Roar Before The Rolex 24 Qualifying Session Results

Over the weekend the Daytona International Speedway, Auto Overload was present for the special weekend that leads up to the Rolex 24 hour endurance race at the end of January. The Roar Before The 24 is one action packed weekend for the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship fans of all ages to enjoy an up close and personal weekend with their favorite IMSA sportscar drivers from all over the world. The teams and drivers are dusting off the race cars and some testing out new cars for the 2018 season.

This year is the first year IMSA mandated a mandatory Rolex 24 test session for the teams and time trials along with a qualification session right at the end of the weekend on Sunday. Imsa is trying to eliminate the amount of quote on quote sandbagging that comes with this test each year. Teams are sometime not exactly honest with their performance of their cars leading up to the Rolex 24 event. The qualification session at the end of the weekend was to aid in the process of giving teams their pit and garage positions which ultimately can aid in the winning of the grueling 24 hour endurance event. The IMSA session was really for IMSA to collect data what will help the event organizers create a “Balance of Performance.”

The weekend ended with Felipe Nasr from the Action Express team taking top overall honors in his No. 31 Whelen Cadillac DPi-V.R. DPi (Daytona Prototype International) class with a 1:35.806 lap time. All four top positions in the DPi class were held by the Cadillac DPi chassis. We will have to see when another grid place qualification session is run during the Rolex 24 event weekend.

The two-time Formula One World Champion Fernando Alonso was on site with the United Autosport DPi team running the No.23 car during qualifying that put the team in 12th place. Alonso has not had much seat time but did get in the seat for a few sessions over the 3 day event.

Joey Hand was the quickest in the GTLM class where Ford, Porsche, Chevrolet and Ferrari will be duking it out for the infamous Rolex watch this year. Hand was piloting the No. 66 Chip Ganassi Ford GT with a Chevrolet Corvette C7.R right on his heels .030 seconds behind.

In the GTD category, Blancpain GT champion Mirko Bortolotti put his No. 11 Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini Huracan GT3 on top of the session with 18 other GTD cars behind him

Below are the rest of the IMSA Roar Before The 24 results.