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Daytona 24 Hours: Record-breaking Action Express wins, Alonso 38th

Action Express Racing took victory in the 56th running of the Daytona 24 Hours, establishing a new distance record in the process, while Fernando Alonso ended his sportscar debut 38th.

Filipe Albuquerque, Christian Fittipaldi and Joao Barbosa completed a total of 808 laps in the #5 Cadillac DPi-V.R, beating the previous record of 762 laps on the current track layout in 1992 and the mileage record established in 1982 on the previous 3.84-mile configuration.

The Prototype race was marked by a high number of casualties among the leading runners, including the Spirit of Daytona Racing (misfire) and Wayne Taylor Racing (spate of right-rear punctures) Cadillacs.

Both Extreme Speed Motorsport Nissan DPis also dropped out in the night with a gearbox failure and a blown turbo respectively, while a fire and a recurring electrical problem did for the Joest-run Mazdas.

That meant the race developed into a two-way contest between the two Action Express Cadillacs and Team Penske's pair of all-new Acura ARX-05s.

Penske's challenge crumbled just beyond half-distance with an alternator problem for the #6 and a trip to the garage for the #7 when Helio Castroneves made contact with the #31 Action Express Cadillac.

That left Action Express with a major advantage and allowed both cars to make late stops to top up their fluids amid concerns of overheating.

The Felipe Nasr, Mike Conway, Eric Curran and Stuart Middleton car emerged from its stop in a fight for second with the CORE Autosport Oreca of Colin Braun, Jon Bennett, Romain Dumas and Loic Duval.

Braun closed on the fuel-saving Middleton in the final stint but fell short by 21 seconds, as Albuquerque took the flag first 1m10s clear.

United Autosports took fourth place with the best of its Ligier JS P217s driven by Bruno Senna, Paul di Resta, Will Owen and Hugo de Sadeleer.

They overhauled the #78 Jackie Chan DCR Oreca driven by Alex Brundle, Ho-Pin Tung, Ferdinand Habsburg and Antonio Felix da Costa in the final two hours.

Both teams' respective second cars, featuring current Formula 1 stars, hit trouble.

Alonso's #23 United Ligier dropped out of contention for a potential podium place in the evening with a brake issue that forced a lengthy trip to the garage to replace a master cylinder, before losing more time with a throttle issue and a repeat of the brake problem.

Alonso and team-mates Lando Norris and Phil Hanson wound up 38th overall, 91 laps down.

In the #37 DCR Oreca he shared with Daniel Juncadella, Robin Frijns and Felix Rosenqvist, Lance Stroll ended up 15th overall and 32 laps down after losing a significant amount of time to repair bodywork and suspension damage after a puncture.

GTLM: Ford unstoppable

Ford sealed a one-two finish in the GT Le Mans category, a result that looked in little doubt from the early stages of the race.

Although the best of the Corvettes was able to take advantage of cautions to close in, they were unable to threaten the Ganassi-run Fords at the restarts.

The #66 Ford of Joey Hand, Dirk Muller and Sebastien Bourdais led for much of the distance, but the #67 GT of Ryan Briscoe, Scott Dixon and Richard Westbrook managed to get ahead in the final four hours and took the chequered flag by 11 seconds.

Corvette's #3 C7.R of Jan Magnussen, Antonio Garcia and Mike Rockenfeller was two laps behind at the finish.

The best of the BMW M8s was seventh in class on the car's debut, 10 laps down on the Fords, behind the Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTE and the best of the Porsches.

GT Daytona class honours went to the Grasser Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 of Mirko Bortolotti, Franck Perera, Rolf Ineichen and Rik Breukers.

The car worked its way into contention from the back of the grid after failing its stall test during post-qualifying tech inspection and a five-minute penalty for the #29 Land Audi blew the GTD race wide open.

Mercedes man Jeroen Bleekemolen had closed to within a second of Bortolotti in the final half-hour, but had to make a stop just 13 minutes of the chequered flag and dropped to fourth.

That gave second place to the Acura of Alvaro Parente, Katherine Legge, AJ Allmendinger and Trent Hindman, while third went to the Lamborghini shared by Bryan Sellers, Madison Snow, Andrea Caldarelli and Bryce Miller.

Zdroj: autosport.com