Daytona 24

The 24 Hours of Daytona is run on the Sports Car Course layout, a 3.56-mile (5.73 km) combined road course. This course uses most of the tri-oval plus an infield road course. The race has about 60 different cars competing for victory across multiple classes. Each team trades shifts between three and five drivers. The race is held on the last weekend of January or first weekend of February as part of Speedweeks, making it the first major automobile race of the year in North America.

Since 1992, Rolex has been the title sponsor of the race, replacing Sunbank, which replaced Pepsi in 1984. Winning drivers of all classes receive a Rolex Daytona watch, a tradition that started back in 1964 for the Daytona Continental. Chronographs were tool watches for those in the racing industry, used for time purposes. The race is known as a leg of the informal Triple Crown of endurance racing along with the 24 Hours of Le Mans and 12 Hours of Sebring.

Shortly after the track opened, on April 5, 1959, a six-hour/1000 kilometer USAC-FIA sports car race was held on the road course. Count Antonio Von Dory and Roberto Mieres won the race in a Porsche, shortened to 560.07 miles (901.35 km) due to darkness. This event is not considered to be part of the lineage of the eventual 24-hour race.

In 1962, a 3-hour sports car race was introduced, first known as the Daytona Continental. It counted towards the FIA's new International Championship for GT Manufacturers. The first Continental was won by Dan Gurney, driving a 2.7L Coventry Climax-powered Lotus 19. In 1964, the event was expanded to 2,000 km (1,240 mi). Starting in 1966, the Daytona race was extended to the same 24-hour length as Le Mans.

The first 24 Hour event in 1966 was won by Ken Miles and Lloyd Ruby driving a Ford Mk. II. Suzy Dietrich entered the 24 Hours event in 1966, driving a Sunbeam Alpine with Janet Guthrie and Donna Mae Mims. The trio finished 32nd and, along with another women's team, became the first women's teams to finish an international-standard 24-hour race.

After having lost in 1966, the Ferrari P series prototypes staged a 1–2–3 side-by-side parade finish in 1967. The Ferrari 365 GTB/4 road car was given the unofficial name Ferrari Daytona in celebration of this victory. Porsche repeated this show in their 1–2–3 win in the 1968 24 Hours. Lola finished 1–2 in the 1969 24 Hours of Daytona. The winning car was the Penske Lola T70-Chevrolet of Mark Donohue and Chuck Parsons.

1970 saw the race with drivers strapped into their cars, and at the start, drove away. Since 1971, races begin with rolling starts. In 1972, the rules changed, limiting cars to only 3.0 liters instead of the previous 5.0 liters and made a weight limit for cars as well. This caused Porsche to back out of the series for that year leading to a Ferrari victory. In 1972, because of an FIA rule, the race was shortened to six hours, while the energy crisis led to the cancellation altogether in 1974. The Sports Car Club of America sanctioning was replaced by the International Motor Sports Association in 1975.

In 1982 the race continued on as part of the IMSA GT Championship instead of WSC. In 1989, the race was delayed due to fog for four hours, the longest time it was paused due to fog. The race has been paused due to fog multiple times. In this time the cars are forced to follow a pace car. In 2011, the race was delayed so long due to the fog that the pace car was forced to stop for gas.

In 2014, the race saw a dramatic crash involving Memo Gidley who was driving the pole-sitter DP and Matteo Malucelli, an amateur driver in a Ferrari 458 of the GTD category. The race was subsequently red-flagged. Both drivers survived. Nowadays, four drivers compete typically because of the longer night driving. Most often, the fourth driver in all classes is a Daytona-only professional driver of renown that most often has won a major professional championship, such as Scott Dixon, Jeff Gordon, Fernando Alonso, Shane van Gisbergen and Kyle Busch.

Unlike the Le Mans event, the Daytona race is conducted entirely over a closed course within the speedway arena without the use of any public streets. Unlike Le Mans, the race is held in wintertime, when nights are at their longest.

By the 1990s, it was decided that the Daytona event would align with the Grand-Am series, a competitor of the American Le Mans Series. The Grand Am series is closely linked to NASCAR and focused on controlled costs and close competition. New rules were introduced in 2002 to make sports car racing less expensive. The dedicated Daytona Prototypes (DP) used less expensive materials and technologies and the car's simple aerodynamics reduce the development and testing costs. The DPs began racing in 2003 with six cars in the race.

Specialist chassis makers like Riley, Dallara, and Lola provided the DP cars for the teams and the engines are branded under the names of major car companies like Cadillac, Lexus, Ford, BMW, and Porsche. 2017 saw the introduction of the DPi prototypes. These cars were based on LMP2 chassis with a custom engine and bodywork from a major manufacturer. For 2023, the race adopted the LMDh prototype specification, although Le Mans Hypercars were also permitted. The series has also returned to the Grand Touring Prototype name from the 1980s.

In 2023, the first hybrid car, an Acura ARX-06, won the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona. This would be the first hybrid car to ever win the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona. With these new hybrid cars, the IMSA has set regulations and even penalties if teams using these engines break these rules. Multiple manufacturers are now trying out hybrid cars for the race.

The Gran Turismo class cars at Daytona are closer to the road versions, similar to the GT3 class elsewhere. Recent Daytona entries also include BMW M3s and M6s, Porsche 911s, Chevy Camaros and Corvettes, Mazda RX-8s, Pontiac GTO.Rs, and Ferrari F430 Challenges. The Audi R8 and the Ferrari 458 Italia debuted in the 50th anniversary of the race in 2012.

From the era of the IMSA GTO and GTU until the 2015 rule changes, spaceframe cars clad in lookalike body panels competed in GT. Starting in 2014 the GT Daytona class was restricted exclusively to Group GT3 cars. Alongside this came the GTLM class, using LM GTE cars, similar to the WEC. In 2022 the GTLM class was replaced by GTD Pro, using the same cars as GTD. A single GTLM car, the Corvette C8.R, was also permitted to compete in the class with its performance adjusted to the GTD cars.

IMSA adapted its current structuring of the class in the 2022 season. These changes split the GT Daytona class into GTD and GTD PRO. Both GTD classes use identical cars built to the FIA GT3 technical regulations. The only difference is that GTD requires one amateur driver (with an FIA silver or bronze rating) while driver selection is open in GTD PRO.

Porsche has the most overall victories of any manufacturer with 23, scored by various models, including the road-based 911, 935, and 996. Porsche also won a record 11 consecutive races from 1977 to 1987 and won 18 out of 23 races from 1968 to 1991. The German carmaker also claimed to earn back-to-back wins overall in both the 2024 and 2025 races.

In addition to their 21 wins as both car and engine manufacturer, Porsche has four wins solely as an engine manufacturer, in 1984, and 1995, and two in the Daytona Prototype era, in 2009 and 2010. General Motors has 10 wins between its Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Chevrolet, and Cadillac brands.

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