This is going to be a strange race to tell a story about.
Some headlining stats: there were just over 15 hours of green flag running during the 24 hours, 15h11m to be exact. There was almost 9 hours of yellow altogether – 8h49m – including the mammoth 6h33m yellow stint in the middle of the race, from 00:45 local time to 07:18.
An oft-quoted stat in the media centre during the race: this was the longest safety car period in history, in any motorsport series anywhere.
Sidenote: I've now been to both races with the longest stints of safety car periods in history, this year's race at Daytona and Le Mans 2024, which had the 4 hour 25 minute safety car period due to rain.
The longest single stint in this safety car period, and during the race itself, was Kyffin Simpson in the #08 Tower Motorsport LMP2 entry. The Caymanian driver was in the car from 02:42 local time, when he replaced teammate Sebastian Alvarez, who'd been in since the caution period started and before that.
Simpson was driving around at safety car speed until 06:36 the same morning, with no pitstops to break the boredom of 3h56m of slow pace car speeds. He was replaced by Sébastien Bourdais minutes before hitting the 4 hour limit behind the wheel. IMSA confirmed this is the longest single stint a driver has done at Daytona since the 4 hour rule was introduced.
Porsche were quickest, but others weren't far off
Anyway. Enough with the safety car shenanigans. Let's look at the actual race where we had green flag running.
The first thing to say: it's obvious Porsche had the fastest car throughout the race. While others led for considerable portions of the race – 9 GTPs led at least a lap through the race – the two factory Porsche Penskes led for 73.9% of the race, or 521 laps.
But while it felt like Porsche dominated, and purely from a positional standpoint they did, they weren't all that much quicker than their competition.
If we filter each car down to its best 20% laps and then create an average value for each, the two Porsches are, probably predictably, fastest. But the Acuras, Cadillacs and BMWs are not far off at all.
As you may expect if you watched the race, the #31 Action Express Cadillac was the closest to the Porsches when measured using this metric. The red Cadillac was, perhaps, the German manufacturer's strongest competition through the race, or at least the most consistent.
Interestingly, though, the car only led 33 laps, or 4.7% of the total race distance. Most of this was Earl Bamber's 31-lap stint in the lead, from lap 96 to 126, just over 3 hours into the race. Jack Aitken led the other two laps, which occurred on lap 310 and 311, as the two Porsches ahead pitted with Aitken inheriting the lead until he too stopped a couple of laps later.
The #93 Meyer Shank-run Acura was the fourth fastest car and occasionally had its turn in the lead, most significantly from lap 203 to 225 with Nick Yelloly at the wheel. However, despite sitting on pole (due to the #31 Action Express Cadillac's exclusion from qualifying) the Acuras both clearly lacked race pace.
The #6 Porsche's troubles
While the #7 Porsche in particular dominated the race from a positional point of view, leading 375 laps, the #6 Porsche had a more troubled race.
Kevin Estre, Matt Campbell and Laurens Vanthoor always seemed to be a step behind their teammates in the sister car.
It wasn't seen on camera, but early in the race during Kevin Estre's first stint, he hit an unidentified LMP2, causing floor damage which affected them all race.
Estre told Only Endurance: 'There were two cars following each other. I was exiting the pitlane and they were in turn 3. After the first one, I started to go towards the apex, and then we had contact with the second one.
'To be honest, I didn't see any footage, I'm not sure if there is any, or if he had enough room, any understeer, or if I didn't leave enough room. It was not a massive contact, but probably his nose was attached to us or something. So we had a big issue on the car, big damage, although the contact was not that big.'
This would go on to affect them all through the race, causing a long pitstop soon after the contact to fix immediate problems and dropping them off the lead lap, although they got it back at the next caution period.
Estre also hit the Risi Ferrari early on in the race, with Davide Rigon at the wheel. The Frenchman in the Porsche described the contact thus: 'He just lost it in the middle of the bus stop, went sideways and almost spun. I was going to the right trying and he came back and hit the rear left again'.
Otherwise, though, the #6 lacked the pace of the #7, whether through damage or setup.
'When we were in clean air it was not too bad,' L. Vanthoor told Only Endurance after the race.
'We had more accidents than the #7, and we didn't have the ultimate speed, but in clean air we were fine. But behind other cars it felt worse than ever,' the Belgian lamented.
BMW's delight at a podium
The other German manufacturer in Hypercar was, meanwhile, ecstatic at claiming a podium at Daytona.
This is BMW's first ever podium in the GTP class at Daytona, having come a best of fourth in the race previously, in 2025, when the team was run by Rahal Letterman Lanigan (RLL).
It was also WRT's first race in IMSA with the M Hybrid V8, and effectively their Daytona debut in their current form as BMW's factory team. That said, it should be noted they did compete in the race in 2019, when the team was partnered with Audi, in the GTD class, finishing third.
But GTP is a completely different kettle of fish, and WRT boss Vincent Vosse could barely contain his delight when Only Endurance found him in victory lane post-race.
'It's quite an accomplishment, so very happy,' he said amid the chaos of post-race celebrations in victory lane.
'It was not looking so good after qualifying, and we were able to turn the thing around. At some stage, we were looking good for any place on the podium.'
'After a few laps at the start of the race, we could feel we were better than expected. We were able to build to our podium. The Porsche was probably unreachable, but for the rest, I think we have achieved what we could.'
Like Vosse said, while BMW couldn't reliably challenge Porsche, although they did lead at times, they were right on pace with Cadillac and Acura.
In total, the BMWs led for 8.2% of the race, or 58 laps. The longest stint in the lead for the Bavarian manufacturer was laps 549-576, with Marco Wittmann at the wheel of the #25 car.
But, as we've already looked at, Porsche weren't a massive amount ahead anyway pace-wise. They led from the front for the vast majority of the race, but they were only slightly ahead when it comes to pace.
AXR's challenge for the win
The only car to properly challenge the #7 Porsche was the #31 Action Express-run, Whelen-sponsored Cadillac.
While they were demoted to the back of the GTP grid due to being excluded from qualifying for a technical infringement, they quite clearly had pace from the very first hour.
Jack Aitken started the car 11th. By just under half an hour in, after the first caution for the LMP2 crash at the start had finished and the race restarted, the Briton was in 8th. Unfortunately, he received a penalty for a jump start at the latest restart, dropping him well into the LMP2 field.
But, throughout the race, looking at the 20% average pace, the #31 car was only a tenth of a second or so off the #7 Porsche, and was surely their closest and most persistent challenger through the race.
Both cars declined to take tyres when they stopped for the final time, Aitken on lap 676 and Nasr a lap later. Aitken's stop was 2 seconds quicker, enabling him to gain on the Brazilian in the Porsche and be right under his rear wing.
In that final 28-lap stint to the flag, Aitken was actually quicker in terms of average 20% pace, by under a tenth of a second. But he couldn't find a way past Nasr, who was positioning his car perfectly with excellent racecraft to not let the Briton get by.
'There were a lot of cases that the 31 was pretty close to making a move on us,' he said after the race in the post-race press conference.
'A couple of times I had to pick my line and brake as late as I could, and I could see he was also trying everything he could. Like I said, excellent drivers on the 31, and they were not going to let us win that easy.'
Meanwhile, Aitken for his part said, 'I think I had a couple of moments where I stuck my nose in there, but it was always from a bit further back and a bit just trying to make something happen. I never got a super, super great run on him into Turn 1. It was always creeping up to his corner.
'So yeah, I was trying to find an opening here or there, and it was a fine line between making a gap open up and just causing a bit of an accident.
'I tried as best I could to get alongside, but couldn't get level, couldn't make the move stick. Yeah, I tried, but couldn't do it.'
There was a moment where Aitken got his front wheel almost alongside Nasr's rear wheel on the inside, but Nasr was able to fend him off.
'It was aggressive, but yeah, I think I would have probably done the same,' he said when asked about that moment.
'There was a half of a gap there, so I went for it. The half of a gap turned into none of a gap, and we both did a good job to not have an accident.'
The #24 BMW, meanwhile, was actually quicker than both cars ahead, once Dries Vanthoor had cleared the flagging #6 Porsche of Kevin Estre (he told Only Endurance after the race he had to back off and save fuel to make the finish), was actually marginally quicker than Aitken was measured by the 20% metric.
And 'marginally' here means by about a hundredth of a second a lap on average, when taking the best 20% of laps from each car. So nothing to write home about it, but still shows BMW are in the fight with WRT at the helm.
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Will Porsche's dominance hold over the year?
Porsche have won all three championships for the GTP class in the last two years; Drivers', Teams', and Manufacturers'. They are, without a doubt, the team to beat in IMSA right now. They also won the Endurance Cup last year, cementing a clean sweep.
BMW and WRT, though, are quite clearly hot on their heels, with the new BMW aero package working well. Cadillac, too, are clearly up there, and Acura aren't far back. It promises to be a great season in IMSA!
Feature image: Griffith Bean
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