12-Hour drivers dominate Daytona

EXTRA baggage will be the order of the day for a large number of the 23 drivers attempting the Daytona 24 Hour / Bathurst 12 Hour double this week. 

Five drivers doing the double either won the race outright or won their class, while a further six drivers finished on the podium in the Florida classic.

Sharing the Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac DPi with Aussie Ryan Briscoe and Kamui Kobayashi, Scott Dixon and Renger van der Zande took outright victory in the around-the-clock epic.

Dixon will make his 12-Hour debut this weekend in a Castrol / BP-backed R-Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 while van der Zande will join JAS Honda Racing on the Bathurst debut of the NSX GT3.

The WTR entry won by just over 65 seconds with the top three cars split by less than 90 seconds at the line.

The result was Dixon's third Rolex 24 win and his fourth when also including a class victory. The 2020 edition of the Daytona classic was a record-setter, smashing the existing distance record in a predominantly caution-free race.

In GT Le Mans, Chaz Mostert has scored his maiden Rolex victory thanks to a stunning performance from the No. 24 BMW Team RLL M8 GTE.

Mostert shared the victory with with Augusto Farfus, with both set to travel to Australia this week to join Walkenhorst Motorsport as BMWs lone representatives on the Mountain.

John Edwards and Jesse Krohn were alongside Farfus and Mostert en route to victory - one ultimately by just 14 seconds.

Porsche's pair of factory 911 GTE entries finished second and third in class, respectively; both containing pilots bound for Bathurst this week.

Earl Bamber, Laurens Vanthoor and Mathieu Jaminet finished second in the #912 entry; Bamber and Vanthoor to pair with Craig Lowndes in the #1 Earl Bamber Motorsport Meguiar's car this weekend.

Jaminet will also travel to Bathurst; he'll share the Absolute Racing #911 entry with fellow Frenchman Patrick Pilet and Aussie Matt Campbell on the Mountain. Campbell was third at Daytona, driving the #911 entry in Florida as he will this weekend.

The 23 drivers attempting both races is a record, while a host of international media will also travel from Florida to New South Wales this week, arriving Tuesday or Wednesday morning.

Lamborghini, who will field a fully professional class entry for the first time in 12-Hour history this week, won the GT Daytona class with Andrea Caldarelli set to do double duties.

PHOTO: Courtesy IMSA.com / IMSA Twitter