Mercedes-AMG Teams Finish Record-Setting Rolex 24 at Daytona
Debuting Mercedes-AMG Motorsport Customer Racing team P1 Motorsports finished 12th with the driving team of Juan “JC” Perez, Kenton Koch, Robby Foley and Loris Spinelli. The team cracked the top-10 to run ninth early on Sunday and later overcame a string of teething problems for the solid 12th place result.
Next up for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship is the 66th Annual 12 Hours of Sebring, March 15 – 17. Mercedes-AMG won its first ever IMSA race with the No. 33 team in last year’s 12 Hours of Sebring with the SunEnergy1 Racing No. 75 also on the podium with a third-place showing.
Ben Keating, Driver – No. 33 Mercedes-AMG Team Riley Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3: “We definitely were more competitive this year than we were last year. The reasons we finished third in 2017 were that it rained for 10 hours and that we had a perfect race with zero mistakes. Not so this year, we had some mistakes and penalties, and it was unusual we had only four yellows the whole race. I think last year we had 15 caution periods. We still ran a really good race, it was exciting at the end, but we also focused on getting the maximum Endurance Cup points in the 18th hour. That put us off of the correct fuel strategy, but we made the judgement call there would probably be a yellow in the final six hours, which didn’t happen. I have never seen a Rolex 24 with this few yellows, but it was an exciting race. I am happy leaving here with a fourth-place finish. The first two cars are not full- season entrants, so we should be in good shape in the Endurance Cup standings, too.”
Kenny Habul, Driver – No. 75 SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3: “I’m really happy. Thanks to the Riley Motorsports people and Mercedes-AMG. It’s solid to finish here, it takes a lot and I’m really proud of my drivers Maro, Thomas and Mikael. I drove well and I’m really happy. We had some issues, weird things, a wheel fell off and then some issues with the brake pad change, and if it wasn’t for that we would have be there, right on the podium. It just shows what we can do. Congratulations to the No. 33 team on the fourth place. It was a strong showing for us all, strong for reliability and for performance. Fourth and eighth after 24 hours and more than 700 laps for each of us. What more do you want? I’m really looking forward to Sebring.”