DANES DUKE IT OUT FOR LMP2 HONOURS
LMP2 turned into a battle of the Danes at Daytona. Christian Rasmussen came out on top when he went head to head with Malthe Jakobsen to seal the class victory together with Era Motorsport team-mates Ryan Dalziel, Connor Zilisch and Dwight Merriman, and restrict Algarve Pro Racing to a second consecutive Daytona runner-up position.
The Era ORECA-GIBSON 07 and the identical Crowdstrike Racing by APR example co-driven by Colin Braun, Toby Sowery and George Kurtz were running out of synch for the final third of the race and swapping the lead back and forth on pitstops, but Rasmussen managed to establish a proper lead right at the end of the 20th hour. The Era car would stay there for all bar one lap, with the reigning Indy NXT champion holding a comfortable 13s advantage when the final safety car was called.
The disappearance of that gap with the caution wasn’t the only problem facing Rasmussen at the end. During the final stop a mechanic had somehow contrived to swipe off the right-side mirror. It wasn’t what was wanted going into a last-gasp dogfight. Jakobsen did have a look up the inside of his compatriot going into Turn 3 as the race went green. He wasn’t able to get the job done and instead ended up tipping one of the BMW LMDHS into a spin. Rasmussen, who is about to embark on a partial season of Indycar racing, never came under threat again on the way to a 6.8s victory.
Rasmussen posted an impressive performance, as did 17-year-old stock car driver Zilisch. So much so that prototype stalwart Dalziel volunteered to give up his place in the rota to allow his two young team-mates to drive the final nine stints between them.
Felipe Massa made it onto the podium in his first sportscar endurance race, taking third in the Riley Motorsports ORECA he shared with Colin Braun, Felipe Fraga and Josh Burdon. Fraga was fifth in the queue when the race went green, but was up to third inside two laps after first passing
Tom Dillmann’s Inter Europol car and then the Tower Motorsports entry driven by Scott Mclaughlin.