Chip Ganassi’s Grand-Am team added to its already stunning record in the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona last weekend when its pair of BMW-powered Riley Daytona Prototypes finished one-two. Defending Grand-Am champions Scott Pruett/Memo Rojas shared the winning car with Graham Rahal and Joey Hand, while Scott Dixon/Juan Pablo Montoya/Dario Franchitti/Jamie McMurray drove Ganassi’s second car. This was Ganassi’s fourth Rolex 24 win but only its first one-two. The team scored three straight wins in 2006-08 and finished runner-up in 2009-10.

Last weekend’s sweep further embellishes Ganassi’s reputation. His teams scored successive wins in last year’s Daytona 500, Indianapolis 500 and Brickyard 400, and now the Rolex 24. Some people are calling it ‘The Chip Slam’. Grand-Am team leader Pruett, by the way, now has four Daytona 24 Hours wins to his name and has been on the podium in 14 of his 26 starts in the race.

Ganassi’s previous Rolex 24 wins came with Lexus (Toyota) engines, but Chip’s Grand-Am team switched last year to BMW power. Pruett and Rojas won the championship for BMW last season and have now scored the German manufacturer’s first Daytona victory since 1976, when Brian Redman/John Fitzpatrick/Peter Gregg won the 24 Hours in a factory BMW 3.5 CSL.

Neither of Ganassi’s cars enjoyed trouble-free runs last weekend. Montoya used his NASCAR fender-banging style to good effect on a number of occasions, but that also meant his crew had to twice change the car’s nose. Joey Hand made his debut with Ganassi’s team and did an excellent job in the winning car. Last year he drove for Bobby Rahal’s BMW GT team in the American Le Mans Series and has served a long apprenticeship in open wheel and sports cars. Hand lapped as quickly at Daytona as any of Ganassi’s drivers, and recovered well from a Sunday morning pit penalty after he was mistakenly waved out too early and hit one of his used tyres.

An indication of the thorough professionalism of Ganassi’s team was a decision during the race’s second hour to change the gear clusters in both cars. Warmer weather than anticipated and a change in wind direction meant both Ganassi cars were hitting their rev-limiters on the banking, so each car was brought in under successive yellows to remove the short gears and install a new stack of ratios.

Finishing third behind Ganassi’s cars were last year’s winners. The Action Express team ran two Riley-Porsches this year with João Barbosa/Terry Borcheller/Max Papis/Christian Fittipaldi finishing a strong third after the team’s other car was delayed by a few incidents. Martin Brundle/Mark Blundell/Mark Patterson/Zak Brown were an excellent fourth aboard United Autosports’ Riley-Ford run by Mike Shank Racing (see Damien Smith’s blog).

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What a start to the year. The Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona kicked off the 2011 season in incredible style at the weekend. Chip Ganassi Racing’s ‘super team’ took the spoils with a one-two in their BMW-powered Rileys, but this was no steamroller performance. The race was only decided in the final lap in which we dared to hope that a small miracle could come true for a certain British pair making a racing comeback in Florida.

It’s been a long time since Martin Brundle last donned a crash helmet for a serious motor race – 10 years, to be precise. The 51-year-old needed little convincing by his old mate Mark Blundell to have a crack at the Rolex 24, a race he won 23 years ago with Jaguar.

For Mark too, it was a giant challenge. At 44, he’s younger than Brundle, but race driving has taken a back seat since his last Le Mans start in 2003. However after racing at the Spa 24 Hours last year in an Audi R8 GT3, Blundell accepted the challenge set by United Autosports boss Zak Brown to make his first start at Daytona.

The pair, joined by Brown and Mark Patterson, lined up in a Riley-Ford run on behalf of United Autosports by Michael Shank Racing. Their high profile meant a flurry of media interest, but the biggest pressure came from within. Both wanted to know: could they still do it?

The answer is emphatically yes. Brundle qualified a respectable ninth in what was a truly competitive field featuring Formula 1 winner Juan Pablo Montoya, Indycar ace champions Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon, and NASCAR heroes – including the Sprint Cup’s greatest star Jimmie Johnson. In the race the British pair gradually moved up the field through the night. On Sunday morning, the white Riley had risen to third place and a podium – something they wouldn’t have dared to expect – was within reach.

Sadly, in the final two hours Brundle was powerless to avoid slipping down to fourth. But for these old friends, ex-F1 team-mates and Le Mans winners, it had still been an incredible performance. Brundle and Blundell leave Florida to return to their day jobs at the BBC and in driver management respectively with their heads held high.

The Daytona 24 Hours is a spectacle that is simply unforgettable for anyone lucky enough to witness it. The giant superspeedway looks spectacular as night falls, and the Grand-Am sports cars put on a terrific show. The stats give some insight: 52 lead changes among 12 cars, although the large number of NASCAR-style safety car periods play a large part in keeping the pack together. There were 23 in total, with 125 of the 720 laps run under yellow – including a caution period of nearly three hours early on Sunday morning because of heavy fog.

The final safety car was called right at the end as Sascha Maassen limped back to the pits with a broken right rear wheel, shedding bodywork on the way. It led to a one-lap shoot-out after 24 hours of hard racing. Scott Pruett in Ganassi’s 01 car kept the lead he’d only taken at the final pitstops, but behind him team-mate Scott Dixon withheld a last-ditch challenge from 2010 winner João Barbosa in the Action Express Riley-Porsche.

After a stellar 2010, this was a perfect start for Ganassi and Grand-Am’s pacesetters Pruett and Memo Rojas (above with Montoya). They were joined by team debutants, the impressive BMW ALMS racer Joey Hands and new Indycar signing Graham Rahal, who claimed a Rolex Daytona watch 30 years after his father Bobby’s win at the speedway

Back in the United Autosports motor home after the race, Brundle and Blundell were a little subdued. They’d been so close to an amazing podium, but as Martin said they had to be satisfied with the pace they’d shown. They’re getting on, but old pros don’t forget how to do it.

* You can read more on Brundle and Blundell’s Daytona campaign in the April issue of Motor Sport, on sale on Friday February 25.

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Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas became the first major American racing champions of the year when they scored their eighth win of the year in the Grand-Am race at le Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal last Saturday driving Chip Ganassi’s Riley-BMW. Pruett has now won a total of 30 Grand-Am races, but this was the first time he or Ganassi enjoyed winning in Montreal.

Pruett, 50, took his third Grand-Am title and Ganassi’s fourth in the past six years but this was the first time they’ve done it with BMW engines. Pruett/Rojas beat defending champions Alex Gurney/Jon Fogarty’s Gainsco Riley-Chevrolet by barely a second in Montreal, wrapping-up the title after eleven of the twelve races. Pruett/Rojas and Gurney/Fogarty have been the stars of the Grand-Am in recent years, trading the championship back and forth since 2007.

On the same day at Mosport three hundred miles to the west Conor Daly won the Star-Mazda championship in style as he took his ninth pole of the year and then scored a runaway victory, his seventh this year, to wrap-up the Star Mazda title with one race to go. Eighteen-year old Daly is the son of former F1, Indy car and sports car racers Derek Daly (below with Conor). Conor won the Skip Barber National championship in 2008 and also scored an excellent win that year in the rain in the Walter Hayes Trophy Formula Ford race at Silverstone. Conor will test a GP3 car for Status Racing at Silverstone next week and hopes to race next year in Europe.

“My passion is Formula One,” Conor says. “That’s what I want to do and to be in Formula One you have to race in Europe. The goal is to be racing in Europe next year.”

Last Saturday night’s IndyCar race at the Chicagoland Speedway was won by Dario Franchitti who kept his championship hopes alive with a brilliant tactical win. Franchitti was mired in the pack for most of the race but beat everyone out of the pits from the last round of stops by not taking on fresh tyres. Dario then drove superbly to score his third win of the year, beating Dan Wheldon and Marco Andretti across the line. This was Dario’s twenty-sixth CART/IRL win and it moves him into a tie with Rodger Ward on the all-time IndyCar winners list.

Championship leader Will Power battled for the lead most of the way but had to make a last-minute stop for fuel, tumbling to sixteenth at the finish. As a result defending champion Franchitti has pulled to within twenty-five points of Power with three races to go so that Dario has a chance of winning his third IndyCar title in four years and Ganassi has a shot at taking three straight IndyCar championships.

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Chip Ganassi enjoyed a clean sweep last weekend as his three teams won races in NASCAR, IndyCar and Grand-Am. It began at Watkins Glen on Saturday when Scott Pruett/Memo Rojas won the Grand-Am event in Ganassi’s Riley-BMW. Then Juan Pablo Montoya drove a perfect race on Sunday at the Glen to score his first NASCAR Sprint Cup victory in three years. Montoya was the man to beat, pulling away at the end to win easily. Juan has been very quick in many races this year but something always got in the way. His next mission, of course, is to win on an oval – and he’s got 14 more chances this year!

In the IndyCar race at Mid-Ohio, Dario Franchitti scored Ganassi’s final win of the weekend. Dario drove a great race to beat Will Power by half a second. It was the Scot’s second win of the year and it keeps him in the thick of the title hunt with Power, who wrapped up IndyCar’s inaugural Mario Andretti Road Racing Championship on Sunday. With five races to go, Power leads Franchitti in the overall standings by 41 points.

But perhaps the most interesting US racing news of the weekend came in Saturday’s American Le Mans Series race at Mid-Ohio, where Chris Dyson and Guy Smith drove Rob Dyson’s Castrol Lola-Mazda coupé to victory. It was the first ALMS win for the Lola coupé, its Mazda engine and Dunlop’s tyres. It also marked the first win for any racing car running on Isobutanol, a BP biofuel which Dyson began experimenting with last year.

“Isobutonal is a variant on an ethanol-based fuel,” explained Rob Dyson. “It’s much easier to make and a lot better on the environment to produce than the fermentation of ethanol, whether it’s corn-based or switchgrass or any of the other stuff they’re coming up with. Isobutanol is a lot more eco-friendly in that it doesn’t take as much energy to make it as you get out of it.

“They’re starting to generate the stuff in some quantity now. The availability has gone up because they’re learning how to make it better. In spite of their problems in the Gulf, this is part of BP’s global plan to incorporate this specific product into their gasolines.”

Dyson’s team earned its first win by just half a second as Chris Dyson held off a fierce attack from Simon Pagenaud in Duncan Dayton’s Highcroft HPD ARX-01. Dyson turned the race’s fastest lap with just four to go.

“Chris and Guy have done a terrific job on the track and in reinforcing all the progress we’ve been making,” said Dyson. “The BP guys have given us great fuel and the Castrol guys provide great lubricants. These guys are developing new stuff all the time and the Dunlop guys have done a great job. We double-stinted our tyres at the end and that was one of the keys to winning. Lola has been exceptionally helpful in their wind tunnel and component effort and, of course, Mazda has been incredibly supportive. It’s a tremendous pleasure to finally reward them with a win.”

Dyson has run an ALMS or IMSA team for more than 25 years and remains one of the series’ most enthusiastic supporters. “What I like about the ALMS is the variety of different automobiles and the different types of engines and power plants you can bring,” said Dyson. “There’s just more science and hot-rodding you can do. That’s what makes it so much fun. We’ve made a lot of changes in the cars and fortunately the rules allow us to do that. We run against a couple of normally-aspirated V8s and we’re going to be running against diesel cars at Petit Le Mans.

“I believe the ALMS has the fan base because the cars are so interesting,” he added. “They come to see different cars and engines race. That’s what it’s all about.”

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This year’s Rolex 24 hours at Daytona produced a similar result to last year with a Brumos Porsche winning from one of Chip Ganassi’s two cars, but without 2009’s drama when Juan Pablo Montoya battled fiercely with David Donohue. The closing hours of this year’s race were disappointingly flat as the lead car driven by Terry Borcheller/Joao Barbosa/Mike Rockenfeller/Ryan Dalziel maintained a comfortable half-lap cushion over its only remaining challenger, Ganassi’s Riley-BMW driven by Scott Pruett/Memo Rojas/Justin Wilson/Max Papis. Wilson had to pit unexpectedly during the final hour when he felt a violent bang from beneath the car, enabling the Brumos Porsche to win by 52 seconds.

It was a classic long-distance victory in that the winning car was the only Daytona Prototype to run the race essentially trouble-free, although the drivers did have to struggle with a sticking throttle and clutch failure. Faultless driving and pitwork were key to their success.

“I didn’t expect that we would be there at the end,” said Rockenfeller. “We were struggling with the handling most of the weekend but the team did a really good job to fix the car. We were pretty much changing everything on the set-up before the race. We didn’t know what to expect, but the car as perfect.”

Added Dalziel: “All four of us went into this race with a major unknown. We were pretty lost in practice but I knew if we could be reliable we’d be there at the end, and after the first couple of hours it was obvious we were fast. We never went off track or had any mechanical problems and I think this is a huge achievement for a new team.”

The winning Riley-Porsche was built and prepared at the Brumos team’s race shop in North Carolina under Mike Colluci’s direction, but the car was entered under the Action Express Racing moniker. The tough economic times compelled Brumos to lay off a number of employees at its dealerships last year, resulting in a decision to run just one rather than two Grand-Am cars in 2010. In turn the race team took the opportunity to build a different car powered by a Cayenne-based V8 built in California by the Lozano Brothers.

Built around a Riley chassis similar to last year’s winner and powered by a conventional Porsche engine, the new combination was turned out in off-white with a German flag down the middle. Colucci and Brumos also brought in veteran NASCAR crew chief and technical man Gary Nelson to help run the car.

Finishing third, four laps down, was the NPN Racing Riley-BMW driven by Scott Tucker/Ryan Hunter-Reay/Lucas Luhr/Richard Westbrook. Fourth, another 16 laps down, was Tracy Krohn’s Lola-Ford driven by Krohn/Nic Jonson/Ricardo Zonta/Colin Braun.

Among those out of luck were Ganassi’s second Riley-BMW driven by Montoya/Dario Franchitti/Scott Dixon/Jamie McMurray (above), which led more than 140 laps before blowing an engine. The Riley-Porsche of last year’s winner, Brumos Racing, blew its flat-six motor after 20 hours while defending Grand-Am champions Alex Gurney/Jon Fogarty and Daytona team-mates Jimmie Johnson (below)/Jimmy Vasser ran into a variety of problems, finally succumbing to a broken oil pump. Also out of luck were Wayne Taylor’s SunTrust Dallara-Ford and Mike Shank’s pair of Riley-Fords. This trio swept the top three places in qualifying but ran into various troubles in the race and finished fifth, sixth and seventh.

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Last year’s season-opening Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona featured a tremendous battle through the final three hours between Juan Pablo Montoya and David Donohue. Donohue scored the biggest win of his career as the 42-year-old overcame Montoya’s unrelenting efforts, using his Riley-Porsche’s superior power to take the lead from Montoya with 40 minutes to go and holding on to win one of the most exciting Rolex 24 Hour finishes in recent history by just 0.167sec.

Donohue’s Brumos Riley-Porsche is again among the favourites to win this year’s race, as is Montoya, who returns with Chip Ganassi’s two-car team of star-studded drivers including Dario and Marino Franchitti, Scott Dixon, Justin Wilson, Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas. Ganassi’s team won the race three years in a row from 2006-08 but has switched from Lexus to BMW engines this year.

Another favourite is Bob Stallings’s Grand-Am championship-winning Gainsco team. Once again defending champions Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty will be joined at Daytona by four-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson and former CART champion Jimmy Vasser. The Rolex 24 is one of the few Grand-Am races the team has not won, but Gurney is optimistic about its chances at Daytona.

“Obviously it’s a really big challenge,” he says. “Ganassi has won that race a lot of times and we’ve learned a lot from watching those guys. I think that race tests how good your team is more than any other. There are so many things involved and you’ve got to be on top of everything. Just knowing the things that [can] break on the car and having disciplined drivers who stay out of trouble, all those things are going to make a difference. I think we’re in a position where we’re ready to win it. We’ve got all our ducks in a row.”

The team’s only change for 2010 is a switch from Pontiac to Chevrolet engines, a change in branding rather than equipment. “Last year showed you need the power when three or four cars are on the lead lap and you need to pass,” says Fogarty. “It’s so tough. You need everything going for you to win that race.”

Team owner Bob Stallings is very impressed with NASCAR champion Johnson (below). “Jimmie is a really talented driver,” he says. “The first time we put Jimmie in the car it was raining and I was scared to death because I didn’t know if a Cup driver could drive in the rain. And he was awesome, just really outstanding. He’s fascinated by our kind of racing. He feels that when he gets in our car he has a chance to win.”

Gurney couldn’t be happier to have Johnson and Vasser back for Daytona. “It’s definitely a good thing,” he says. “There are no unknowns and that makes a big difference for this race. We don’t have to worry about how these guys fit in the car or how the driver changes work. It makes it a lot easier and we’ll all be less highly-strung.”

Fogarty agrees: “Having Jimmie and Jimmy back, the same old crew, is great. They’re both super-capable and they both want to win it really badly.”

The weather forecast for northern Florida this weekend is for clear skies and mild temperatures, so the race should be run in ideal conditions under a full moon. Here’s hoping for another fierce battle and an interesting result.

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