Felipe Albuquerque brought the #5 Mustang Sampling Racing home after 808 laps to take victory in the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona.
The Portuguese racer was told to lift and coast by turning off the engine in an attempt to stop overheating in the final half hour of the race. Despite the problems, he held onto the lead, finishing 70 seconds ahead of the #31 Whelen Engineering Racing car.
This is Albuquerque’s first overall victory in the Daytona 24 hours, while team-mates Christian Fittipaldi and Joao Barbosa will be celebrating a hat-trick of wins.
Stuart Middleton took over the #31 car from Mike Conway at the start of the final hour and put in an impressive drive to get onto the lead lap, but there was no opportunity to challenge for the race win. He came home second, ahead of Colin Braun in the CORE autosport #54, which also finished on the lead lap.
Antonio Felix da Costa in the Jackie Chan DCR JOTA #78 had been running fourth at the start of the lap, but was handed a drive through penalty for speeding in the pit lane. The extra visit to the pits handed the #32 United Autosport car P4. Will Owen brought the United Autosport car home just 15 seconds ahead of da Costa.
The JDC-Miller Motorsport duo continued to battle right until the chequered flag. Austin Cindric in the #85 and Gustavo Menezes in the #99 enjoyed a clean fight, with Cindric finishing less than a second ahead of the sister car.
The #38 Performance Tech Motorsports car led home the two Acura Team Penske entries, with Ricky Taylor in the #7 finishing five seconds ahead of Juan Manuel Montoya in the #6.
Finishing 11th overall, the #67 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing won the GTLM class, while the #11 GRT Grasser Racing Team took the GTD honours, claiming Lamborghini’s first victory in a 24 hour race.
