| Field of 12 GTP and 12 LMP2 Cars Apiece Set to Vie for Rolex 24 VictoriesJanuary 22, 2025By Tony DiZinnoIMSA Wire Service |
| Rolex 24 At Daytona Entry ListSpotters Guide DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – A run through the prototype entries competing in the 63rd Rolex 24 At Daytona reveals 24 contenders for the 24-hour endurance classic to kick off the 2025 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season. There are 12 Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) cars split among five auto manufacturers: Acura, BMW, Cadillac, Lamborghini and Porsche. And all 12 have some degree of change, year-to-year. Meanwhile all 12 Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) entries are the popular ORECA LMP2 07 cars, and that equality in car type means it’s down to the drivers and teams that best execute the race that win a Rolex watch. The team-by-team preview is below: Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) No. 5 Proton Competition Porsche 963Neel Jani/Tristan Vautier/Nico Pino/Julien Andlauer Proton Competition returns with three total Porsche cars, split one apiece among Grand Touring Prototype (GTP), Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) and Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) – the latter of which is entered as Iron Dames with Proton’s team running it. Its GTP car has, for another season, seen a change on the driving front. Jani is a past 24 Hours of Le Mans polesitter and overall winner, and together with sports car veteran Vautier form a solid pair of experienced hands at the wheel. Pino won a pair of Motul Pole Awards in the former Le Mans Prototype 3 (LMP3) class – including at the 2023 Rolex 24 with Sean Creech Motorsport – and has plied his trade in both IMSA and FIA WEC competition. Andlauer is a past Le Mans class winner to complete the lineup. No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963Matt Campbell/Mathieu Jaminet/Kevin Estre The “Cam/Jam” duo is back. Linked throughout most of their careers as Porsche factory drivers, Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet have established themselves as pre-eminent winners and champions of the late 2010s and early 2020s, and their IMSA records back that up. A dominant season together with Pfaff Motorsports, starting with a 2022 win at the Rolex 24 to kick off the GTD PRO class era, propelled them to the class championship. Campbell’s 2024 started with his second Rolex 24 win and first overall – this time in the sister No. 7 car as an endurance driver – and he’s back for a full IMSA campaign in 2025 after a single season abroad in the FIA World Endurance Championship. Jaminet has 11 IMSA wins and that 2022 GTD PRO title, but fell short against the sister car for last year’s GTP crown. Estre’s global record is similarly defined, with a WEC Hypercar World Championship achieved in 2024 with Porsche Penske Motorsport to add to his 24 Hours of Le Mans class win (2018 in GTE PRO). Estre holds one of IMSA’s more curious stats, as he’s yet to win a WeatherTech Championship race in over 20 starts, mostly as a third driver in Michelin Endurance Cup events. It’s a role he’ll reprise in 2025. No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963Felipe Nasr/Nick Tandy/Laurens Vanthoor A winning start at the 2024 Rolex 24 set the No. 7 Porsche 963 on its way for its GTP class title-achieving campaign. Nasr, then paired with Dane Cameron, won twice and added five further podium finishes to capture his third WeatherTech Championship title, all in the top prototype class at the time albeit under different category names (2018 P, 2021 DPi, 2024 GTP). He has 11 career IMSA wins. A lineup change for 2025 sees Tandy shift from the No. 6 car to the No. 7 car, now paired with Nasr after two years co-driving with Jaminet. The fast Englishman is one of IMSA’s most prolific race winners; he has 22 in more than 100 starts including the 2014 Rolex 24 in GT Le Mans. However, he has yet to win an IMSA championship, and he’ll seek to rectify that in 2025. Vanthoor shared the championship-winning Porsche with Estre in FIA WEC and will serve as this car’s third driver in 2025. He has a pair of IMSA titles (2019 GTLM, 2021 GTD) and 10 IMSA wins, but remains in search of his first Rolex 24 triumph to complete a set that also includes others at Le Mans, Sebring, the Nurburgring and Spa-Francorchamps. No. 10 Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Series.R Filipe Albuquerque/Ricky Taylor/Will Stevens/Brendon Hartley The long-anticipated reunion between Wayne Taylor Racing and General Motors is set to be one of the year’s overarching narratives, to see whether this iteration of WTR and Cadillac can achieve similar heights as the DPi period from 2017 to 2020. Of WTR’s four Rolex 24 wins in five years from 2017 to 2021, the first three were achieved with Cadillac and a series of all-star lineups. Its most recent IMSA championship was too, in 2017. The team has the same intent for 2025, with only one change from its 2024 Rolex roster. Albuquerque (2018, 2021) and Ricky Taylor (2017, 2021) have four Rolex 24 overall wins between them and are set for their fifth straight year as full-season teammates, but first with Cadillac after four years with Acura. Their battles as rivals within the Cadillac brand in the late 2010s shift to a unified approach in 2025. Stevens and Hartley both have Le Mans class wins; Stevens has six IMSA starts, including a pair with WTR in 2022, while Hartley bolsters the lineup ahead of his eighth Rolex 24 start. No. 24 BMW M Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8Philipp Eng/Dries Vanthoor/Raffaele Marciello/Kevin Magnussen Eng has, almost by default, ascended to the senior member of the BMW M Team RLL lineup by virtue of his full-season experience. The Austrian is the only one of the team’s four full-season drivers who’s competed in a full WeatherTech Championship season. He captured an elusive first prototype win at last year’s TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks in Indianapolis, his second IMSA win of his career after sharing in the team’s 2019 GT Le Mans class win at the Rolex 24 At Daytona. BMW has opted to deploy its FIA WEC lineup across into IMSA this season. Laurens’ younger brother Dries Vanthoor is set for his first full IMSA season; he has three career starts and only one in a prototype in this series (2024 Rolex 24, BMW M Hybrid V8). Third driver Marciello has multiple GT championships globally and only four career IMSA starts, also only one in prototype (2023 Rolex 24, High Class LMP2). Magnussen, ironically, has this car’s most additional IMSA full-season experience after Eng but is a BMW newcomer. An overall winner at Belle Isle Park in Detroit in 2021 with Chip Ganassi Racing in a Cadillac, Magnussen has 10 career IMSA starts – all in DPi machinery – and completes this quartet after moving on from a decade-plus in Formula 1. No. 25 BMW M Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8Sheldon van der Linde/Marco Wittmann/Robin Frijns/Rene Rast It’s all change at BMW M Team RLL’s No. 25 car for 2025, with a quartet high on global experience but limited in IMSA. None of its four drivers has raced an IMSA full season and Rast, a two-time Rolex 24 winner with Magnus Racing in GTD (2012, 2016), is its most experienced WeatherTech Championship driver with 11 starts since 2014. Wittmann and van der Linde raced the BMW M Hybrid V8 in FIA WEC competition last year, split between the team’s two cars with Wittmann recording the car’s best finish of second in Fuji. The younger van der Linde brother has 10 IMSA starts over five seasons, with a GTD class win on debut at the 2017 Petit Le Mans with Connor De Phillippi – who he’ll replace in this car in 2025 – and Christopher Mies. Frijns has only a single IMSA start to his name, the 2018 Rolex 24 in an ORECA LMP2 car as part of an eclectic lineup (Felix Rosenqvist, Lance Stroll, Daniel Juncadella). No. 31 Cadillac Whelen Cadillac V-Series.RJack Aitken/Earl Bamber/Frederik Vesti/Felipe Drugovich It seems hard to believe, but the oft-contending Action Express Racing-prepared No. 31 Cadillac Whelen V-Series.R has gone winless in two of the last three seasons, sandwiching its 2023 GTP championship. As such, there are big changes for 2025 on the driving front as Pipo Derani departed the team. After his first full year, Aitken ascends to the role of the team’s longest-tenured driver. He won his first Motul Pole Award at Motul Petit Le Mans to cap off the campaign and impressed the team with his combination of speed, persistence and affability. New alongside him for the full season is Bamber, one of IMSA’s most successful drivers with seven wins and a 2019 GT Le Mans title to his name. Bamber has extensive Cadillac experience the last three years across both IMSA and the FIA WEC and will run a dual campaign in 2025. Endurance extras Vesti (Michelin Endurance Cup) and Drugovich (Rolex 24) boast similar backgrounds. Both drivers gained LMP2 experience globally in 2024 after successful junior open-wheel careers. Drugovich won the 2022 F2 title, Vesti was second in 2023, while both have been part of Formula 1 junior programs with Aston Martin and Mercedes-AMG, respectively. No. 40 Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Series.R Louis Deletraz/Jordan Taylor/Kamui Kobayashi The Deletraz and Jordan Taylor pair shifts ahead to its second year together, with Jordan now back in the GM family fold once more after a year with Acura in 2024. Jordan has one of IMSA’s strongest résumés with four IMSA full-season championships (2013, 2017, 2020, 2021) – all in either Corvette or Cadillac machinery – and three Rolex 24 wins (2017 and 2019 overall, 2021 GTLM). Deletraz added a fourth straight global LMP2 title to his résumé in another series, while starring in his first full-time IMSA campaign here with his late move for the win at Sebring a standout moment of the season. Kobayashi is widely regarded as one of the Rolex 24’s “must-see” drivers. He’s won it twice with WTR, back-to-back in 2019 and 2020. Alex Lynn was due to complete the lineup but was ruled out due to illness. No. 60 Acura Meyer Shank Racing w/Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06Tom Blomqvist/Colin Braun/Scott Dixon/Felix Rosenqvist The band is back together. Blomqvist and Braun stormed to three wins, bookending their 2023 campaign with wins at the Rolex 24 and Motul Petit Le Mans, en route to third place in their last full-time IMSA season together. Both raced part-time in 2024, Blomqvist as third driver with the No. 31 Cadillac Whelen GTP entry and Braun alongside longtime co-driver George Kurtz in the No. 04 CrowdStrike by APR LMP2 car. Circumstances arose to reunite the pair back with the expanded MSR Acura program in 2025, and with their Rolex 24 win record (Braun has three, 2014 LMPC, 2020 LMP2, 2023 GTP/overall and Blomqvist has 2022 DPi/overall and 2023/GTP overall) and season-long championship pedigree (Braun has three IMSA titles, 2014 and 2015 PC, 2022 LMP3), expect this duo to contend for both the race win and title. Their endurance extras? They’re also strong to quite strong. Michelin Endurance Cup third driver Dixon has six IMSA wins from 50 career starts – including four Rolex 24 victories (2006 DP/overall, 2015 P/overall, 2018 GTLM, 2020 DPi/overall) – to go with his six IndyCar Series championships. Rosenqvist has had fewer IMSA starts, but is a race winner across IndyCar, Formula E, and multiple junior open-wheel series. No. 63 Automobili Lamborghini Squadra Corse Lamborghini SC63Mirko Bortolotti/Romain Grosjean/Daniil Kvyat/Edoardo Mortara Lamborghini is set for a unique Rolex 24 with its SC63, the first for this car since its introduction. The entry is now flagged as “Automobili Lamborghini Squadra Corse” in a nod to its factory affiliation. The driving strength is still impressive. In Bortolotti and Mortara they have two past Rolex 24 class-winning GT drivers, and in Grosjean and Kvyat they have two aggressive, entertaining, fast ex-Formula 1 veterans who stood on Grand Prix podiums over the course of their careers. No. 85 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche 963Gianmaria Bruni/Tijmen van der Helm/Bryce Aron/Pascal Wehrlein The JDC-Miller program continues with its striking yellow Porsche 963 and like fellow customer team Proton Competition, changes its driver lineup. Spearheading the full-season lineup is Bruni, who joins the team after racing with Proton the last two years. The Italian has both Rolex 24 (LMP2, 2023) and 24 Hours of Le Mans (four class wins) on his résumé. He’ll share the car with Dutchman van der Helm, who continues to improve as he heads into his third season in this car. Aron is set for his Rolex 24 debut, as another potential under-the-radar person to note as an Indy NXT driver who is set to add sports cars to his résumé. Wehrlein is the reigning FIA Formula E champion and will add speed and poise as the team’s fourth driver. No. 93 Acura Meyer Shank Racing w/Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06Renger van der Zande/Nick Yelloly/Alex Palou/Kaku Ohta There is a lot of new to dissect about MSR’s second Acura for 2025. The car bolsters a more significant Honda Racing Corporation U.S. (HRC) presence, from engineering talent to its iconic No. 93, a number that hails the company’s U.S. founding year of 1993 as Honda Performance Development (HPD) before a global rebrand. That extends further to its extra drivers, in the form of three-time IndyCar Series champion Palou, who’s raced his entire IndyCar career with the manufacturer and Ohta, a Super GT and Super Formula race winner who races with the brand in his native Japan and is set for his IMSA debut. The two full-season drivers? There’s a lot to like about team and manufacturer newcomers van der Zande and Yelloly. The Dutchman has over 100 IMSA starts and secured his 21st win to cap off 2024 at Motul Petit Le Mans. Twice a Rolex 24 winner (2019, 2020 with Cadillac and WTR), van der Zande seeks his first Rolex with Acura and MSR this go-around. Yelloly joins from BMW M Team RLL, where he only won once (2023 Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen) but delivered notable pace and performances throughout his tenure. Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) No. 2 United Autosports USA ORECA LMP2 07Nick Boulle/Ben Hanley/Garnet Patterson/Oliver Jarvis United’s No. 2 ORECA won the 2024 Rolex 24 Motul Pole Award but features a nearly reshuffled lineup compared to last year. It’s still strong as three of the four drivers – Jarvis, Hanley and Boulle – already have a Rolex 24 win and the only reason Patterson doesn’t is because he hasn’t raced it yet. Jarvis (2022 DPi/overall) is the most recent Rolex 24 winner while Boulle enters this race after winning last year’s LMP2 championship and the Jim Trueman Award, securing an automatic invite to the 24 Hours of Le Mans. No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR ORECA LMP2 07George Kurtz/Toby Sowery/Malthe Jakobsen/Colton Herta CrowdStrike by APR returns to full-time competition in 2025 in pursuit of its second Jim Trueman Award for Bronze-rated drivers, as achieved in 2023. Kurtz doesn’t have usual co-driver Colin Braun on board but youngsters Sowery and Jakobsen will play a significant role. Sowery made three IndyCar starts in 2024 and has impressed with his speed in his sports car starts, while Jakobsen has ascended to a factory role with Peugeot’s FIA WEC Hypercar effort. Kurtz (Watkins Glen, Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta) and Jakobsen (Sebring) both have won Michelin Endurance Cup races. Fourth driver Herta, last year’s IndyCar Series runner-up, has two Rolex 24 wins (LMP2 in 2022, GT Le Mans in 2019). No. 8 Tower Motorsports ORECA LMP2 07John Farano/Sebastien Bourdais/Sebastian Alvarez/Job van Uitert One of LMP2’s perennial contenders, Tower Motorsports reloads in 2025 after a podium-less 2024 season that saw eight drivers aboard the team’s No. 8 ORECA LMP2 07. Farano has five career wins and is joined by Bourdais, a 13-time IMSA winner and one of the most decorated sports car and open-wheel drivers of the 2000s. Third driver Alvarez has made a handful of IMSA starts in both LMP2 and LMP3. Van Uitert, a past Motul Petit Le Mans winner with Tower, is back for the Rolex 24. No. 11 TDS Racing ORECA LMP2 07Steven Thomas/Mikkel Jensen/Hunter McElrea/Charles Milesi No changes lie ahead for TDS Racing in 2025, after a Michelin Endurance Cup-winning 2024 campaign built in part by the strong finish delivered by Thomas, Jensen and McElrea to win the final two rounds in Indianapolis and Atlanta. Jensen has 10, Thomas five and McElrea two IMSA wins in their careers. Fourth driver Milesi has had LMP2 success outside of IMSA, with an FIA WEC title and 24 Hours of Le Mans class win both in 2021. No. 18 Era Motorsport ORECA LMP2 07Tobias Lutke/Ryan Dalziel/David Heinemeier Hansson/Paul-Loup Chatin Era Motorsport, twice a winner in the last four Rolex 24 races (2021 and 2024 LMP2), has some old and some new for 2025. Dalziel has been part of both of those, along with his 2010 overall win for Action Express Racing, and has entrenched himself as Era’s team stalwart. Chatin reprises his role as Rolex 24 extra driver as he did in 2021. Rounding out the lineup are a pair of programmers – Lutke has gathered Historic Sportscar Racing (HSR) experience while “DHH” is a sportscar veteran and a past 24 Hours of Le Mans class winner (2014 in GTE Am) set to make his IMSA return for the first time since 2020. No. 22 United Autosports USA ORECA LMP2 07Daniel Goldburg/Paul di Resta/Rasmus Lindh/James Allen The other United car retains Goldburg and di Resta, with Lindh on as third driver for the Rolex 24. Allen has the lone Rolex 24 victory of this group, having been at the wheel of the Proton Competition ORECA for the photo finish margin of victory in LMP2 in 2023. No. 43 Inter Europol Competition ORECA LMP2 07Tom Dillmann/Jon Field/Bijoy Garg/Antonio Felix da Costa Inter Europol has enjoyed an excellent two-year run. The Polish-flagged team won the 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans in LMP2, then returned to IMSA for the first time in four years in tandem with the oft-successful PR1 Mathiasen team, and promptly won the 2024 championship with Bronze-rated Nick Boulle also securing the Jim Trueman Award. Boulle, like PR1 Mathiasen, are no longer part of this lineup in 2025. Dillmann remains, joined by Field who’s back for the first time in more than a decade. Garg moves from United Autosports where he was part of that team’s 24 Hours of Le Mans LMP2-winning lineup, while da Costa adds pace and recent championship-winning pedigree (2022 FIA WEC LMP2, 2019-20 Formula E) as fourth driver. No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA LMP2 07Rodrigo Sales/Mathias Beche/Benjamin Pedersen/Ben Keating It doesn’t seem to matter who’s aboard the Bobby Oergel-led PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports entry, which has won five of the last six class championships in IMSA’s LMP2. Some of that goes to the team’s staying power over time, but its continued up-front presence in deeper fields indicates a program that has both the class and the car sorted to compete. Its latest new lineup of Sales and Beche for the full season, Pedersen for the Michelin Endurance Cup rounds and Keating for the Rolex 24, will seek to continue that trend. No. 73 Pratt Miller Motorsports ORECA LMP2 07Chris Cumming/Pietro Fittipaldi/James Roe Jr./Callum Ilott Pratt Miller Motorsports’ entry into LMP2 for 2025 is one of the most intriguing propositions in the class, given its prototype roots but longtime GT presence working in tandem with Corvette Racing. Its lineup includes open-wheel veterans Fittipaldi (full season), Roe (Michelin Endurance Cup) and Ilott (Rolex 24). Cumming has extensive sports car experience, predominately in the former Prototype Challenge class with limited global LMP2 running and will make his IMSA return for the first time since 2017. No. 74 Riley ORECA LMP2 07Gar Robinson/Felipe Fraga/Josh Burdon/Felipe Massa A year without a Riley team winning a race is a rarity in modern sports car racing, yet that’s what occurred in its maiden LMP2 voyage in 2024. It was still a steady season, as the team scored four podium finishes and six top-five finishes in seven races to finish runner-up in points. The dedication to consistency continues, and the same quartet of Robinson, Fraga, Burdon and Massa are back for the Rolex 24. All except Massa have won either and/or both of a full-season IMSA title or Michelin Endurance Cup. The team won two titles and two Rolex 24s from 2021 to 2023 in the former Le Mans Prototype 3 (LMP3) class. No. 88 Af Corse ORECA LMP2 07Luis Perez Companc/Nicklas Nielsen/Matthieu Vaxiviere/Dylan Murry Af Corse has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans overall the last two years as the service provider for the Ferrari 499P and seeks to add a Rolex 24 to its victory list with entries in both LMP2 and Grand Touring Daytona (GTD). Nielsen was part of last year’s overall Le Mans win and also part of a Watkins Glen win last year with Perez Companc and Lilou Wadoux. Vaxiviere and Murry add experience from sporadic IMSA starts. No. 99 AO Racing ORECA LMP2 07PJ Hyett/Dane Cameron/Jonny Edgar/Christian Rasmussen AO Racing’s model of expand and advance for its sophomore season paid dividends greatly in GT racing in 2024, and will seek to do likewise in 2025 for its second LMP2 effort. Wholesale changes come on the driving front, with Hyett now paired with four-time IMSA champion Dane Cameron for the full-season. He became available after winning last year’s GTP title with Porsche Penske Motorsport. Cameron’s four titles have come in four different categories (2014 GTD, 2016 P, 2019 DPi, 2024 GTP), so an LMP2 crown would make it five-for-five. Edgar was part of AO by TF’s ELMS-title winning effort in 2024 – along with Louis Deletraz and Robert Kubica – and IndyCar driver Rasmussen was a key cog in Era’s 2024 Rolex 24 LMP2 win. AO’s “Rexy” Porsche stole the headlines in 2024 with its GTD PRO title, and the volley of attention may shift to “Spike,” the LMP2 dragon for 2025 if the lineup changes work as advertised. |
