DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – History was made on several levels in the 63rd Rolex 24 At Daytona to kick off the 2025 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season.
Porsche Penske Motorsport won its second consecutive Rolex 24, the third overall for team owner Roger Penske and fourth for the team, with the No. 7 Porsche 963 driven by Felipe Nasr, Nick Tandy and Laurens Vanthoor claiming the overall and Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class triumph.
Nasr is the only member of the trio who was part of last year’s winning entry, with a reshuffled lineup. Tandy moved from the team’s No. 6 car, and with the win is the first driver globally to have won all four major 24-hour endurance sports car races in Daytona, Le Mans, Spa-Francorchamps and the Nürburgring overall. Vanthoor was part of last year’s FIA World Endurance Championship-winning lineup with Penske.
The win is Nasr’s third (2024 in GTP/overall, 2022 in Grand Touring Daytona Pro), Tandy’s second (2014 GT Le Mans) and Vanthoor’s first at the Rolex 24.
The team nearly completed a 1-2 sweep, but a late pass by Tom Blomqvist delivered his second straight runner-up finish. Blomqvist co-drove the No. 60 Acura Meyer Shank Racing w/Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06, and got around Matt Campbell’s No. 6 Porsche 963.
“It’s amazing to see the work we’ve done with this Porsche program the last couple years, winning the (IMSA) championship last year, and with the relationship we have with Porsche, our organization, I’m thrilled,” Roger Penske said in victory lane. “It was quite something there at the end!”
History was also made in the two Grand Touring classes, as two iconic brands – Mustang and Corvette – both won.
Ford’s newest Mustang scored its first IMSA victory, with Dennis Olsen holding off all comers in the Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) class in his No. 65 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Ford Mustang GT3 he shared with Christopher Mies and Frederic Vervisch.
While Mustang beat Corvette in GTD PRO, Corvette emerged victorious in Grand Touring Daytona courtesy of the customer effort from AWA, which scored its second Rolex 24 win (2023 in Le Mans Prototype 3). Drivers Matt Bell, Orey Fidani, Lars Kern and Marvin Kirchhoefer shared the winning No. 13 Corvette Z06 GT3.R.
Tower Motorsports ascended to the top of Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2), in the hands of Sebastien Bourdais, John Farano, Sebastian Alvarez and Job Van Uitert sharing the No. 8 ORECA LMP2 07. The Rolex win is Bourdais’ third in as many IMSA class (Prototype/Overall in 2014 and GT Le Mans in 2017).
All other winners – the three Ford drivers, all four AWA Corvette drivers and the remaining three Tower LMP2 drivers – secured their first Rolex 24 victories and the custom Rolex Daytona timepieces that come with the wins.
