DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Two-time Formula One champion Fernando Alonso is leading the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona, which was under a full-course caution because of rain with 8 hours remaining.
The car owner of Alonso’s Wayne Taylor Racing No. 10 Cadillac DPI was lobbying IMSA officials to stop the race with a red flag instead of having cars circle under yellow, which had been out for more than an hour because of persistent rain and standing water in many sectors of the course.
“The entire team doesn’t have any clue why we’re going around in circles and neither do the drivers,” Wayne Taylor told Parker Kligerman. “Anyone can look at the radar and see this is getting worse. Someone sitting in an office looking at the track needs to take the advice of drivers on the track.”
Taylor said officials either should close the track’s pit entry to throw the red flag.
“It’s just silly,” he said. “I’m not even mad. It’s just, ‘What are they doing?’”
Dane Cameron’s No. 6 Acura Team Penske DPI was in second place overall, followed by his teammate Ricky Taylor’s No. 7.
In the GTD class, NBCSN analyst AJ Allmendinger was leading in the No. 86 Acura for Michael Shank Racing. In an interview with the NBCSN booth over his team radio, Allmendinger said he wanted to keep racing.
“Driving around at this speed (under caution), it’s pretty sketchy already,” Allmendinger said. “It’s definitely hard to go back to green right now. But if you want to go racing, stopping the race, there’s no way that’s going to help. We stop this race, the track is gone.
“It’s a difficult position to be in now. It sucks. We like to be racing and putting on a great show for everybody, but hey, anything can happen. Hopefully we get this thing back green.”
At 7:22 a.m., IMSA put out the red flag to stop the race.