Filipe Albuquerque admitted it was worrying to have cooling issues during the second half of the Rolex 24 at Daytona, but it was a relief to bring the car home for a memorable victory on Sunday.
The Portuguese racer shared the driving duties in the #5 Mustang Sampling Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R with Joao Barbosa and Christian Fittipaldi, and between them they covered a record breaking 808 laps of the Daytona International Speedway, despite concerns about the cooling of their car, which went back into the garage once for an inspection.
The sister #31 Whelen Engineering Racing Cadillac also had the same problem, but whereas they were forced to pit under green flag conditions, Albuquerque’s squad were able to do their fix under a caution, which meant they lost less time and ensured their place at the front of the field.
“We had the alarms going with the temperature and I was looking all the time to the water temperature and oil temperature and it is flashing on and off at the same time,” said Albuquerque on axracing.com.
“I am seeing the 31 and the 54 gaining laps and laps and I had to overtake the GT cars at the same time. It was really hard to manage. I started hearing every little thing with the car.
“In the end, the Cadillac was the strongest and was able to handle the high temperatures for the win. Last year was devastating but we stuck together and had a hell of a race today!”
