Daytona Rolex 24hr Race Report

Free Practice and Qualifying

The Ferrari 430 N52 of the Cost to Costa team showed great potential in the free practice and despite a big gap in organization of the team that forced the N52 out of the 1st Hr of free practice and had problems completing the other free practice on time the drivers where able with the little time in the car to show a top peace that reached it apex with the last free practice before qualifying where Christain Montanari topped the charts with a 2nd overall time which left the team confident for qualifying.
In the night compulsory practice Luca despite having only 3 laps and being at his first night drive in the Daytona International speedway was lapping in the lows 1.53's showing great speed and adaptability.
Sadly again an organization problem made the N52 car start the qualifying with the wrong wheel rims (smaller and therefore with less grip) making a 13rd place in qualifying the best possible result.
The good news was that the car N56 driven by Nascar Star Mad Max Papis and by 2 times Le Mans winner and 1 Daytona winner Luca Drudi was always slower than the 52 despite being newer and with a lighter chassis and a better breaking cooling system.

The RACE

Christian Montanari started the race with a consistent first stint where he drove with speed and confidence out passing 6 cars and coming in the pits in 7th position, but drama struck immediately as the team that had never tested the refuel system in free practice had to discover that is was not working in the first refueling loosing a precious 40 seconds. Curt Wagner went in for his stint in something like 22nd position but was able to recover many positions showing a leading peace and all the potential of the car, as he entered the pits to hand over the car to Luca, there was a excellent driver change and Luca flew out of the pits ready to battle his way up the grid, unfortunately he had to cope with the team incapacity again, and after 3 laps he had to come into the pits realizing that the team DID NOT refuel the tank when Curt went in the pits, they thought they had refueled but they did not, so Luca was forced for an exra pit stop, but as he entered the pits his teammate Cesar Campanico driving the car N56 was already using the refuel forcing Luca to cue before he could refuel, in the meantime the N56 also took fire slowing down even more the procedure…!
Finally Luca with almost 2 laps lost went back in track just behind Campanico and the N67 Porsche that was than to win the race, and Luca with superb driving was able to pass many cars and to catch the race leader showing where him and his teammates should have been if the team was not going to make this mistakes.
At the end of the stint Luca went to Pits to hand over the car to the Gentleman Driver Joe Castellano, that got a drive thought penalty for jump start behind the safety car and than spun the car in the fast left corner' the dog leg' and not being able to restart the car had to be towed in to the pits, making the car loose something like 15-20 laps.
After a restart from the pits done by hands was the turn of Costantino Bertuzzi at the wheel, performing some amazing speed performance being the fastest Gt on track, the gap accumulated by the N52 was way to much to have any hopes for a good result and despite the new fast laps done by Montanari and than by Curt Wagner there was another technical problem to strike the N52 in the night, a Driveshaft broke with Curt at the wheel forcing the car to be towed in for the second time in the night, the repair took something like one hour and when Luca took the wheel at 330am the gap from the first cars was already of 40 laps or let's say 1.20hrs. Luca started with lil fuel as Curt was due to come in the pits few laps later and was forced for another unplanned stop at the pits, once back on track he had only a few laps before the right side of the engine had a cable failure and the car stopped dead on track in a very dangerous place, the bus stop.
The car had to be towed in for the third time and it took another good 30 min before the problem was solved, at that point the race was technically over and Luca went back to the motor home giving the wheel to Joe Castellano that drove his stint until Costantino took over and had a gearbox failure that closed the 2009 race of the Ferrari 430 N52.
Overall it was a great experience and I wish I could race again now for how much I liked it and for how much I am looking forward to have another chance to this Legendary track where everything is so unique and full of race stories.

Alla Prossima and thanks to all my teammates and to the great mechanics that fought like lions night and day to try and make everything work.