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Written by Stephen Dobie
The Daytona 24 hours - the Rolex 24 in official speak - is a race that relates to and differs from Le Mans in equal measure.It begins with similar pomp and ceremony, but here that"s brought about by the American national anthem getting the crowd all giddy as an eagle flies above their heads. Really.The circuit is also much shorter, Daytona"s 3.56 miles translating to a fast lap time of around 1:40 - half that of La Sarthe. As such, action happens at a rate far quicker than we can do justice. And there"s free live coverage of the race online anyway. So instead, some observations that ought not to date too quickly.Ford"s flustered first outingFirst off, the Ford GT has been having teething problems. On its first ever competitive appearance, you might forgive it that. Both cars - number 66 and 67 - have had issues in the first few hours of the race, the former with brake and electronic gremlins, the latter pitting and spending time in the garage to fix a gearbox problem. Approaching the five-hour mark, they trailed the GT LM" class leader by 32 and 15 laps respectively."We started the race and everything was great and I was like man, this is awesome. Let"s go and just look after it"," said Ryan Briscoe, of car 67. "We"ve been catching a few surprises and we"ll learn from them and move on.""It"s one of those things," added Joey Hand, of car 66. "We have to get a 24-hour under our belt, just to learn what we have to watch out for."DeltaWing clippedUp at the business end of things, the DeltaWing spent much of the first few hours leading the Rolex 24, pleasing fans of weirdness. Katherine Legge led for 27 laps, and after emerging from the car, was pleased to report it seemed to be over its infamous gremlins, and even used the phrase "cool beans" to describe its behaviour.
Date written: 31 Jan 2016
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 1937
The Daytona 24 hours - the Rolex 24 in official speak - is a race that relates to and differs from Le Mans in equal measure.It begins with similar pomp and ceremony, but here that"s brought about by the American national anthem getting the crowd all giddy as an eagle flies above their heads. Really.The circuit is also much shorter, Daytona"s 3.56 miles translating to a fast lap time of around 1:40 - half that of La Sarthe. As such, action happens at a rate far quicker than we can do justice. And there"s free live coverage of the race online anyway. So instead, some observations that ought not to date too quickly.Ford"s flustered first outingFirst off, the Ford GT has been having teething problems. On its first ever competitive appearance, you might forgive it that. Both cars - number 66 and 67 - have had issues in the first few hours of the race, the former with brake and electronic gremlins, the latter pitting and spending time in the garage to fix a gearbox problem. Approaching the five-hour mark, they trailed the GT LM" class leader by 32 and 15 laps respectively."We started the race and everything was great and I was like man, this is awesome. Let"s go and just look after it"," said Ryan Briscoe, of car 67. "We"ve been catching a few surprises and we"ll learn from them and move on.""It"s one of those things," added Joey Hand, of car 66. "We have to get a 24-hour under our belt, just to learn what we have to watch out for."DeltaWing clippedUp at the business end of things, the DeltaWing spent much of the first few hours leading the Rolex 24, pleasing fans of weirdness. Katherine Legge led for 27 laps, and after emerging from the car, was pleased to report it seemed to be over its infamous gremlins, and even used the phrase "cool beans" to describe its behaviour.
Date written: 31 Jan 2016
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 1937
