24h Daytona: Swiss super duo with chances of victory

What Le Mans is to the whole world, the 24 Hours of Daytona is to the USA - the most important sports car race on the North American continent. Its origins date back to 1962 with the first of four shorter races. It was not until 1966 that the race went twice around the clock, and since the 1972 edition only lasted six hours due to the energy crisis and fell victim to it completely in 1974, the 24 Hours of Daytona will effectively only be held for the 50th time this weekend. However, this does not prevent the Americans from talking about the 55th edition (with 55 participating cars).

Although the big race at the Daytona International Speedway, a combination of high-speed oval and circuit in the infield, is only part of the American sports car championship, it always attracts many professionals from all over the world as well as the locals. These include Neel Jani, Sébastien Buemi and Marcel Fässler, all three endurance world champions from Switzerland. As reported in December, Jani and Buemi - who are contesting a race together for the first time - will be joined at the wheel by Nick Heidfeld from Stäfa, Switzerland, in an Oreca from the top LMP2 category entered by Rebellion Racing.

Stéphane Sarrazin will be the fourth man to drive for Rebellion for the first and perhaps last time. The Frenchman, otherwise Buemi's team-mate at Toyota, had managed to damage the brand-new car so badly in two accidents during private testing in Sebring (USA) that the team, which runs under the British flag, had to resort to a replacement chassis - which was intended for another team in the world championship. Truly not a great track record for a fully professional driver...

For Neel Jani, this means a return to the private team with which he recommended himself for the works contract with Porsche in 2012 and 2013. For him and for the team from England, which runs under the Swiss flag and is financed by Alexandre Pesci from Lausanne, this is the premiere at Daytona. Although the LMP2 cars, together with the American DPi prototypes, are in contention for overall victory, the car with just over 600 hp is a toy for the man from Seeland compared to the almost 1000 hp Porsche 919 Hybrid. "Everything is much slower, you have much more time for everything and you don't have to be as clever as you would be at the wheel of a complex hybrid prototype," Jani jokingly compares.

The Geneva-based Mathias Beche and Nicolas Lapierre are also in action with LMP2 cars from two different American teams. In qualifying for the race, which starts on Saturday at 2.30 pm local time (8.30 pm in Switzerland), Neel Jani took a promising third place on the grid, just 0.22 seconds behind two of the three Cadillacs with 6.2-liter naturally aspirated V8 engines (from the CTS-V). The driver from Biel was thus the only LMP2 driver to break through the phalanx of the Daytona prototypes - despite technical problems and only a single practice lap before his time chase.

Memories of Jo Siffert

As at Le Mans (Marcel Fässler in 2011, 2012 and 2014) and Le Mans (Neel Jani in 2016), only two Swiss drivers have won the overall victory at the 24 Hours of Daytona. Jo Siffert was the first (and therefore the first Swiss winner of any 24-hour race) in 1968 with a works Porsche 907, Fredy Lienhard was the second in 2002 with his Dallara-Judd entered by Doran Lista Racing.

Last year, Marcel Fässler celebrated the prestigious victory with Corvette Racing in the GTLM class, in which only works or factory-supported cars from BMW, Corvette, Ferrari, Ford and Porsche (debut of the brand-new 911 RSR with 4-liter mid-engine) will be on the grid in 2017. "Of course you want to win again as defending champion. But this year it will be extremely tough because Ford is now competing with four more stable cars and we can also expect a lot from the new Porsche." The timesheets after qualifying prove Fässler right: Ford occupies the first three grid positions with three of the four cars, Corvette only 7th and 9th. However, Fässler is not worried about this: "The only important thing is that we can stay in contention until the final hours and then fight for victory."

A tough battle can also be expected in the 27-car GT3 class. As in Dubai, Rolf Ineichen and his long-term partner and coach Christian Engelhart will start in both Grasser Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3s. This time, however, with the hope of not retiring prematurely with both of them. "With this enormous effort, a double retirement obviously hurts the whole team. But that's part of racing, so we only looked ahead afterwards," said the Lucerne native, motivating himself for his second double outing. According to the regulations, Ineichen and Engelhart have to drive five hours in each car in order to be classified - a real physical and mental challenge for one of the fastest gentleman racers in the sport. One of his teammates is the Italian-Swiss Roberto Pampanini, who, like Ineichen (Ottos), is also CEO of a large Swiss company (Nordstern).

Jeffrey Schmidt will be making his racing debut in the USA and in a GT3 car. The young driver from Basel is allowed to drive an Audi R8 LMS in last year's ADAC GT championship-winning team Land Motorsport and, like Ineichen, has excellent prospects of a class podium thanks to strong team-mates. Ineichen will start from positions 5 and 11, with Schmidt in between in sixth place. Due to their place of residence and their license, the Brits Steve Smith (Porsche) and Peter Mann (Ferrari) as well as Pierre Kaffer (Audi) from Zurich will also be competing as Swiss drivers. So let's keep our fingers crossed that they too will do honor to their adopted country...

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