That was an absolutely frantic race. The weather was atrocious all night. 14 hours of freezing cold and pouring rain. Really impressive that all the Ford GTs finished, and 3 of the 4 were on the lead lap at the end. Only one car in GTLM had their race ended early, and 7 of 11 cars were on the lead lap after 24 hours. With such a huge field and such awful weather, that's a real miracle. GTD cars and PC cars were off constantly. At one point, the same PC went off and into the barriers two laps in a row in the exact same spot!
Müller drove an incredible final stint. I had my stomach in my throat the entire final 30 minutes. The new 911 RSR is going to be a real nasty car to compete with all year, and Pilet was really driving the wheels off. Müller, Calado and Pilet all did a phenomenal job of racing extremely hard without doing anything stupid. Thank God neither of the human battering rams were in the 62 or it could have been really ugly. There were times it looked like the GT was toast when the 488 was dragging it down the straight, and when the RSR was dive bombing him over and over into turn 1. But the German was the class of the field and brought home the 24 hour victory for the second time in 8 months. Phenomenal.
IMSA has obviously done a much, much better job with BoP than WEC has. All of the cars appeared very evenly matched and 3 of the 5 cars in GTLM had a really legitimate shot to win. I think the RSR has a good deal in reserve. Walliser looked very pleased with the result after the race. Too pleased, as if he knew more was coming.
Too bad Briscoe dinged the car. Those guys are so fast in that lineup but haven't yet had the luck in the endurance races. I expect them to challenge again for the championship. The WEC GTs seemed to struggle with getting the tires to temp, but were still in it down to the very end. The gap from the 66 winner to the 68 in 7th was just 7.5 seconds. Anybody's game. Billy Johnson had to take a piss when he got in the car, didn't get the chance, and then got stuck triple stinting it for just under 4 hours. :lol
It's really incredible to think a year ago the GT touched a race track for a race for the first time. 1 year later, it's won 7 races including the 24 Hours of Le Mans. A week ago I was watching production cars being hand built in Markham. This weekend I watched it win the Rolex 24 at Daytona in probably the most exciting finish ever. There were people in Ford GT gear all over the place. Am I actually going to have one of these cars in a few weeks? Is all this really happening?
These are good times to be a Ford GT fan! Good to see everyone this weekend. Better to see you during a win!