Source: WayneTaylorRacing.com

2020 ROLEX 24 POST RACE REPORT

The No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R team put on a dominant performance to win the 58th Rolex 24 at DAYTONA. The team won by one minute and five seconds over the No. 77 Mazda Team Joest entry, and shattered the previous 24-hour distance record at Daytona International Speedway, completing 833 laps for a total of 2,965.5 miles.

The No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R team put on a dominant performance to win the 58th Rolex 24 at DAYTONA today. The team won by one minute and five seconds over the No. 77 Mazda Team Joest entry, and shattered the previous 24-hour distance record at Daytona International Speedway, completing 833 laps for a total of 2,965.5 miles.

The win marks the No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac Dpi V.R’s second victory in a row at the crown jewel event for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, and It's third title of the iconic endurance classic in four years.

Ryan Briscoe, who joined the No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R team ahead of the 2020 season, qualified fifth and took the green flag for the 2020 racing season under beautiful sunlight on Saturday afternoon. The team, including full-time drivers Briscoe, Renger van der Zande and endurance-race support drivers Kamui Kobayashi and Scott Dixon, made steady progress in the opening hours of the race, with Kobayashi eventually taking the lead in the third hour of the endurance-classic.

As the race developed into the night, the Konica Minolta Cadillac team began to unveil its dominating pace. With perfect pit stop execution, decisive moves on track and colder temperatures that suited the black, blue and white Konica Minolta machine, the Indianapolis-based team led the majority of laps during the night.

But challenges began to set in for the team in the early Sunday morning when Briscoe had to serve a stop and hold penalty in pit lane for exiting pit lane while red lights were displayed. The 60-second penalty caused the No. 10 machine to drop off the lead lap and to fourth place with just over 5 hours to go. Thanks in part to two full-course yellows and a stellar stop by the team that beat the No. 5 Mustang Sampling Cadillac out of the pits, Briscoe managed to worked his way back to the lead.

Kobayashi completed the final two hours and 42 minutes of the race to seal the win for the No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R team, crossing the line over a minute ahead of the nearest competition. The win marked Kobayashi and van der Zande’s second overall wins of the Rolex 24 at DAYTONA, a first overall win for Briscoe and a fourth Rolex win for Dixon.

“I feel on top of the world,” said team co-owner, Wayne Taylor. “No one single person wins this race, it’s a team event. Big thanks to Cadillac and especially Konica Minolta with Rick Taylor and Mike Mathe who have been so supportive of my family and I for so many years. We could also not win without the support of CIT Group and AMETEK| Powervar and ESP. To do what we do today is quite historic. I won here twice as a driver and now three times as a team owner. Five wins! It makes me want to win it every year, for the rest of my life.”

“It feels fantastic to win for a second time in a row at Daytona,” commented Kobayashi, who amazed with a triple stint to seal the win for the team. “It feels much different to last year with the difficult conditions. This year the conditions were perfect and we were pushing, fighting all 24 hours of the race. The No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R was fantastic to drive and it was great to finish the race for everyone. Big thank you to the team, Konica Minolta and Wayne [Taylor] for all their support, everyone did a great job.”

“Just a fantastic victory,” said Briscoe, who joined the team ahead of the 2020 season. “I just feel super privileged to be part of the No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R team. Wayne [Taylor] has put together such a first-class program that always does well here at Daytona and this is the team’s third Rolex 24 at DAYTONA win in four years. It’s just incredible as far as statistics go and to be part of that is phenomenal. From engineers to mechanics and my co-drivers, everyone just did a great job.”

“I’ve never had such a good car at Daytona, or anywhere for that matter,” enthused van der Zande, who scored his second win in a row at the Rolex 24 at DAYTONA. “We took everything we learned from last year and made a huge step forward, which is very encouraging for the rest of the year. I’m just proud of the whole No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R team. We had such a great collaboration between all the drivers and I’m just super happy.”

“For me, the biggest part of the story was how we all came to be part of the team,” said Dixon, who joined the No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R team for the first time this year. “Being part of the reigning race-winning team is probably the hardest thing you can do, because you are trying to repeat. You have that in the back of your mind the whole time. We had times during the race with adversity, but the team was able to rebound with strategy and the driver line-up just worked through it in a calm manner, which is hard to do. I’ve been a part of many 24-hour races in my career, but to come back from the many deficits we had in this race showed the absolute commitment from the team. I’m really proud to be part of the team and I have to thank Chip [Ganassi] for letting me join Wayne [Taylor], Max [Angelelli] and everyone at Konica Minolta. We’re winners, that’s all that counts.”

With the dominant win at the 58th Rolex 24 at DAYTONA today, the No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R team leads the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship standings and the North American Endurance Championship as it heads to the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, on March 21st, round two of the series.