Tower Motorsports Wins Rolex 24 Thriller in LMP2

Photo: Jake Galstad/IMSA

Tower Motorsports emerged victorious in LMP2 in the Rolex 24 at Daytona after surviving late attrition as multiple class leaders dropped of contention with mechanical issues and contact in the final hours.

Bourdais elected not to make a final pit stop after an incident and subsequent stops for the then-class-leading Paul-Loup Chatin and Mathias Beche, allowing the Tower driver to assume the class lead after four front-runners faded in the last three hours of the race.

Bourdais claimed his third Rolex 24 class victory in as many classes and won his first IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race in LMP2 machinery with the Ricky Capone-led squad, with co-drivers John Farano, Job Van Uitert, and Sebastian Alvarez all took their first-ever wins at the Florida endurance classic.

Coming into the final three hours of the race, the No. 88 AF Corse of Nicklas Nielsen had firm control of the field, consistently building its gap to the No. 99 AO Racing Oreca and the Bourdais’ Tower car behind, before suddenly slowing and stopping on track.

As the race fell under its 13th full-course caution for the stricken car, the AF Corse was retired in the garage. A spokesperson for Xtrac revealed that the car lost all of its transmission fluid when a sensor fell out of the gearbox casing.

The retirement allowed Christian Rasmussen’s AO machine to assume the class lead from Bourdais on the restart. However, the ‘Spike’ liveried car then encountered a suspected electrical issue during a planned fuel-only pitstop with under 90-minutes to go, leading to a significantly prolonged stop before the car rejoined multiple laps down.

With the two previous class leaders now out of contention, Bourdais led the second-tier prototype field until the field fell under yellow again for a stricken Danny Formal with one hour to go, before Era Motorsport’s Paul-Loup Chatin jumped him in the pits with a short fuel fill.

However, Chatin was involved in contact with Mathias Beche’s No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports machine on the final race restart with under an hour to go.

Both cars would take to pit lane with damage, with the No. 52 having to also serve a drive-through penalty for incident responsibility, handing the lead of the race back to Bourdais.

Bourdais saved enough fuel to stay out after filling his No. 8 Tower car in its final stop and maintain a significant advantage to the No. 22 United Autosports machine behind.

Despite a late drive-through penalty for the No. 22 UAS Oreca impeding another competitor in the pits, Paul Di Resta hung on to claim second place, 44.697 seconds behind Bourdais.

Felipe Fraga brought the No. 74 Riley machine onto the final step of the podium with Beche running fourth as the final car on the lead lap in class. Meanwhile, Chatin completed the top-five after his late-race dramas.

The once-leading Christian Rasmussen was classified sixth, eight laps off the lead ahead of George Kurtz’s No. 04 Crowdstrike by APR machine claiming seventh in class, 10 laps down.