Corvette Daytona Prototypes once again set the fastest times in the final day of the Rolex Roar Before the 24 test weekend at Daytona International Speedway Sunday.
Sixty cars turned out to practice for the upcoming 50th Anniversary Grand Am Rolex 24-hour race (and 57 more for the Continental Tire Sports car Challenge practice,) giving fans a first look at the kind of action they might see race weekend.
The top five spots were taken by cars wearing the new Corvette bodywork, but not by a huge margin: the sixth-place car was less than six-tenths of a second behind the second-place car.
Fastest lap of the two sessions—by four-tenths of a second—was set by Max Angellei in the No. 10 SunTrust car he shares with Ricky Taylor and IndyCar star Ryan Briscoe, getting around Daytona’s road course in 1:41.142 at 126.712 mph. The No. 99 Corvette Riley of Gainsco/Stallings and the three Corvette Coyotes of Action Express and Spirit of Daytona filled out the top five.
Michael Shank Racing’s pair of Riley Fords led the non-Corvette brigade.
Absent from the sessions was the multiple-championship-winning No. 01 Telmex-Ganassi Riley BMW, which got caught in an accident during night practice Saturday.
Max Angelelli told Grand-Am.com how he beat the field by such a large margin.
“Speed is not really important in this test; we wanted to have everything ready to make sure it was prepared for the race. We did go out for one fast run. We trimmed the car down, took away downforce, put on new tires and then I was able to run an absolutely clean lap. It was like a qualifying lap—we put everything we had on the table.”
Ferrari vs. Porsche in GT
A Ferrari topped the GT time charts, as on Saturday, but Sunday the Porsches were close behind.
Scott Sharp in the No. 03 Extreme Speed Motorsports Ferrari 458 turned in a lap of 1:49.337 at 117.215, just .086 seconds ahead of the No. 23 Alex Job Porsche GT3. Five more Porsches filled out the top ten. Only the AF—Waltrip Ferrari in sixth and the Autohaus and Stevenson Camaros in eighth and ninth stopped pure Porsche domination.
The 2011 Rolex 24 GT winner, the No. 67 TRG Porsche, turned in the sixth-fastest time, while the Brumos Racing Porsche, which won the 2011 GT championship, was tenth in testing.
Three teams—Oryx Racing, APR Motorsports, and Audi Sport AG—brought the new Grand-Am specific Audi R8 out for testing, but none of them could crack the top two-thirds of the field.
Ian Baas of APR discussed the issues Audi teams were facing: “This car performs very well in the brake zones and entry to the corners. Our biggest issue is putting the power down. We have no traction control and stability management like they do in Europe, so that’s what we’re working on.
“We’ve had some really good support from the Audi factory. I’m sure we'll get it figured out. This car is a proven winner and its reliability is without question.”
There are 14 Daytona Prototypes and 42 GT entries for the 50th Anniversary Grand Am Rolex 24 at Daytona, driven by stars from every racing series around the world. Rolex veteran Max Pappis, of the No. 9 Action Express car, told Grand-Am.com: “I predict we will have one of the closest finishes in Rolex 24 history.
“I’ve been looking at the time chart, and there is no one with a clear advantage over everyone. We’re going to see 24 hours of everyone pushing to the limit. The key will be not making any mistakes, and dealing with traffic will be more important this year.”
The 2012 Rolex 24 at Daytona takes the green flag at 3:30 p.m. Saturday Jan. 28. Tickets are available through the Daytona International Speedway website.
