Forty years after his world-famous father, Mark, won the race, David Donohue earned his own spot in motorsports history by holding off NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Juan Pablo Montoya for the overall victory in the 47th annual Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona. That margin of victory: .167 seconds.
Donohue was part of the two-car Jacksonville-based Brumos Porsche team in the Daytona Prototype class. The other Brumos car, driven by a team headed by endurance racing legend Hurley Haywood, finished third. Brumos had not won a Grand-Am sports car race since 2003, and this is the first time Brumos has won the 24 Hours of Daytona since 1978. Haywood has five 24 Hours of Daytona victories of his own.
Donohue’s co-drivers were former Indianapolis 500 winner Buddy Rice, Darren Law and Antonio Garcia. Montoya’s teammates were IndyCar series champion Scott Dixon, Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas. Their Lexus-powered Ganassi Racing Riley is the defending champion of the race. Montoya was going for his third straight 24 Hours of Daytona win, Ganassi’s team for its fourth.
Montoya was not graceful in defeat, saying that the Porsche engine had so much more power than his Lexus.
“The pace has just been incredible,” Law said before jumping into the lead car. “And there’s still such a long way to go that anything can happen. We’re keeping an eye on the water temperature, but everything looks good.”
“Those Porsches are really fast,” Pruett said. “We lack a little top end speed, but we’re hanging in there pretty good.”
With Franchitti at the wheel, the brakes failed and the 2007 IndyCar champion and Indianapolis 500 winner was penalized a 30-second stop for driving past the chicane on the backstretch of the 3.56-mile road circuit. After he gave up the seat to Dixon, the hood of the Lexus inexplicably flew off, costing the team more laps.
Roger Penske’s Porsche Riley, making its Rolex Grand-Am Series debut with Timo Bernhard, Romain Dumas and Ryan Briscoe co-driving, led several times in the early going, but fell to sixth, 13 laps off the pace after having to replace a broken rear end.
“We thought we had everything covered pretty well, but you never know what’s going to jump up and bite you in this race,” said Penske Racing president Tim Cindric. “We’ve still got a fast car, so we’ll just try to make up some laps and get a good finish.”
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