Penske on His Porsche Team’s Rolex 24 Win: “It Was Quite Something.” Settle Down, Roger

David Rosenblum/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images

Roger Penske, the certified mogul—this month, Forbes valued his net worth at $6.5 billion—turns 88 next month. It takes a lot to rattle him. Penske Racing made its debut at the Rolex 24 at Daytona in 1966: Since then, he has fielded championship-winning teams in NASCAR, IndyCar and IMSA sports car racing. Last year, Penske won his 20th Indianapolis 500, the NASCAR Cup championship, and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar championship. And he also won the 2024 IMSA Rolex 24 at Daytona.

But Penske, who typically stays up with his teams for the entirety of these 24-hour races, saw something at the 2025 Rolex 24 that gave him pause. His Porsche-backed, two-car GTP team was comfortably running first and second with 22 minutes to go, and were expected to finish that way.

Eddy Eckart

They didn’t. The leader, Matt Campbell, driving the number 6 Porsche 963, was challenged by the identical number 7, driven by Felipe Nasr, who won the race in 2024. Nasr was just a little bit faster than Campbell, whose car was on a different and ultimately losing tire strategy than Nasr’s car, giving Nasr the edge. Nasr pulled up to try to pass his teammate, and Penske, watching from atop the pit box, clenched. He could just see the two Porsches take each other out. “I didn’t like that,” Penske said afterward.

But Nasr pulled off a clean pass, moving to the lead. It turned out to be a good thing, because the third-place Meyer Shank Acura ARX-06, driven by Tom Blomqvist, maybe the best closer in the business, was gaining. Five minutes before the checkered flag fell, Blomqvist passed Campbell’s Porsche and set his sights on Nasr, the leader.

When the race ended, Blomqvist was just 1.335 seconds behind Nasr. Blomqvist wasn’t happy, but he was satisfied. “Maybe if there was 10 minutes more, we might, might have got to the back of him, but who knows?” Blomqvist said. “I didn’t think I was going to have anything” for Nasr’s Porsche, “but you never give up, and I think I gave it all I had. To be honest, that was the best we probably could have done today.”

Porsche 7 car front end confetti
David Rosenblum

With this win, Nick Tandy has become the first driver to secure victories in the 24-hour races held at Spa Francorchamps, Le Mans, the Nürburgring, and Daytona—quite the feat.

So Nasr, and co-drivers Nick Tandy and Laurens Vanthoor, are the 2025 Rolex 24 champions, giving Penske back-to-back wins on the 3.56-mile Daytona International Speedway road course. “I’m thrilled,” the invariably understated Penske said in victory lane. “It was quite something there at the end.”

Yes, it was something, and handicappers must put Porsche down as the favorite to repeat as IMSA champion. And the Penske Porsches performed well enough to think they really have a chance to win the 93rd running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which takes the green flag on June 14. That’s the one victory that has eluded Roger Penske, and truth be told, it’s the biggest reason he teamed with Porsche, which has 19 overall victories there, and 110 class wins. There’s no question Porsche and Penske will spare no expense to go for that 20th overall Le Mans win.

Eddy Eckart

A couple of other GTP cars deserve mention: The pole-sitting number 24 BMW M Hybrid V-8 of Team RLL and driver Dries Vanthoor—yes, he’s the brother of Laurens Vanthoor, who was on the winning Porsche team—challenged for the lead with 21 minutes to go, but he had to pit after the front bodywork on his BMW came loose, following contact earlier with a Ferrari. After a quick pit stop, the BMW team, which included Formula 1 veteran Kevin Magnussen, had to settle for fourth.

2025 Rolex 24 IMSA Daytona racing action
Eddy Eckart

And much earlier, the fast Cadillac V-Series Rs, which combined to lead 99 laps, suffered bad luck. At midnight, the number 31 Whelen car, crew-chiefed by the legendary Gary Nelson and driven by Frederik Vesti, apparently suffered a suspension failure, sending Vesti hard into the front-straight wall in one of the scariest crashes of the race. Vesti was uninjured, and the car was towed to the garage, returning to the race after 78 minutes. It finished ninth.

2025 Rolex 24 IMSA Daytona racing action
Eddy Eckart

Even earlier, the number 40 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac of Louis Deletraz spun on cold tires after a restart, causing another scary multi-car crash. The number 40’s day was over, finishing 55th in the 61-car field. Wayne Taylor’s other Cadillac, the number 10, finished fifth, one lap back.

2025 Rolex 24 IMSA Daytona racing action
Eddy Eckart

In the LMP2 class, the only one of the four classes where the winner had a solid lead over second place, the victory went to the number 8 Tower Motorsports, which finished eighth overall. With lead driver Sebastien Bourdais, the Tower team stayed out of trouble, finishing about 45 seconds ahead of the United Autosports team. (UPDATE: On Wednesday, IMSA announced that the Tower car failed inspection, awarding the victory to the second-place United Autosports entry.)

It was the first race in an LMP2 car—which all use an Oreca chassis and identical Gibson V-8 engines—for IMSA GTP and IndyCar veteran Bourdais. “There was a lot of carnage around us, just a lot of really, really aggressive driving which ended up in contact,” Bourdais said. “I was very surprised, to be honest. I’m not used to that in GTP, and I don’t think I managed to pass without someone just hitting me, plain and simple, which I’m not a big fan of.”

Ford Mustang GTD Pro Rolex 24 Daytona
Eddy Eckart

In the GTD Pro class, driver Dennis Olsen kept the number 65 Multimatic Ford Mustang GT3 in front of the number 3 Pratt Miller Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3 which finished second, bookended by the team Mustang number 64, which finished third.

mustang gtd rolex 24
Eddy Eckart

Frederic Vervisch, co-driver of the winning Mustang, said that before the race, Ford CEO Jim Farley, a successful amateur racer himself, met with the team. “He said whatever you do, you have to be in front of the Chevrolet.” Mission accomplished.

corvette rolex 24
Eddy Eckart

In the amateur-focused GTD class, which races the same cars as GTD Pro, a Corvette did take the victory, courtesy of the AWA Racing team, led by driver Matt Bell. He kept the second-place number 120 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R at bay, winning the class by 1.45 seconds. “Honestly, my brain is fried. I can’t even remember what happened,” Bell said. “All the competitors that we were going toe to toe with today were really hard, really fair.”

Eddy Eckart

In all, it was a pretty typical Rolex 24, run under unusually chilly conditions. Attrition, minimal for the first half of the race, became a factor, with 21 cars listed in the final standings as “not running.” In 61st, and last place, was the lone Lamborghini SC63 GTP car, which only ran 34 laps of the 781-lap race, out with cooling issues.

Next up is the second event in the 11-race IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, on March 15. Roger Penske expects to attend.

Read next Up next: To No One’s Surprise, Alfa Romeo Won’t Go EV-Only by 2027 After All

Comments

    Yeah, it’s got to be a little hard for The Captain to show elation after a win – but I’ll bet he will if they manage a win at LeMans! But it’s correct that even this early, it’s clear that they are the team to beat in any race they enter. Congratulations, Team Penske and Porsche!

    The BOP needs to be adjusted to several cars. They told of added weight to several that you could tell it effected lap times. Not so much weight but where they make them put it.

    It was a good race. I frequently say it means that ‘spring is in the air’ even though I know it isn’t. March is a long way off and “a wet and muddy month”. I missed the night action. Now USA shows old reruns of ‘Law and Order’ in the wee small hours instead. Thanks. They want me to subscribe to ‘Peacock’. If you have any pull tell them to stick it, my cable bill is high enough as it is and that slippery slope is one I’m not getting on. On the subject Roger looks…old. His lack of enthusiasm appears to be a lack of enthusiasm. Just another day at the office and another figure on the spread sheet. That won’t make the clips Porsche uses in their ads. I must say they do have good ads

    I agree on the pay to watch. Not paying more for any race.

    Roger is old. I think he may not have been feeling good. He voice was horse and he looked off his norm.

    Peacock is like $3 a month plus I’m sure there is a free month trail, so next year just subsribe to it a few days early and watch for free

    James- Its 80 bucks a year (plus tax) with commercials more without. For another channel I’m not going to watch? That’s how they get-ya. Motor Trend had Motor Trend + . If you don’t like this reality TV s**t pay us more and we’ll give you sightly less s**t ? I’ll pass. And now they’ve been sold to Discovery so..but who cares. If IMSA and IndyCar want to increase their fan base ( which I think we all can agree they do) having races only on subscription channels sure ain’t the right way to do it. You can subscribe and then cancel but you know somehow then the ‘ All Fishin’ and Frog Gigging’ channel will be sneaked into your bill as a ‘fair’ substitute instead.

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