FIRST LOOK AT A NEW ERA

How sports car racing's big reboot began in style at Daytona

- Damien Smith

The scent of history was in the Florida air as a much-anticipated fresh era of sports car racing finally began at the Daytona 24 Hours. The new generation of LMDh prototypes (now dubbed GTP by the IMSA Sportscar Championship that drew up the rulebook) took its bow, with BMW and Porsche prominent as the first of the big hitters returning to the sport's premier division.

As it turned out, the race for victory distilled to a face-off between familiar brands, teams and drivers from the old DPi era, as Acura saw off Cadillac to score a third consecutive win in America's greatest endurance race.

Meyer Shank Racing's handsome Acura ARX-06 started from pole and thereafter showed a decisive edge, with Wayne Taylor Racing (now partnered with Andretti Autosport) completing a landmark one-two for Honda's US brand.

The Cadillac V-LMDhs were held to third, fourth and fifth, with the better of the two BMW M Hybrid V8s trailing in a distant sixth.

Porsche's pair of 963s were fully in the mix at the sharp end, only for reliability troubles to rule out a fairytale.

Then in the final seconds of the 24 Hours, good old LMP2-the secondary division that has carried prototype sports car racing through some of its thinnest years - stole some of GTP's thunder by offering up a contender for the most astonishing finish to a long-distance race ever seen. It was surely the closest.

AN EVERGREEN HERO

Hélio Castroneves helped to extend the theme of continuity from the old era. His place in the four-driver Meyer Shank crew means he has shared all three of Acura's consecutive Daytona victories, as a bountiful Indian summer to his long career stretches on.

Now 47, the Brazilian added a record-equalling fourth Indianapolis 500 victory with Meyer Shank in 2021 and has every intention of returning to Daytona next year in search of further glory.