The 2007 Rolex 24 at Daytona was a

Grand-Am Grand-Am Road Racing or Grand-Am was an auto racing sanctioning body that was established in 1999 to organize road racing competitions in North America. Its primary focus was the Rolex Sports Car Series, an endurance racing championship series. ...

Rolex Sports Car Series 24-hour

endurance Endurance (also related to sufferance, resilience, constitution, fortitude, and hardiness) is the ability of an organism to exert itself and remain active for a long period of time, as well as its ability to resist, withstand, recover from a ...

sports car race held on January 27–28, 2007 at the

Daytona International Speedway Daytona International Speedway is a race track in Daytona Beach, Florida, United States. Since opening in 1959, it has been the home of the Daytona 500, the most prestigious race in NASCAR as well as its season opening event. In addition to NA ...

road course. The overall winner of the race was the

Chip Ganassi Floyd Ganassi Jr. (born May 24, 1958) better known as Chip Ganassi, is a US businessman, former racing driver, current team owner and member of the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America. He has been involved with the North American auto racing scen ...

Felix Sabates Feliciano Sergio "Félix" Sabates Jr. (born September 9, 1945) is a retired Cuban-born entrepreneur and philanthropist living in the United States. He is currently a partner in Chip Ganassi Racing teams, which formerly fielded teams in the NASCA ...

-owned #01 car, a Lexus-powered Riley MkXI, driven by

Juan Pablo Montoya Juan Pablo Montoya Roldán (; born September 20, 1975) is a Colombian racing driver. He won the International F3000 championship in 1998, the CART FedEx Championship Series in 1999 in his debut year in the series, and the IMSA WeatherTech ...

Salvador Durán Salvador Durán Sánchez (born 6 May 1985) is a Mexican race car driver who raced in the FIA Formula E Championship for the Amlin Aguri team. Durán has also previously competed in A1 Grand Prix, Formula Renault 3.5, and the NASCAR Toyota Serie ...

, and Scott Pruett. The GT class was won by the #22 Alegra Motorsports/Fiorano Racing Porsche GT3 Cup car driven by driver/owner Carlos de Quesada,

Jean-François Dumoulin Jean-François Dumoulin (born May 5, 1976) is a Canadian racing driver. He competes in the Tudor United SportsCar Championship for Magnus Racing, as well as the NASCAR Pinty's Series. He is the older brother of Louis-Philippe Dumoulin. Grand-Am ...

, Scooter Gabel, and Porsche factory driver

Marc Basseng Marc Basseng (born 12 December 1978 in Engelskirchen) is a German racing driver. Career Basseng began his career in karting. In 1997 he began competing in the Porsche Carrera Cup Germany for the UPS Porsche Junior Team, finishing third in the 19 ...

Prelude

GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing driver

Alex Gurney Alexander Gurney (born September 4, 1974) is an American racing driver who competes in the Rolex Sports Car Series for GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing. He won the 2007 and 2009 GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series Daytona Prototype drivers' championshi ...

took the pole, his fourth in Rolex Series competition, with a lap of 1:43.475 at an average speed of .

Race

At the green flag, which fell just past 1:30 p.m.

Eastern time The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Peru, and a small port ...

, Gurney jumped into the lead and the field made its way around the first lap cleanly. But after only seven laps of the 24-hour race, Gurney crashed into the back of a slower GT car which had lost its hood and unexpectedly slowed dramatically. The team would make repairs, but Gurney's GAINSCO Auto Insurance-sponsored Pontiac-powered Riley, which was co-driven by

Jon Fogarty Jon Fogarty (born May 23, 1975 in Palo Alto, California) is an American racing driver, who competes in the United SportsCar Championship for GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing. He won the 2007 and 2009 GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series Daytona Prot ...

and

Jimmy Vasser James Vasser Jr. (born November 20, 1965) is an American former racing driver. Vasser won the 1996 CART IndyCar championship with Chip Ganassi Racing, and scored ten victories in the series. Vasser was the last American to win the CART champio ...

, would never again be in contention for the win. On January 28, an early morning wreck of the #82 Porsche GT3 Cup, driven by Chris Pallis, damaged part of the outer retaining wall, causing the race stewards to display the red flag for only the third time in the history of the 24 Hours of Daytona, temporarily suspending the race while repairs took place. An exciting battle took place between three different teams with a diverse group of drivers. The DP class fight was between eventual winner Telmex Chip Ganassi Racing's

and Scott Pruett,

SunTrust Racing Wayne Taylor Racing is a sports car racing team that competes in the IMSA SportsCar Championship Daytona Prototype International class. The team campaigns the No. 10 Konica Minolta sponsored Acura ARX-05 full-time for Filipe Albuquerque an ...

Max Angelelli Massimiliano Angelelli (born 15 December 1966) is a retired Italian racecar driver. He won the 2005 and 2017 24 Hours of Daytona and the 2001 Six Hours at the Glen. Also he was the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series champion in 2005 and 2013, as w ...

and

SAMAX Motorsport SAMAX Motorsport was a racing team owned by Peter Baron that competed primarily in the Rolex Sports Car Series but also spent one year in the IndyCar Series. Team history The team was founded in 2005 by fielding a car for Mark Greenberg at the 6 H ...

Patrick Carpentier Patrick Carpentier (born August 13, 1971) is a retired Canadian professional auto racing driver. In the Champ Car World Series and the IndyCar Series, he achieved five wins and 24 podiums, as well as two third place championship finishes in 2002 ...

. Polesitter

's hopes for victory were dashed when his GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing Pontiac Riley was damaged in a first-hour accident.

1,000,000th lap

At 11:11a.m. on the morning of January 28, British-born female Champ Car driver

Katherine Legge Katherine Anne Legge ( ; born 12 July 1980) is a British professional auto racing driver, competing in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. She is also featured in ''Richard Hammond's Crash Course''. Racing career Early racing and Atlantics ...

made history by completing the one millionth lap of the Rolex Daytona 24 hour race, since its inception. Legge, driving the #84 Robinson Racing

Pontiac Pontiac may refer to: *Pontiac (automobile), a car brand *Pontiac (Ottawa leader) ( – 1769), a Native American war chief Places and jurisdictions Canada *Pontiac, Quebec, a municipality ** Apostolic Vicariate of Pontiac, now the Roman Catholic D ...

-powered Riley DP car, passed the finish line with less than 2 and a half hours left in the race, completing the 30,419th lap of the 2007 running of the race. Legge was lying in the 31st position at the time. 3 women competed at this years race. Valerie Limoges of Canada,

of Great Britain &

Milka Duno Milka Duno (born April 22, 1972) is a Venezuelan race car driver who competed in the IndyCar Series and ARCA Racing Series. She is best known for holding the record of highest finish for a female driver in the 24 Hours of Daytona. She entered t ...

of Venezuela. Juan Pablo Montoya became the first racer in history to have won a

Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...

race, the

Indianapolis 500 The Indianapolis 500, formally known as the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, and commonly called the Indy 500, is an annual automobile race held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) in Speedway, Indiana, United States, an enclave suburb of Indi ...

, a

Champ Car Champ Car World Series (CCWS) was the series sanctioned by Open-Wheel Racing Series Inc., or Champ Car, a sanctioning body for American open-wheel car racing that operated from 2004 to 2008. It was the successor to Championship Auto Racing Teams ( ...

title, and the 24 Hours of Daytona.

Mario Andretti Mario Gabriele Andretti (born February 28, 1940) is an Italian-born American former racing driver. One of the most successful drivers in the history of motorsports, Andretti is one of only two drivers to have won races in Formula One, IndyCar, t ...

also won a

race, a

title and an endurance sports car race at Daytona, but Andretti's victory came in the 1972 event alongside co-driver

Jacky Ickx Jacques Bernard "Jacky" Ickx (; born 1 January 1945) is a Belgian former racing driver who won the 24 Hours of Le Mans six times (second-highest of all time) and achieved eight wins and 25 podium finishes in Formula One. He greatly contributed ...

in a six-hour event.

Race results

Class winners in bold.

References

{{24 Hours of Daytona 24 Hours of Daytona

24 Hours of Daytona The 24 Hours of Daytona, also known as the Rolex 24 At Daytona for sponsorship reasons, is a 24-hour sports car endurance race held annually at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. It is run on the Sports Car Course layou ...