For two South Africans at this previous weekend’s Rolex 24 – Sheldon van der Linde within the BMW M Team RLL no. 25 Hybrid V8, racing in GTP, and Jordan Pepper piloting the no. 63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2 within the GTD Pro class, it was a season opener to chalk as much as expertise and rapidly overlook.
Class winners at the Rolex 24
A protracted-awaited new period of endurance racing was ushered on this previous weekend at Rolex 24, with the debut of the Hybrid Prototype class within the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
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IMSA reported that Meyer Shank Racing’s Tom Blomqvist drove the pole-position no. 60 Acura ARX-06 to a 4.20-second, lights-to-flag victory, to assert the GTP class and race win outright. Next over the road was Filipe Albuquerque within the no. 10 Konica Minolta Acura ARX-06 ready by South Africa-born Wayne Taylor Racing in partnership with Andretti Autosport.
A Cadillac V-LMDh from Chip Ganassi Racing rounded out the rostrum with Renger van der Zande at the wheel. The prime 4 vehicles have been separated by simply 11.17 seconds after 24 hours of racing on the 5.72 km Daytona International Speedway course.
South Africans at the Rolex 24: Sheldon van der Linde
Aside from Wayne Taylor’s success on the pit wall at Rolex 24, the 2 South Africans behind the wheel within the 24-hour race struggled to make an impression attributable to unproven equipment.
First off, reigning DTM champion Sheldon van der Linde needed to watch from the sidelines because the no. 25 BMW M V8 Hybrid, shared with Connor De Phillippi (USA), Nick Yelloly (GBR), and Colton Herta (USA), needed to be pushed to the pits for an prolonged restore after solely an hour of racing.
After failure of the hybrid powertrain, various parts had to get replaced, which took two and a half hours and successfully signalled the top of the Rolex 24 race for the squad. Team RLL BMW M nonetheless managed to complete the race, chalking up invaluable testing kilometres within the course of.
Jordan Pepper: Another South African in Daytona
Further again within the GTD Pro Class, Jordan Pepper, competing for the primary time as a manufacturing unit Lamborghini driver within the no. 63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2, struggled with a automobile that appeared to endure beneath the Balance of Performance (BOP) guidelines.
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BOP goals to create truthful racing between the completely different producers. Sharing the Raging Bull with Romain Grosjean (FRA), Andrea Caldarelli (ITA) and Mirko Bortolotti (ITA), they persevered regardless of by no means actually having the tempo to compete at Rolex 24 for the rostrum and completed fourth in GTD Pro on the lead lap.
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