From Autosport.Ganassi Racing took their second consecutive win in the Rolex 24 endurance race at Daytona today, after a flawless drive that saw Juan Pablo Montoya take a pass for the lead in the 24th hour, and teammate Scott Pruett thereafter maintaining the advantage to the finish flag.
Pruett, Montoya and Salvador Duran covered in their Toyota Lexus a total of 668 laps - 2,378 miles - to beat the SAMAX team Pontiac of Patrick Carpentier, Ryan Dalziel, Milka Duno and Darren Manning. Sun Trust's Pontiac No. 10 - with Jan Magnussen, Max Angelelli, Wayne Taylor and Jeff Gordon - finished third.
The victory was a milestone for Colombian Montoya, who previously won a Champ Car title, the Indy 500 and several Grands Prix in F1, including the 2003 Monaco Grand Prix.
Montoya will start his first full NASCAR season in just three weeks at the same venue, as the Nextel Cup season begins in Daytona.
"It's an amazing feeling," Montoya said after the race. "It's incredible: after 20 hours, there were three cars on the same lap, but it was like qualifying speed every lap. Very exciting."
For Ganassi, the achievement was emotional. "This was just a total team win," the team owner said after becoming the first to win the Daytona 24 Hours consecutively team owner Al Holbert achieved this in 1986 and 1987.
"Al was somebody I wanted to be like when I was growing up, so I'm going to think about this one for a long time."
Ganassi won the event last year with Dan Wheldon, Scott Dixon and Casey Mears driving the Lexus Riley Daytona Prototype. This year, however, Wheldon and Dixon - joined by Mexican driver Memo Rojas - were having a race to forget.
That trio were running strong during the night but were out of the race when Rojas spun out early in the morning, hitting a tyre barrier on a damp track. The car was classified in 41st.
challenged for the lead through the night, came back to race in the top five after Rojas knocked off the nose cone and then went out of the race when Rojas spun on a wet track and hit a tire wall after daylight Sunday. They finished 41st.
Outstanding performances were registered by soon to be Champ Car rookie Ryan Dalziel, who put up a feisty fight in the closing hours of the race, holding on to the lead until he had to pit on the final hour.
Another great showing belonged to Magnussen/Taylor/Gordon/Angelelli - as they drove most of the race without a clutch, yet held on to the leaders throughout to finish third, just two laps behind the winners. It would have been second place had it not been for a final brake problem sent Magnussen off in the final minutes of the race.
More significant trouble came late last night when former F1 driver Gaston Mazzacane spun off and hit a guardrail in the infield section of the track. The Argentinean was unconscious and taken to a nearby hospital, where he is reported to be in good condition but will remain for observation.
The accident led to a 78-minute caution period, as the Porsche Fabcar prototype tore down a significant portion of the guardrail, which had to be fixed.
While the top ten spots were predictably taken by the Daytona Prototype cars, the Porsche GT3 of Jean-Francois Dumoulin, Carlos de Quesada, Scooter Gabel and Marc Besseng took the highest spot among the GT cars, ending the race some 42 laps behind the Ganassi winners.
Taking the chequered flag for the No. 01 car, Pruett paid tribute to his machine: "This is very cool. It's a huge thing for Ganassi and Lexus.
"The car never missed a beat. I was getting a little nervous there at the end, but the car was just rock solid the whole time. We never spent any time in the pits."
