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Porsche Penske No. 7 Completes Daytona 24 Hat TrickIcon Sportswire - Getty Images
The No. 7 Porsche Penske 963 defends its two consecutive Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona overall victories with a hat trick win over the No. 31 Whelen Action Express Cadillac and the No. 24 BMW.
The two Porsche Penskes were the class of the field for the majority of the 24-hour feature yet again, leading more than three-fourths of the race, but where the No. 6 team saw problems, collecting damage from contact in the opening two hours, the No. 7 team completed a flawless way in hunt of its third consecutive victory.
The No. 7 team saw the lead at each major milestone of the race, with Felipe Nasr holding off pressure at the end from Cadillac's Jack Aiken. Aiken and the No. 31 team battled back from multiple near race-ruining incidents to take second overall, first with Aiken's pole being striped following the stewards deeming there was too much wear on the rear skid block and then with Connor Zilisch in his first GTP start running the red light at the end of pit row during a record-breaking caution for fog in the middle of the night.
This is the second time that the Aiken and the No. 31 Whelen Cadillac have come up one spot short of the No. 7 team, finishing second in 2024 as well.
The No. 24 BMW rebounded from a first lap mistake and spin to take the final spot on the podium in front of Porsche's No. 6 team with floor and sidepod damage.
In LMP2, the No. 04 Crowdstrike entry rebounded from the opening-lap LMP2 crash involving team owner and driver George Kurtz to win its class ahead of the No. 43.
The No. 1 BMW M4 GT3 EVO rebounded from its stripped class pole to win in GTD Pro.
The closest battle at the end was left to the GTD category with Philip Ellis in the NO. 57 Mercedes-AMG GT3 and Nicki Thiim in the NO. 44 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 swiping the lead in the final laps, ultimately with Ellis emerging dominant, winning the class by 1.367 over Thiim.
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