Acura and Cadillac shine, BMW and Porsche falter at the Rolex 24
Enlarge / Nine GTP race cars from Acura, Cadillac, BMW, and Porsche took part in this year's 24-hour race at Daytona. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)
BMW provided flights from DC to Orlando and back, plus four nights in a hotel, so we could attend the Rolex 24 at Daytona. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.
DAYTONA BEACH, FLA.-With just one race on the books, it's probably too soon to declare this the dawn of a new golden era in racing, but that thought was on many minds at last weekend's spectator-packed Rolex 24 at Daytona. The grueling 24-hour race is the season-opening event for the WeatherTech Sportscar Championship, and 2023 saw the introduction of a new class of hybrid prototype race cars called GTP (for Grand Touring Prototype).
The crowds were heavier than ever, buoyed by the debut of the new machines, which put on a good show. And the complicated new energy-based pit stop formula didn't appear to present anyone any trouble.
The same can't be said for the race itself. Twenty-four-hour racing is hard-I speak from some experience-and making it to the end should be, and is, a challenge. A 24-hour race as the first race of the year for all-new cars is even more difficult, despite the thousands of miles each car covered in testing over the past few months. As such, some feared we might be in for a repeat of 2003; that year saw a new prototype class introduced, the best of which finished 24 laps behind the winning car, a racing version of a Porsche 911.