Porsche Kicks off 2024 Season With Win at 24 Hours of Daytona

Goal Achieved

Porsche and endurance racing have long held a special relationship, with the former enjoying tremendous success in the latter. Thus, the automaker was clearly looking forward to continuing that success in 2024 with this past weekend's 24 Hours of Daytona season kickoff. There, Porsche fielded a total of nine different cars with its sights set on the ultimate prize - an overall victory - and it achieved precisely that. 

Photos: Porsche

Continued Success

For the second time, Porsche brought out two of its hybrid prototype 963 racers for this specific event, both of which compete as part of the Porsche Penske Motorsport factory squad. At Daytona - an event that began back in 1959 - Porsche had previously enjoyed tremendous success, historically speaking, racking up 80 class wins and 18 overall victories as a constructor and four as an engine partner.

Photos: Porsche

Fighting Them Off

That success continued this year as Felipe Nasr from Brazil managed to take home a win in the GTD class at the 24 Hours of Daytona, all while the Porsche team held off Cadillac for the most part, which remained several seconds behind throughout the night. With a few hours left in the race, the number 31 Caddy actually managed to gain the lead for a while, however. 

Photos: Porsche

Many Mishaps

While Porsche was enjoying a streak of luck, other manufacturers couldn't say the same. One of Acura's ARX-06 racers was forced to retire, while the the No. 12 Lexus RCF GT3 caught on fire leaving the pits. Once racing resumed with just under a half hour to go, this led to quite the battle between Nasr and Blomqvist, who drove the No. 31 Cadillac.

Photos: Porsche

Long Time Coming

Despite his best efforts, Blomqvist managed to get within 0.550 seconds from the race-leading Porsche, but just couldn't quite close that gap. For Porsche and Penske, it's a historic win for a number of reasons, aside from the fact that the brand remains the winningest at the long-running event. In fact, it marks Roger Penske's first win at Daytona in 55 years. 

Photos: Porsche

Tasting Victory

“It’s incredible to think we pulled that one off,” Nasr said after the race, which marks Porsche's 23rd win at Daytona. As for Team Penske, it's been a while since they tasted success there after previously claiming victory in the 1966 GT/GTO class and taking home an overall win in 1969, courtesy of Mark Donohue and Chuck Parsons in their Lola T-70/Chevrolet.

Photos: Porsche

Big Win

“When you think about 1969, when we won here with a Lola, things were a lot different in those days,” Penske said. “Just to see the competitiveness, where six or seven-tenths of a second was the difference after 24 hours of racing, it’s unbelievable. I’ll tell you, this goes down as one of the biggest wins we’ve had.”

Photos: Porsche

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