It was sweet victory for the No. 5 Mustang Sampling Cadillac Dpi-V.R. co-driven by Joao Barbosa, Filipe Albuquerque and Christian Fittipaldi in the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

Albuquerque raced the final stint for the Action Express Racing organization, crossing the start/finish line of the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship season-opening endurance race to take the overall classification and Prototype victory, more than 80 seconds ahead of their teammates, the runner-up No. 31 Mustang Sampling Cadillac Dpi team of Mike Conway, Eric Curran, Felipe Nasr and Stuart Middleton.

Finishing order: See unofficial results on IMSA.com

In the GT Le Mans (GTLM) class, it was all Chip Ganassi Racing, as the No. 67 Ford GT co-driven by Ryan Briscoe, Richard Westbrook and Scott Dixon took victory in their class, followed up by the No. 66 Ford GT shared by Dirk Mueller, Joey Hand and Sebastien Bourdais. The No. 3 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C7.R of Mike Rockenfeller, Antonio Garcia and Jan Magnussen was third, two laps behind the winning Ganassi group.

The 1-2 finish was an iconic one for Chip Ganassi Racing, which marked its 200th win across four different motorsports disciplines, including NASCAR, IMSA, IndyCar and the World Endurance Championship (WEC).

In the GT Daytona (GTD) class, the No. 11 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 of Mirko Bortolotti, Rolf Ineichen, Frank Perera and Rik Breukers led the way and won their respective class. The No. 86 Acura NSX GT3 of Michael Shank Racing shared by Alvaro Parente, AJ Allmendinger, Trent Hindman and Katherine Legge finished second, 16 seconds behind.

Battling various struggles throughout the race, the No. 7 Acura Team Penske Prototype entry of Ricky Taylor, Helio Castroneves and Graham Rahal finished ninth, while teammates Juan Pablo Montoya, Simon Pagenaud and Dane Cameron finished right behind them in eighth in the No. 6 Acura Team Penske Prototype.

It’s the third Rolex 24 victory for the Denver, North Carolina-based Action Express. The organization won the 2010 24-hour event in its inaugural season in the series and again in 2014.

Myriad issues have led to the retirement of the pole-winning No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi, as well as the No. 55 Mazda DPi and both the No. 2 and 22 Nissan DPis from Tequila Patrón ESM.

Source: IMSA PR

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