2. Shootout to the finish at Daytona
The race boiled down to a tense 30-minute duel between the #7 Porsche 963 driven by Nasr and the #31 Action Express Cadillac helmed by Tom Blomqvist, who was bidding for his personal hat-trick of Daytona victories. Typically of this great race, a late safety car had concertinaed the field together and with 23 and a half hours of racing spent, it all came down to a half-hour sprint.
In the previous hour, with 72 minutes to go, Blomqvist had gained the upper hand with a fantastic move on Nasr at Turn 1 while the Porsche was still working heat into its tyres following a pitstop. Blomqvist took the long way around a GTD Ferrari 296 to sweep past Nasr and claim the lead.
But a final full course yellow was called when a Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F GTD entry suffered an engine fire. In the ensuing final round of stops Nasr gained back the lead with a quicker pit visit because the Brazilian required less fuel than his Caddy rival to make it to the finish. That meant when the safety car let them go with 32 minutes left on the clock Blomqvist had it all to do once again.
He looked quicker on the infield section, but every lap Nasr was hard on the gas back up on to the banking and always had just enough to keep the British-born Swede at arm’s length. The gap ebbed and flowed in traffic, but Blomqvist lost out in a throng of GTD cars as the clock ticked down. The final gap between them was just 2.112sec.