Extreme Speed’s Honda-Powered LMP2 Wins 24 Hours of Daytona

The 54^th running of the 24 Hours of Daytona was filled with excitement across all four of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Racing Championship’s classes. All eyes were on the new Ford GT for its racing debut, but, unfortunately, things didn’t work out as planned for the reborn sports car and team Ganassi. But even without a Ford in the winners circle, the 2016 Rolex 24 at Daytona had its fair share of great moments.

The Honda HPD Ligier JS P2 of Extreme Speed Motorsports won the race overall, driven to the finish line by 22-year-old Brazilian rookie Pipo Derani. He shares the victory with co-drivers Scott Sharp, Johannes van Overbeek, and Ed Brown. The Honda’s win marks the first time a prototype that follows the LMP2 formula has won Daytona. It also marks a bittersweet end for the Daytona Prototype era, as that formula is being phased out next year in favor of a unified prototype spec. The Chevrolet Corvette DP of Wayne Taylor Racing finished second overall, 26 seconds behind the Honda.

Though all the pre-race buzz was focused on the two Ford GTs of Chip Ganassi Racing, those cars proved to have teething issues early on. Gearbox and electronics problems forced them into the garage, costing the two GTLM-class cars precious laps. Though both cars finished the race, they were each down more than 175 laps from the winning Corvette C7.Rs. Those cars, now with two Rolex 24s under their belt, performed reliably for the entire race. After almost 24 hours, Corvette Racing sat in positions 1 and 2. You might think that the team would want to play it safe and simply maintain position until the chequered flag, but team boss Doug Fehan gave the go-ahead to race all the way to the finish. The result was an exciting battle for first among teammates in identical cars. Ultimately though, it was the number 4 C7.R of Oliver Gavin, Tommy Milner, and Marcel Fassler that finished first, with the number 3 Corvette of Jan Magnussen, Mike Rockenfeller, and Antonio Garcia only half a second behind.

The Magnus Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 took home the win in the GTD class, followed by the Black Swan Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R and Riley Motorsports Dodge Viper GT3-R. For its inaugural IMSA race, the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 was a strong competitor, with the number 28 Huracan of Konrad Motorsport qualifying second in GTD and finishing the race fifth in class.

We’ll continue to follow the Ford GT’s progress in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and FIA World Endurance Championship leading up to the main event in Le Mans. Clearly, it will be up against some stiff competition.

Source: IMSA

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