Ford-Rileys finished first, second and third at Daytona thanks to the N°60, N°8 (Starworks Motorsport, Dalziel/McNish/Popow/Potolicchio) and N°6 (Goncalvez/McDowel/Nasr/Yacaman) cars. Scotland’s Allan McNish took part in the classic American race for the first time.

Corvette’s four factory drivers in the ALMS (Garcia/Gavin/Magnussen/Westbrook) finished eighth in a Corvette DP entered by Spirit of Daytona. The GT class was won by the Magnus Racing Porsche GT3 of Lally/Lietz/Potter/Rast. The similar cars entered by TRG and Brumos Racing made it a one-two-three for the German make in the GT3 classification.

The Risi Competizione Ferrari 458 of Beretta/Bertolini/Vilander was fifth in GT, while Patrick Dempsey and his colleagues (Mazda RX-8) were 10th in the class, ahead of the Orbit GMG Porsche driven by Nicolas Armindo. The other ALMS regulars who started the race were Extrem Speed Motorsport with a Ferrari 458 (13th in GT, with Brown/Cosmo/Sharp/Van Overbeek) and Flying Lizard with a Porsche GT3 (15th in GT, Bergmeister/Long/Neiman/Rockenfeller).

Other well-known endurance drivers competing at the Florida venue included Emmanuel Collard and Marco Holzer (17th in GT, Porsche Alex Job Racing), Gimmi Bruni and Giancarlo Fisichella (Ferrari, retired), Patrick Pilet (Porsche, 7th in GT) and BMW’s factory drivers. Emanuele Pirro contested the race in an Audi R8 GRAND-AM. It is here that the Italian made his international racing debut back in 1981, at the age of 19.

2012 Le Mans 24 Hours, 2012 Rolex 24 hours of Daytona, FIA World Endurance Championship 2012, Ford-Riley, Michael Shank Racing