No less than 14 Porsche factory and Porsche Junior/scholarship drivers – the largest gathering of such drivers ever to enter a race – will converge on Daytona International Speedway for the 52nd Rolex 24 At Daytona, and the first-ever TUDOR United SportsCar Championship event.
As previously announced, six of the factory pilots will share the driving duties in the two Porsche 911 RSR factory GTLM cars. Richard Lietz (AUS), Nick Tandy (GB) and Patrick Pilet (FRA) will share the No. 911 Porsche North America entry while Patrick Long (Playa del Rey, Calif.), Michael Christensen (DEN) and Joerg Bergmeister (GER) will race the No. 912 Porsche North America Porsche 911 RSR.
“The new TUDOR United SportsCar Championship provides Porsche an opportunity that has not been available to us in the North American market for some time, said Detlev von Platen, president and CEO of Porsche Cars North America. “We now have an ideal platform to introduce our new U.S. based two-car 911 RSR factory effort that will compete in the GT Le Mans class, while the GT Daytona category is a natural fit for our established customer teams competing with the new 911 GT America.
“The Porsche North America team combines the individual strengths of Porsche Cars North America and Porsche Motorsport North America,” von Platen continued,” and we are looking forward to competing at the highest levels of GT racing in the world.”
The two factory Porsche North America 911 RSRs entered for the Rolex 24 At Daytona, January 25-26th, will proclaim the company’s return to the overall prototype ranks in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The special “Mission 2014. Our Return” livery commemorates the first time since 1998 that Porsche has entered a car in the classic endurance race’s prototype class.
Both 2014 Porsche 911 RSR TUDOR United SportsCar Championship GT Le Mans (GTLM) class cars will be running the message referring to the LMP1 prototype, the new Porsche 919 hybrid, which will contest the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) season including this June’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. The Daytona works entries, prepared in partnership with CORE autosport, will run against Corvettes, BMWs, Aston Martins, Ferraris and Vipers. The livery will utilize special material that will be visible throughout the night of North America’s premier 24-hour race.
The Rolex 24 At Daytona, Round One of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship, will take the green flag on Saturday, January 25 at 2:10pm ET. Live radio and television broadcasts combined with online streaming video will be available so sports car fans can catch all the action. Coverage begins at 2:00 PM Saturday on FOX and continues on FOX Sports 2 and FOX Sports 1. The FOX Sports GO mobile app and www.imsa.com will provide live streaming. Motor Racing Network will broadcast the entire 24 hour race on broadcast radio, www.mrn.com and SiriusXM NASCAR radio channel 90.