Germans hadn’t won the most important endurance race in North America for 21 years! Electrical problem in the Acura GTP “plots” Portuguese Filipe Albuquerque
Porsche hadn’t won the 24 Hours of Daytona since 2003, but this weekend Felipe Nasr, Dane Cameron, Matt Campbell, and Josef Newgarden, the drivers behind the wheel of the GTP category 963 entered by Penske Motorsport, put an end to the 21-year winning drought of the German brand in the most important endurance race in North America, winning the 62nd edition of the marathon that marks the start of the 2024 IMSA season, simultaneously ending Acura’s three consecutive successes and achieving the 19th overall victory for the German emblem.
These 24 Hours, as is usual in American races, were decided only with the checkered flag almost in sight, with Nasr & Co. prevailing over Tom Blomqvist, Jake Aitken, and Pipo Derani’s Cadillac V.Series-R by 2.112 seconds, after completing 791 laps on the 4.748 km circuit with 12 turns in Florida, United States. In 3rd position, 14.898 seconds behind the winners, Louis Delétraz, Jordan Taylor, Jenson Button, and Colton Herta finished in the Acura ARX-06 of Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti, also the team of Portuguese Filipe Albuquerque, who won this race overall in 2018 and 2012 – adding to their GT victory in 2013, in their Daytona debut.
This time, the 38-year-old driver from Coimbra, winner of the World Endurance Championship (WEC) in 2020 in LMP2, also the year of victory in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the same category, had to settle for 43rd place overall (9th in GTP), 190 laps behind the winners, after surviving many problems with the Acura ARX-06 he shared with Ricky Taylor, Brendon Hartley, and Marcus Eriksson. The Portuguese driver’s prototype started from 6th position, found itself in the lead of the race after the first hour of competition, and was running in 3rd when an electrical failure caused a very long repair that compromised the ambitions of the quartet. “We were very fast in the first few hours and even considered the possibility of fighting for the podium, but the Acura ended up stopped on the track shortly after the 8th hour with an electrical problem. Unfortunately, everything went wrong for us,” Filipe lamented.
The next race of the American endurance championship, the 12 Hours of Sebring, also in Florida, United States, will take place on March 16th. This year, Filipe Albuquerque also has a program in the European Le Mans Series (ELMS), another championship he won in 2020. The season is scheduled to begin on April 14th (4 Hours of Barcelona), with Filipe at the helm of a United Autosports Oreca 07-Gibson.
