Wayne Taylor Racing has claimed victory in the 55th Rolex 24 at Daytona, despite controversial late-race contact between Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque with less than 10 minutes remaining in the rain-effected enduro.
Taylor took his No. 10 Cadillac DPi-V.R across the line just 0.671 seconds ahead of Albuquerque's No. 5 Action Express Racing Cadillac, after the two DPi cars collided in Turn 1 while battling for the lead with seven minutes to go.
Albuquerque's Dallara-chassied prototype spun as a result, giving way for Taylor to take the historic overall victory in the first race of IMSA's new-generation of prototype machinery.
Officials deemed no further contact on the incident.
Ricky and brother Jordan Taylor shared top honors with longtime co-driver Max Angelelli, in his final race, and NASCAR legend Jeff Gordon.
It marked the team's second Rolex 24 crown, after their 2005 win in a Riley Pontiac DP and coming up short on numerous occasions in recent years.
The late-race drama came after an equally controversial move with 36 minutes to go, which saw the sister No. 31 Action Express Cadillac of Mike Conway, who was 20 laps down, allegedly block Taylor and lose ground on a restart.
No further action was taken by IMSA on that call, which put Taylor at a nine-second deficit after the last round of pit stops until the 21st and final full course caution for the stationary No. 93 Acura NSX GT3, which set up a 20-minute dash to the checkered flag.
Albuquerque and co-drivers Joao Barbosa and Christian Fittipaldi made it a Cadillac 1-2, with the No. 90 Visit Florida Racing Riley Mk. 30 Gibson finishing a remarkable third overall, and first of the global LMP2-spec cars.
The Renger Van Der Zande, Rene Rast and Marc Goossens-driven Riley benefitted from spouts of rain throughout the night and into the morning hours, and a steady but near-flawless run.
Defending overall winners Tequila Patron ESM finished fourth with its No. 2 Nissan Onroak DPi of Scott Sharp, Ryan Dalziel and Pipo Derani, three laps behind the winning Cadillac after battling early electrical issues, a few spins and a pit lane penalty.
The No. 85 JDC-Miller Motorsports Oreca was fifth in class but a distant 13th overall, benefiting by late-race retirement for the No. 81 DragonSpeed Oreca after an accident by Ben Hanley with three hours to go.
Nearly all of the Gibson-engined LMP2 cars battled electrical issues, including the DragonSpeed entry and the No. 13 Rebellion Racing Oreca, with the pre-race favorite stopping on track in the second hour with its fly-by-wire throttle system.
The Anglo-Swiss squad returned to action before nightfall but called it quits in the closing stages.
Mazda also had a troubled debut, with the No. 55 Mazda RT24-P retiring with engine failure with four hours to go, while Spencer Pigot was running in 5th overall, and gearbox issues ultimately ending the No. 70 car's day after clutch issues.
The No. 31 Action Express Cadillac, which starred in the hands of prototype debutant Seb Morris, finished fifth in class after multiple trips to the garage, including to fix a broken toe-link after contact with a Prototype Challenge car and a malfunctioning shift panel in the 14th hour.
ESM's other entry, which led though portions overnight, crashed out of contention overnight after Brendon Hartley made contact with the No. 991 TRG Porsche 911 GT3 R of Wolf Henzler, which cost the team more than 25 laps with repairs.
The No. 22 Nissan finished 17th overall and seventh in the P class.
PC stalwarts Performance Tech Motorsports, meanwhile, broke through for its long-awaited first class victory in top-level IMSA competition.
Nick Boulle took the team's Oreca FLM09 to a 22-lap victory in the five-car class, which all suffered varying levels of issues except for the dominant class-winning entry.
It came after a near-flawless run for Boulle, James French, Pato O'Ward and Kyle Masson.
The No. 26 BAR1 Motorsports entry, spearheaded by Johnny Mowlem and Trent Hindman, came home second, ahead of the sister No. 20 car, which finished a further 17 laps back in third.
Both of the Starworks Motorsport entries retired after numerous spins and accidents, which the BAR1 entries also contributed to in a brutal final 24-hour race for the spec prototypes.
Dirk Mueller held off Patrick Pilet to win the GT Le Mans class, giving Ford Chip Ganassi Racing, the Ford GT, and this driver lineup of Mueller, Joey Hand, and Sebastien Bourdais its second major 24-hour race in the last eight months after claiming the 24 Hours of Le Mans last June.
Mueller in the pole-sitting No. 66 Ford aggressively poked his nose inside of James Calado in the No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTE to take the lead with just over 30 minutes remaining.
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The incident, which saw the two cars make contact, was reviewed by race control but no action was taken.
Pilet restarted sixth in the No. 911 Porsche 911 RSR after the last caution period but used a sequence of opportunistic moves to drive through a GTLM field that still had eight class competitors on the lead lap headed into the final restart with 20 minutes to go.
The Frenchman mounted a spirited challenge for the lead before falling back into the clutches of Calado in the waning laps, only just holding off the Prancing Horse by 0.091 seconds to secure the second spot on the podium in the mid-engined car’s debut race.
Ford controlled qualifying with the Nos. 66, 67, and 68 starting 1-2-3 in the twice-around-the-clock endurance race, but every manufacturer had a car on the lead lap in the final half hour of the race, and four different automakers made up the final top-four.
Antonio Garcia in the No. 3 Corvette Racing Corvette C7.R finished fourth, followed by the No. 69 Ford in fifth.
Trouble struck early for the No. 24 BMW M6 GTLM which pulled behind the wall in the opening hour after encountering gearbox woes and became the race’s first retirement just 15 laps into the race.
The defending class champion No. 4 Corvette crew saw their repeat bid sidetracked three and a half hours in when the car stopped on the backstretch.
The Pratt & Miller squad went to work repairing the power controller and left rear control arm but lost too much ground ultimately finishing 16 laps behind the race-winning Ford.
The No. 67 Ford also suffered a setback when Ryan Briscoe spun on the exit to the Bus Stop and backed into the wall just prior to halfway.
Briscoe drove the stricken car back to pits for repairs, but by the time it returned one hour later it had fallen out of contention and would settle for 10th in class.
Alegra Motorsports marked their return to Daytona with victory in the GT Daytona class, 10 years on from the team’s win in the 2007 race.
The No. 28 Porsche 911 GT3 R driven by Michael Christensen, Daniel Morad, Jesse Lazare, Carlos de Quesada and 17-year-old Michael de Quesada edged the No. 29 Land Motorsport Audi R8 LMS of Christopher Mies, Connor De Philippi, Jules Gounon and Jeffrey Schmidt by 0.293 seconds.
Porsche factory driver Christensen took the lead at the final round of pitstops under the 20th of 21 full course caution periods, when the Land Audi was slow to refuel.
After re-joining in fourth, Mies quickly picked his way back into second, but could not get close enough to mount a challenge on the Porsche factory driver, who only emerged as a contender for victory in the final two hours.
The Alegra Porsche had spent much of the race just off the lead lap, but took advantage of a yellow when Sam Bird’s class-leading Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 GT3 retired with two hours to go to put themselves in the frame.
Christensen charged through from sixth to second in the penultimate hour, his incisive pass on Jeroen Bleekemolen’s No. 33 Riley Team AMG Mercedes-AMG GT3 crucial in setting up the class victory.
Bleekemolen, Ben Keating, Adam Christodoulou and Mario Farnbacher led with just over an hour to go, but still finished third on the first outing for Mercedes-AMG in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Despite late issues befalling the No. 93 car of Andy Lally, the Michael Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3 enjoyed a positive competition debut, as the No. 86 car of Jeff Segal, Oz Negri, Tom Dyer and Ryan Hunter-Reay led several laps in the early morning hours and finished fifth.
Elsewhere, the eagerly-anticipated Lexus RC F GT3 had a troubled debut with the 3GT Racing squad.
Scott Pruett’s No. 14 car was the race’s first retirement following an accident in the second hour, while the No. 15 car fell out of contention with a puncture in hour nine and was eventually classified 14th.
