Ganassi repeats in close one.

Sunday, 28th January 2007

In one of the most spectacular finishes in the 45-race history of the Rolex 24, the #01 TELMEX/Target Chip Ganassi Racing Lexus Riley trio of Scott Pruett, Juan Pablo Montoya and Salvador Duran emerged on top in a three-car battle over the final hours of the 2007 race.

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Tafel Racing’s misfortune handed the class lead to the #85 machine, which led throughout most of the night hours. It looked as though the Farnbacher driver line-up of Werner, Jörg Hardt, Pierre Ehret and Leh Keen, would run away with the race until the late oil leak problems. Hardt led a race-high 208 laps and Werner, who did the majority of the driving for the team, spent 56 laps on the point position.

The Banner Racing and Alegra/Fiorano entries used mid-race caution periods to make up time lost to the faster #85 car, but there were a total of 13 drivers exchanging the lead 25 times as the winning team covered more than 2228 miles in the 626 laps around the 3.56-mile, 14-turn speedway road course.

One day after SunTrust Banks announced the doubling of award money for the SunTrust "Improve Your Position" Awards in the Daytona Prototype and GT categories, the #7 SAMAX Pontiac Riley and #67 TRG Porsche GT3 were the first teams to be awarded with the extra bonus. The #7 machine finished sixth after starting at the back of the Daytona Prototype grid - an improvement of 22 positions - while the #67 car logged a respectable twelfth place GT finish after starting 33rd, an improvement of 21 positions.

The machines of the Rolex Series enjoy a little more than a month before round two of the 2007 championship, when the Daytona Prototypes and GT machines travel south of the border to contest a 400km race at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.