On February 5, 1966, Roger Penske made his official debut as an entrant or racing team owner, fielding a Chevrolet Corvette L88 in the year when Daytona International Speedway’s endurance race was extended to 24 hours. Penske, then 28 years old, was a very successful driver racing against the likes of Dan Gurney, Jim Hall and Carroll Shelby, but he was more interested in pursuing a business career and had recently acquired his first Chevrolet dealership. Dick Guldstrand, George Wintersteen and Ben Moore drove the No6 Corvette to the class victory at Daytona for GT cars over 3 litres, setting the stage for Penske to become the most successful team owner in the history of US motor sport.

“I remember testing the 917 at Weissach when it was just the track and a barn”

Fast forward 60 years and the story of the 2026 Daytona 24 Hours could have written itself. After setting the pace in homologation testing and practice leading up to the race, Porsche Penske Motorsport dominated this year’s edition of America’s twice-round-the-clock classic, leading 521 of the 705 laps to earn Porsche’s record 21st overall Daytona victory. On the 60th anniversary of Team Penske and of the Daytona 24 Hours, the only aspect of the result that wasn’t Penske perfect from a PR perspective was that the No7 Porsche 963 triumphed while the No6 (a number associated with Team Penske from the beginning) only managed fourth.

Remarkably, Penske’s connection with Porsche spans even longer. He came to prominence as a driver in a series of Porsche Spyders in the late 1950s, then fielded the fearsome turbocharged 917-10 and 917-30 in the SCCA Can-Am Challenge in the early ’70s. In that same era, Penske created the International Race of Champions, a long-running all-star series that challenged a dozen luminaries who competed the first year in colourful, equally prepared Porsche 911 Carrera RSR racing cars.

More than 30 years later, Porsche again teamed with Penske to earn three consecutive LMP2 championships with the evocatively named RS Spyder in the American Le Mans Series from 2006-08. When the 963 hybrid programme was created for the 2023 LMDh regulation set in the FIA World Endurance Championship and the IMSA SportsCar Championship, Penske was the logical partner team. And the Porsche/Penske partnership has delivered, winning the 2024 WEC crown as well as the two most recent IMSA titles.

“Sports cars are where I started personally, and the success we’ve had over the years with Porsche really began with me driving an RSK Spyder back in my early days,” Penske said. “I believe I had 28 race wins in my career behind the wheel of a Porsche, and it really marked the start of a strong partnership together.

“I remember testing the 917 at Weissach with Mark Donohue when it was just the track and a barn… you go there today and it’s like a small city.

“Porsche has such great tradition and a special legacy in racing. Their commitment to winning has always aligned well with our own goals and objectives. When we were looking to return to full-time sports car competition and build a programme under the new global formula, it made perfect sense to partner with Porsche on a new alliance for the future. It’s been pretty special to renew the relationship.”

This was the third consecutive overall Daytona win for the No7 Penske Porsche, with Felipe Nasr anchoring all three of them. This year, Nasr was joined by Julien Andlauer and prototype rookie Laurin Heinrich, while the No6 car was shared by Kévin Estre, Laurens Vanthoor and Matt Campbell, a trimmed-down driver line-up in the wake of Porsche’s withdrawal from WEC.

“Felipe has done some great driving for us, and that’s probably one of the best drives I’ve seen”

The No7 Porsche established itself as favourite in the first half of this year’s 24 Hours before dense fog caused most of the overnight portion of the race – more than six and a half hours, or 121 laps – to be run behind the safety car. But the record crowd was rewarded by more than two hours of green flag racing to conclude the event, producing a tense battle between Nasr and Jack Aitken in the pole-winning (and last-starting due to a skid block violation) No31 Whelen Cadillac co-driven by Earl Bamber, Frederik Vesti and upcoming 19-year-old NASCAR star Connor Zilisch. They ran nose-to-tail for almost the entire final stint before Nasr finally pulled away at the end to win by just 1.569sec.

“Felipe has done some great driving for us, and at the end there, that’s probably one of the best drives I’ve seen,” Penske said. “For our 60th anniversary, it’s a big deal, and to have three wins here at Daytona is certainly special. It starts out the year the right way.”

Penske generally spends all 24 hours of an endurance race participating from the pitbox, but this year’s bizarre fog spectacle gave him an excuse to catch a rare few hours of rest in the motorhome. The man known as ‘The Captain’ still holds a torch for sports car racing after all these years, and the Le Mans 24 Hours is the only major prize in racing that has eluded a man who boasts 20 Indianapolis 500 wins and almost as many IndyCar championships. Porsche’s decision to withdraw from WEC (and Le Mans) must have been personally devastating.

“The bizarre fog spectacle gave Penske an excuse to catch a rare few hours of rest in the motorhome”

At least Penske has the prospect of cleaning up again in IMSA this year as a consolation. Many competitors were surprised when the Porsches were not hit by a Balance of Performance adjustment after the two Penske factory cars running in Evo trim and the private 2025-spec JDC-Miller MotorSports 963 were frequently fastest in pre-race Roar Before the 24 testing. But they couldn’t say anything without risking sanction, because IMSA recently added a clause into the rulebook similar to the one instituted by the FIA for WEC that prohibits competitors from publicly commenting about the controversial, data-driven method of levelling the playing field.

“Balance of Performance is a necessary part of our sport,” said IMSA president John Doonan. “We have 18 auto manufacturers racing in this sport with all the different platforms, all the different powertrains, and all the different aero. It’s incredibly important, to produce the incredible show that we want, to have BoP. We’re all in the business of growing the sport, not tearing it down. I think the sport of endurance sports car racing is tricky enough to understand, and we want to educate people on what Balance of Performance is and how it works. It’s incumbent on us to communicate that more. But in short, we shouldn’t be airing out our issues in public.”

The competition therefore had to be careful in choosing its words when describing what it saw as Porsche dominance. “I had hoped that we could hold our own, but that wasn’t the case,” said poleman Renger van der Zande after starting the race in the No93 Meyer Shank Acura ARX-06 that ultimately finished fifth. “That was a very demotivating stint. I’m afraid that’s the last time we’ll see the Porsches for the rest of the 24 hours. They’re just playing with us.”

“What really scares me is that Porsche doesn’t really show everything at the start of the race, and they build up such a big lead [about 20sec in the first three hours],” added Cadillac driver Ricky Taylor. “They’re definitely the ones to beat and I’m worried they have even more tricks up their sleeve.”

They were lucky there was essentially one Porsche to battle, because the No6 car incurred floor damage early in the race after contact with an LMP2 car, and despite multiple stops during the extended overnight caution for repairs, it never regained the same kind of speed as the No7. The No6 Porsche finished fourth, trailing the No31 Cadillac and the No24 BMW M Hybrid V8 driven by Sheldon van der Linde, Dries Vanthoor, Robin Frijns and René Rast over the line.

“The guys did a good job at repairing as much as they could,” Kévin Estre said. “But when the floor is damaged, you cannot do much. We did our best.”

“The Porsches were impressive. We came after them as best we could. I got close a few times”

The Whelen Cadillac did a great job recovering not only from being sent to the back of the grid but for incurring a Stop+60sec penalty when Zilisch failed to halt for a red light at the end of the pitlane during the fogged-out portion of the 24 hours. Aitken used the final caution of the race to regain the lead lap, moved up to second place and gave Nasr all he could handle in the closing hour, but it was not enough.

“The Porsches were impressive,” Aitken said. “We came after them and tried to challenge them as best we could. I got close a few times but just didn’t have quite enough to get the move done. It was a fine line from making a gap open or just causing a bit of an accident.”

“That was pure racing; I used everything I had,” Nasr added. “They had a lot of pace, and especially their traction zones were really good. All I did was just drive with my heart and drive from what I know from my experience. I’m just pleased it went our way.”

Most disruptions in the race were caused by wayward crashing LMP2 cars, the class eventually won by CrowdStrike founder George Kurtz with team-mates Alex Quinn, Toby Sowery and Malthe Jakobsen in the No04 ORECA 07 LMP2. The GTD PRO class victory went to the No1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 Evo and drivers Neil Verhagen, Connor De Phillippi, Max Hesse and Dan Harper. Like the Whelen Cadillac that finished second overall, the PMR BMW started from the back of its class after having its front-row qualifying time disallowed; Harper demonstrated great flair by completing the last hour of the race without radio communication to hold off the 75 Express Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, which sported an all-star driver line-up that included Supercars champion Chaz Mostert and IndyCar legend Will Power – who, at 44, was making his first Daytona start.

“I definitely plan to come back,” Power said. “I expected tough competition, but I like just how much fun the driving is.”

“Those last two and a half hours were absolutely insane. That’s how it is, I guess – rock’n’roll”

But it was the Pro-Am GTD class that brought the crowd to its feet in the closing stages thanks to an epic duel between Philip Ellis in the No57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 and Nicki Thiim in Magnus Racing’s No44 Aston Martin Vantage Evo. Crossing the start/finish line of Daytona’s epic tri-oval with 10min remaining, the two cars touched and snapped into lurid slides that the drivers were lucky to catch. Ellis held off Thiim under braking into Turn 1 and was able to remain in front to the end.

“It was super-tight with Nicki and to be fair, I think I just misjudged it a little bit,” said Ellis. “I’m happy that we both continued and nothing bigger happened. Then we put on a good fight and a good show. I spoke to Nicki and I think everything is good. It was a hard-fought battle, very on edge. I’m super stoked that we came out on top.”

Daytona – a chip off the old block

Why the 24 Hours is family focused for John Oreovicz

I covered IndyCar for most of my career but started attending the Daytona 24 Hours frequently in the early 2000s, sometimes just to escape the Indiana winter and socialise with friends. Almost nothing remains the same. Daytona’s 3.56-mile road course is intact, but the stadium around it has been modernised to industry-leading standard and the bland row of strip malls across International Speedway Boulevard has grown beyond recognition.

The product on the track has also been transformed, from the homely Daytona Prototypes run under Grand Am sanction prior to the 2014 American sports car merger to today’s IMSA, with five manufacturers fielding high-tech, Le Mans-eligible LMDh Prototypes and more on the way. And like most IMSA events over the past few years, Daytona announced a record attendance.

My son has accompanied me to races since he was a toddler, often out of single-parent necessity. Patrick is now 19, and the Daytona 24 Hours is his must-attend event. This year, he stayed for all 24 hours capturing footage, even in the overnight fog. His favourite car? The Jaguar XJR-10 driven by Zak Brown in the historic support race.