A huge total of 61 cars has entered this year’s Rolex 24 at Daytona, which will run on 29-30 January 2022.
The field consists of 7 DPi cars, with Cadillac and two Acura cars, with top drivers in all cars. There have often been one more cars with some iffy drivers in them, but that doesn’t appear so in 2022. Cadillac Chip Ganassi Racing has two cars entered with numbers #01 and #02, while JDC Miller Motorsports Cadillac #5, Konica Minolta Wayne Taylor Racing Acura #10, Whelen Engineering Cadillac #31, Ally Racing Cadillac #48, and Meyer Shank Racing Acura #60 all are single-car entries.
The LMP2 category consists of 10 cars. The defending champions from PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports #52 are back. The team will bring an additional car, running #11. We have Tower Motorsport #8 returning, which was one of the closest competitors to the #52 in 2021. Era Motorsport #18 is back as well, while G-Drive Racing By APR #68 and #69, Racing Team Nederland #29, United Autosports #22, and High Class Racing #20 all have arrived from the European racing circuits. Last but not least we have DragonSpeed #81 back in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, where they have been racing a bit on/off.
The LMP3 category has 9 cars entered, with Riley Motorsports #74 being back as defending champions. A bunch of well-known names like CORE Autosport #54, Performance Tech Motorsports #38, Andretti Autosport #36, Mühlner Motorsports America #6 and #26, Forty7 Motorsports #7, plus Sean Creech Motorsports #33, and newcomers AWA #13. The latter has experience from Michelin Pilot Challenge with a GT car, but is brand new to the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Photo Courtesy of IMSA / Brian Cleary
The new GTD Pro category has a total of 13 cars. KCMG Porsche #2, Corvette Racing #3 and #4, Pfaff Motorsports Porsche #9, Vasser Sullivan Lexus #14, WeatherTech with Mercedes of Billings (Montana) plus the two regular WeatherTech Racing cars in the shape of Porsche #79 and Mercedes-AMG #97, Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin #23, BMW Team RLL #24 and #25, Risi Competizione Ferrari #62 plus TR3 Racing Lamborghini #63. This is a huge boost compared to the previous GTLM category – but the GTD Pro category consists of fully professional drivers being able to race in GT3 cars.
The GTD category is the by far largest, and is more than a third of the field. A total of 22 cars has entered the race. Vasser Sullivan Lexus #12 is also an entrant in this category, while Wright Motorsports #16, GMG Racing #34, Team TGM #64, and Hardpoint #99 all represents Porsche with one car each. Lamborghini has TR3 Racing #19, CarBahn with Peregrine Racing #39, NTE Sport #42, and T3 Motorsport North America as customers.
There is a pair of Ferrari’s in the GTD field, with AF Corse Ferrari #21 and Cetilar Racing #47, racing against three cars from Aston Martin with Heart of Racing Team #27, Magnus Racing #44, and Northwest AMR #98. Mercedes-AMG is another popular brand with Alegra Motorsports #28, Gilbert Korthoff Motorsports #32, Winward Racing #57, and Sun Energy 1 #75 as partner teams.
Last but not least, we have two McLaren 720S GT3 cars for Crucial Motorsports #59 and Inception Racing #70, an Acura NSX GT3 for Gradient Racing #66, and a single BMW M4 GT3 for Turner Motorsport #96.
There will be three days of testing from 21 to 23 January, ending off with a 100 minutes Qualifying race on Sunday afternoon local time. The actual 24 hours race will run the following weekend.
The full entry list can be viewed here.
