The #57 Winward Racing Mercedes AMG GT3 driven by Russell Ward, Indy Dontje, Philip Ellis and Daniel Morad overcame a lowly qualifying position and late full course yellow to take victory in the GTD category in the 62nd running of the Daytona 24 Hours.
The prestigious enduro is the curtain raiser for this year’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and was preceded by last weekend’s Roar Before the 24 three-day test event, which culminated in qualifying for this weekend’s race.
The Mercedes contingent struggled and that wasn’t excluding the #57 crew, who found themselves with a starting grid slot of 53rd overall out of 59 competitors and toward the tail end of the GTD class.
However, a raft of changes to the Balance of Performance (BoP) across the GT competitors transformed the Mercedes into a competitive package.
This was proved as the #57 car managed to carve its way through the GTD field in the early stages of the race (which began at 18:40 local time on Saturday), finding itself in the top three after two hours of running with the help of three full course yellows.
Three hours and as many full course yellows later, the #57 car had progressed a step nearer to victory to run in second place, behind the class-leading #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 EVO.
In the seventh hour, Morad passed the pole-sitting #12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 to take the GTD lead and from this point, the Winward crew remained consistently in the hunt for GTD victory.
Whilst the class lead changed hands through the night several times, as the sun rose and daylight came, the #57 crew set about stretching out an advantage over the rest of the GTD pack and in the 15th hour enjoyed a lead of over half a minute over the #32 Korthoff Mercedes and the #70 Inception McLaren 720S GT3 EVO.
In the next hour the #70 McLaren headed behind the wall to resolve an issue, one rival out of the #57’s way.
As the hours ticked by, the #023 Triarsi Ferrari 296 GT3 came into contention and found itself in the class lead after the 14th full course yellow of the race in its 20th hour.
Not to be outdone, Dontje hounded the #023 Ferrari for several laps, clearly showing the greater pace and after several laps of trying, made a successful move into the Le Mans Chicane amid passing GTP and GTD Pro traffic.
Dontje was able to pull out a margin over the #023 over the course of the next hour and the Mercedes’ lead grew when the second-place Ferrari piloted by Onofrio Triarsi spun after getting tagged by the #1 GTD Pro BMW M4 GT3 in the infield section of the road course.
Triarsi slipped to third in GTD and Dontje eeked out the #57’s margin further.
Going into the final stint, Morad had an approximate half a minute lead over the #12 Lexus in GTD, but when the latter came to a flaming halt in pit exit during its final stop, a full course yellow was brought out with less than an hour of running to go.
When the race went to green with barely 30 minutes of action remaining, the lead that Morad had worked so hard to maintain had been slashed and he had several GTD rivals within seconds of his rear tail.
Nevertheless, Morad could withstand the pressure from the #21 AF Corse Ferrari of Miguel Molina that had made its way up to second.
The gap between the pair remained minimal, but the #57 Mercedes had the pace to pass the chequered flag to take Winward Racing’s second GTD win at Daytona.
The #21 AF Corse Ferrari finished two seconds back, with the #34 Conquest Racing Ferrari finishing third, 15 seconds behind Morad’s Mercedes and the Canadian driver came to a halt in pit road with his visor open and gloves wiping the tears from his eyes after a hard-fought win.
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