Something Borrowed…..
Almost alone on international racing’s January calendar the Rolex 24 has long hosted drivers and teams visiting what has been the Rolex Series for a one-off race, filling in the extra driver slots in teams that are part of any 24 hour race, before departing back to their regular series for the rest of the year.
It’s an element that remains part of the race in the TUDOR Championship. However, the number of drivers ‘borrowed’ for the race is much lower than in previous years if only because those that were previously part of the ALMS have now been folded into the full season that follows the Rolex 24.
Still drivers from as far across racing’s metaphorical board as Indycar, NASCAR, WTCC, GP2, V8 Supercars, DTM and the FIA WEC as well as from the growing stable of drivers who ply their trades as hired hands in GT series around the world will all be at Daytona for race.
Arguably leading the list of those drivers is DTM champion Mike Rockenfeller, allowed by Audi to join Spirit of Daytona Racing’s Corvette DP team alongside Richard Westbrook and Michael Valiante. Similarly, as has become the pattern over recent years Chip Ganassi has called upon drivers from his Indycar and NASCAR team to fill out the pair of Riley-Fords in the P class. NASCAR driver Jamie McMurray and Indy Lights champion Sage Karam join Pruett and Rojas in the first of the two cars while new Indycar teammates Scott Dixon and Tony Kanaan share #02 entry with Marino Franchitti and Kyle Larson, who will move in the NASCAR Sprint Cup full time for the 2014 season with Ganassi’s outfit.
Other highlights in the P class are John Martin, the Australian so often near the front of the FIA WEC LMP2 battle, who joins as part of the line-up in the second Action Express Racing team and Bradley Smith, the latest winner of the Sunoco Rolex 24 at Daytona Challenge who joins Marsh Racing’s line-up for the race.
Though both the PC and GTD classes have their own share of ‘borrowed’ drivers, including Sam Bird who joins Starworks Motorsport and Rob Huff at 8Star Motorsports in the PC class and Indycar man Ryan Briscoe, who has become part of the Corvette Racing line-up for the North American Endurance Championship (NAEC) events it in the GTD class where a majority of the incomers are to be found.
This is largely down to the number of drivers placed with teams at Daytona as part of manufacturer’s tilts at starting their year with a class win. Though six members of Porsche’s newly expanded stable of works drivers are to be found representing the marque in the GTLM class there are a number placed with teams in the lower of the two GT classes.
Marc Lieb, often a part of the Brumos Racing team for recent Rolex 24s, anchors the Dempsey Racing line-up of Joe Foster, Patrick Dempsey and Andrew Davis, himself oft part of the Brumos team that bowed out of racing mid-way through last season. Timo Bernhard meanwhile, starts a year that will see him return to LMP1 in the WEC as part of the Park Place Motorsports team. Fred Makowiecki, another of the men brought into the growing Porsche works fold, joins the NGT Motorsport team, that also features Kuba Giermaziak one of the band of drivers increasingly escaping the confines of the Porsche Supercup or the regional Carrera Cups for drives in endurance racing. In that respect the #18 Muelhner Motorsports America entry where Florida residents Bradley Blum and Ronald Zitza are joined by 2012 and 2013 Porsche Carrera Cup Asia champions Alexandre Imperatori and Earl Bamber is almost certainly the most exotic combination.
Even more pronounced in the class is the presence of Audi’s travelling band of GT drivers as each of the five R8 LMS in the class contain at least one Audi regulars including 2013 class winners Oliver Jarvis and Filipe Albuquerque who will seek back to wins as part of the Fall–Line Motorsports and Flying Lizard Motorsports team respectively.
British GT race winner Matt Bell is set to make his US racing debut with Paul Miller Racing, completing the team of Bryce Miller, Rene Rast and Christopher Haase. Bell’s some time British GT rival Matt Griffin is one of a number of Ferrari’s core of drivers set to travel to Daytona, the Irishman part of one of two 458 entered by Spirit of Race, though the best of Ferrari’s prospects for victory come with the Scuderia Corsa entry where Rolex Series GT class drivers’ champion Alessandro Balzan will be supported by Jeff Westphal, WEC regular Toni Vilander and Lorenzo Case.
The presence of works drivers is also seen in the P class, though a little less clearly than in previous years due to Corvette Racing’s GTLM plans. Instead the best example is Alex Brundle, placed with Muscle Milk Pickett Racing as part of the Nissan Driver Exchange scheme after becoming a regular in Nissan engine LMP2 machinery, notably as part of the OAK Racing team he will be racing against in Florida.
Though not strictly borrowed the Rolex 24, as the first race of the four round NAEC, brings in a number of teams whose TUDOR Championship plans are limited to the longer races.
In the top class these include the second of the Ganassi Riley-Fords and the ‘Red Dragon’ GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing Corvette DP, that given the line-up of Jon Fogarty, Alex Gurney, Darren Law and Memo Gidley could easily spoil the start of full season campaigns for the front runners.
Also well capable of surprising the regulars are Aston Martin Racing, who add another brand to the pinnacle of GT racing the US, entering a sole Vantage GTE in the GTLM class backed by a squad of works drivers led by AMR workhorses Darren Turner and Stefan Mucke.
