28 January 2014

Porsche at the 24 Hours of Daytona

 

Porsche factory drivers Richard Lietz, Nick Tandy and Patrick Pilet won the highly-competitive GTLM class of the 24 Hours of Daytona race in Florida in their Porsche 911 RSR run by the Porsche North America factory squad. This was the 76th class win and the 40th for the Porsche 911, ensuring that Porsche remain the most successful manufacturer in the history of the 24 Hours of Daytona.

The 52nd running of the Daytona 24 hour race marked the first time that Porsche ran a works team in US sports car racing - the newly-formed team ‘Porsche North America'. The debut race was a complete success with the number 911 works car successfully fending off all the challenges from their factory-run BMW, Viper and Chevrolet rivals. The number 912 of Patrick Long, Michael Christensen and Jörg Bergmeister had been running in second place until it was sidelined with an engine fault.

The 470 hp Porsche is based on the seventh generation of the iconic 911 sports car and celebrated its race debut last season, scoring a brilliant double victory on its first outing at the Le Mans 24 Hours. The American works team is part of Porsche's 2014 motorsport campaign "Mission 2014. Our Return".

The new Porsche 911 GT America (purpose-built for the Tudor United SportsCar Championship) enjoyed a successful debut in the GTD class with Madison Snow, Jan Heylen and Germany's Marco Seefried finishing second in class a less than one second shy of the winner - after 24 hours of competition!


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