe Nasr, Dane Cameron, Josef Newgarden, Checkered Flag. Courtesy of IMSA Michael L. Levitt, LAT Images
On the seventh floor, a massive data system crunches nine terabytes of data during the Rolex 24, monitoring everything from the 59-car entry’s tire pressures to engine torque to make sure the racing is fair.
Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or @HenryEPayne.