OPINION: A Strong Start to the New IMSA GTP Era

John Dagys on the better-than-expected debut for the LMDh platform in the Rolex 24 at Daytona...

Ask any GTP class manufacturer, team owner or driver prior to the Rolex 24 at Daytona and they all gave the same answer when it came to the question of reliability of the new LMDh platform: It was a big unknown.

Given the number of issues that competitors were dealing with, even as late as December’s IMSA-sanctioned test at Daytona International Speedway, there seemed to be a genuine cause for concern heading into the first race of the new top class prototype era.

How many cars will finish? Will the team with the least amount of time spent in the garage be the winner? Could a LMP2 car even end up taking the overall win?

It was a legitimate question that had been on some people’s minds, especially with this year being the 20th anniversary of the Daytona Prototype’s debut, a race that saw a Porsche 911 GT3 RS from The Racers Group win overall.

Yet at the completion of the twice-around-the-clock endurance classic, eight of the nine GTP class cars took the checkered flag, with four on the lead lap and only two suffering hybrid-related failures, which was largely considered the achilles heel of the new platform.

We were not only treated to the debut of the new LMDh cars from Acura, BMW, Cadillac and Porsche but we saw most of them involved in entertaining battles on track with one another, something that was a foreign concept just weeks ago given concerns about just keeping the cars running for extended periods of time.