The No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsports Porsche 963 during night practice at the roar before the 24. (Photo: Jared Bokanoski)
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. –Â The Roar Before the 24 concluded this past Sunday with the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship teams taking part in six full-field testing sessions to shakedown and prepare for the season opener this weekend.
With 11 teams representing five manufactures taking to the track for IMSA’s GTP category, the scoring pylon continued to display some familiar numbers towards the top of the timesheets in all six sessions the class participated in. Porsche’s three car contingent topped four of six session, but had a car in the top five in all six sessions, sweeping the top three spots in the opening and closing sessions.
The first session of the weekend saw the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport entry top the board with Felipe Nasr behind the wheel with a time of 1:36.327. That time would be followed by the customer No. 85 JDC-Miller Motorsports entry at the hands of Nico Pino, who will be hitting the track with the 2025 spec of the 963 following the announcement that they opted against the manufacture’s new for 2026 upgrades. The top three would be completed by the No. 6 of Laurens Vanthoor with a 1:36.435.
The trio of cars would follow it up taking second through fourth in the second session led by Tijmen van der Helm in the JDC-Miller Motorsports car, new to the GTP ranks Laurin Heinrich in the No. 7 and the aforementioned Laurens Vanthoor in the sister No. 6.
Porsche Penske Motorsport would then go on to sweep the top two spots of the opening session Saturday as Laurens Vanthoor would once again take the No. 6 towards the top of the board with a 1:36.549 followed in short order by Heinrich with a 1:36.968.
Session four would see another pair of 963s in the top five with the newly full-time Kevin Estre putting the No. 6 in second on the timesheet whilst Pino would return the No. 85 to the top five with a fourth place time.
All three cars would find themselves in the top five once more in the penultimate session session of the weekend on Saturday night. As Vanthoor, Heinrich and Pino would bring it home first, fourth and fifth under the lights at Daytona.
The trio would conclude their Roar before the 24 with a top three sweep in session six on Sunday morning as Pino, Estre and Nasr would close it out on the top of the sheet.
The other manufacture that seemed to be on a tour de force for the Roar Before the 24 was Cadillac.
Their trio of V-Series.R GTP’s joined the Porsche’s towards the top of of all six session, with at least one car in the top five during every single round of testing.
Eyeing up a major rebound following what could be viewed as a frustrating 2025 campaign, the Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing duo of Louis Deletraz and Felipe Albuquerque putting their No. 40 and 10 machines fourth and fifth to open the weekend’s action.
The second session would see a different representative take to the top five for the first time of the weekend as Earl Bamber would put the No. 31 Cadillac Whelen entry in the fifth position with a 1:37.196.
All three cars would make the top five in session three as Albuquerque would lead the No. 40 of Jordan Taylor and Frederik Vesti in the No. 31 to third through fifth on the time sheets in Saturday’s first session.
Cadillac’s sole topping of the board would come in Saturday’s second session as Felipe Albuquerque would lead the field with a 1:36.731 in the No. 10 whilst Jack Aitken would be the third different driver to put the No. 31 in the top five with a third place lap, whilst Deletraz would once again put the No. 40 on the board with a fifth place time.
The WTR pairing would go second and third in the night session as Colton Herta would be runner up on the speed chart in the No. 40 and Will Stevens would be shortly behind in the No. 10 during the Saturday night running.
The final session would see the Taylor brothers go fourth and fifth on the board with Ricky Taylor in the No. 10 in fourth and brother Jordan returning to the top five in fifth.
The only manufacture that would find the top five in any of the six sessions would be BMW as Sheldon van der Linde would take the No. 24 BMW M Team WRT machine to the top of the second session of the weekend with a 1:36.742.
The only two manufactures to not land in the top five would be Acura and the Daytona debuting Aston Martin.
Acura would come in a weekend highest sixth position in session three as Tom Blomqvist would take the No. 60 to a time of 1:37.295 whilst the sister No. 93 would see a weekend high of eight position from Nick Yelloly.
The highly anticipated debut of the Aston Martin Valkyrie at the Rolex 24 hit a brief snag during the Roar Before the 24.
The Heart of Racing outfit would see the No. 23 miss the two-hour long night practice to replace the motor.
The 11 team grid will return to the track at 10:05am Thursday for the first official practice of Rolex 24 weekend.
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