The field spent 250 laps behind the safety car during the six-hour, 33-minute caution period - the longest caution period in the event's history by far.
Just because a race is advertised as being 24 hours long, it doesn't mean that all 24 hours will feature wheel-to-wheel action. The Rolex 24 at Daytona last weekend featured an unprecedented six-hour, 33-minute full-course caution due to fog. While the No. 31 Whelen Cadillac would pose a threat until the very end, the No. 7 Porsche 963 dominated the event on both sides of the length delay. Felipe Nasr, Julien Andlauer and Laurin Heinrich secured the third consecutive overall victory at the Rolex 24 for Porsche Penske Motorsport.
Full Disclosure:Porsche paid my airfare and accommodations to attend the race and spend six hours wandering through the dense fog, contemplating my life choices up to that point.
The season-opening endurance classic began with a bang as the LMP2 category had a multi-car wreck in the first corner. Unconventional AI CEO Naveen Rao slammed his No. 18 Era Motorsport LMP2 into the No. 11 TDS Racing ride of Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke. The collision also collected CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz and Nuvei CEO Phil Fayer. Kurtz's Crowdstrike Racing would go on to mount a comeback and win the LMP2 class. Ahead of the LMP2's pro-am chaos, it only took the opening lap for Nasr to take the lead from the third spot on the GTP grid.
Read more: 5 Bad Driver Habits Guaranteed To Annoy Everyone Else On The Road
6-7 wouldn't last forever
It wouldn't take a long time for the Porsches to start formation flying at the front, with the No. 6 leading the No. 7. However, the 1-2 run that enthralled teenagers from coast to coast wouldn't last forever. With Kévin Estre behind the wheel, the No. 6 brushed up against a lapped LMP2 during the third hour. The workers needed to repair the damage from the minor collision put the car behind all the other GTPs. The floor damage would linger on and prevent the No. 6 Porsche from contending for the win.
It seemed like the No. 7 would run off into the night as the race neared halfway, but Mother Nature had other plans. The fog that had loomed over the track worsened significantly. Race officials were forced to declare a full-course caution at the start of Hour 12 because of the lack of visibility. The race would eventually resume at 7:19 a.m. with six hours, 21 minutes left on the clock. As the hours ticked down, the No. 31 clung on to be the last remaining challenger to No. 7. Jack Aitken made a valiant effort but couldn't get around Felipe Nasr during the final hour.
The victory not only sealed a three-peat for the team but also for Nasr, who became the event's 3rd-ever back-to-back-to-back winner. The feat was most recently accomplished by four-time Indy 500 winner Hélio Castroneves between 2021 and 2023. However, Hélio's 2023 Rolex 24 win carries an asterisk. The No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing team was severely penalized and stripped of its prize money for manipulating tire pressure data. However, IMSA let the team keep the victory.
The fog was too overwhelming to racing through the night
IMSA's decision to halt racing wasn't taken lightly. As the fog became thicker, the spotters on top of the grandstand were no longer able to see the cars for nearly the entire lap. The drivers were trusted to do things the old-fashioned way and use their mirrors to observe their surroundings. Once the marshals could no longer see each other from post to post, IMSA declared the caution. It was clear that the caution would last for a significant period, but it only became tangible when meteorologists issued a dense fog advisory until 9:00 a.m.
Not even 12 hours into a 24 hour race and fans are starting to beat each other up pic.twitter.com/ZfYBIjHjp4
— Rubbin is Racing (@rubbinisracing) January 25, 2026
Even in the dead of night, endurance races have a level of revelry that simply never stops. This time it was different. The track cleared out and became a ghost town despite the facility remaining open. I decided to spend a chunk of the caution sleeping in my car parked behind the backstretch. On my way out of the infield, an ambulance was parked on the road to the tunnel. A young man was standing by the rear doors with a heavily bandaged nose, the front of his shirt covered in blood. The shuttle driver on my return trip told me that the guy "swandived" off the top of temporary bleachers and landed face-first on a trash can. It wasn't the first fan incident of the night as one spectator started throwing punches at another in the main grandstand. The rowdy behavior was an outlier that went viral on social media.
Despite the lack of overnight action, the Rolex 24 is more popular than ever
It's important to note that the race did not stop completely. The teams were obliged to follow the safety car around the track, still ticking off laps. Teams were desperate to keep their drivers focused as they pedaled around in line at reduced speed. One engineer read Dr. Seuss' "The Cat in the Hat" to his driver, while others played quiz games over the radio. In LMP2 and GTD, pro-am classes, teams put their amateurs in the car to meet their minimum drive-time requirements to leave more competitive laps to their pros.
After returning to the infield, I was greeted by relative silence that was periodically interrupted by the dull hum of cars circulating behind the safety car. The fan zone behind pit lane looked like a tornado had run through it. There was debris and garbage everywhere, but after closer inspection, I was wrong. The piles were fans asleep, bundled up with whatever they had on hand: sleeping bags, reflective emergency blankets, and trash bags. If there was a patch of grass, a chair or table, a fan was sleeping on it.
The field spent 250 laps behind the safety car during the six-hour, 33-minute caution period. It was the longest caution period in the event's history by a wide margin. Daytona International Speedway also announced it was the highest-attended edition of the Rolex 24. I'm not surprised, given the dedication of fans to either ride out the lengthy fog delay or return when IMSA threw the green flag.
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Category: General Sports
