2024-01-23
The iRacing Daytona 24 marks the start of the team special events each year, and last weekend marked the 2024 running. Despite plenty of rumours and even more willing it to happen – no rain this year.
Prestanda NOMAD put together 5 cars for entry into this years event, and here's how it went for each of them:
Drivers: Lochlan Bearman, Jason Dilworth, Jason Close
Car: Acura GTP
The 561 car put together our highest iRating car into any special event, with an average of 5590 through the 3 drivers. That put the car into split 3, which soon showed how competitive it would be. The plan for this race was to avoid all contact for the car, and see where that put them. Having qualified the car 21st and last, the only way was up.
The team put together a stellar run through the 24 hours, without majorly putting a foot wrong save for a few slowdown penalties at the bus stop and a pit speeding penalty. None of those would have changed the end P10 result. On average pace the team were humbled by some incredibly fast and efficient competitors, but the #561 crew are all very proud of the result.
Drivers: Casey Waters, Massimo Berta, Tom Stanley, Nic Veltenaar, Taylor Lane
Car: Ferrari GT3
This car had a turbulent build up to the event, with a driver reshuffle to move Liam Doyle to the 562 bringing in both Nic and Taylor with very little preparation. They made the best of the time they had, pulling together a setup and schedule in short order.
The cars aim going into their race was very much around survival and experience, and it is inarguable that they achieved both those goals. Being one of only two cars in the team to finish the event, and in the hardest class to survive in, is a huge accolade. The car started in 21st position, took on small amounts of damage and other issues through the race, and were rewarded with a final position in the top 10.
Drivers: Ryan Scott Hamilton, Chris Chadderton, Daniel Gilding, Liam Doyle
Car: Ferrari GT3
Our highest rated GT3 car fell foul from the beginning of a quirk of the iRating splitting system. Due to the relative popularity of the GT3 class compared to the LMP2 field, the skill gap between those classes was huge. That put paid to any chance of keeping their fate in their own hands from the start, and a good result was almost entirely going to be down to luck.
As it turned out, the car was hit twice in the initial stints by LMP2 cars but survival was still on. That couldn't last forever, though, with more issues around 7 hours into the race. LMP2 cars again caused two incidents in the same lap, with a large amount of avoidable netcode involved. Many laps of damage caused the decision to retire the car.
Drivers: Pablo Arteaga, Oliver Bunn, Matt Distill, Jamie Pounder
Car: Acura GTP
Our second GTP car was another strong entry, with split 5 being the strongest strength of field that the majority of the lineup had taken part in. A car that had great potential due to their high and consistent pace relative to their field.
Unfortunately it wasn't to be when, after just under 6 hours, the car was put into the wall hard. The car was subsequently retired.
Drivers: Chris Thacker, Håkon Eide Lindmo, Tim Penny, Ayden Refaie
Car: BMW GT3
The 564 had the most preparation laps in the run up to this event, mostly due to Chris Thacker's 849 practice laps. Another well balanced lineup went into the event with high hopes.
Those hopes were well rewarded in the first 10 hours, moving up 15 spots to 4th position. Unfortunately contact with a GTP car through the kink around 11 hours in resulted in a 45 minute repair time, and the race was all but done. The car was circulated for another few hours before being retired early into the second half.
Overall as a team we would have clearly loved for more cars to finish, but the results we did manage are ones that we can be proud of and build from. A huge amount of lessons have been learned and shared in debrief sessions in the team, and we take those into the rest of the season.