Former F1 Champion Fernando Alonso Wins Rolex Daytona 24 Hours

Fernando Alonso became only the third F1 World Champion to win the 24 Hours of Daytona with a red flag for torrential rain bringing an early end to the race.

The double F1 World Champion teamed up with Jordan Taylor, Kamui Kobayashi and Renger van der Zande in the Wayne Taylor Racing No. 10 Konica Minolta DPi Cadillac .

In a race marred by cautions and red flags, the latter for rain, Alonso took the lead just moments before the final red when Felipe Nasr went straight on at Turn 1.

The No.10 was in P1 when the result was finally declared after 23 hours and 50 minutes.

“Just an amazing experience with the team from the test now to the race,” said Alonso. “A perfect execution of the race.

“Very different conditions for all the competitors, so I’m really happy for the team.

“It’s too bad we didn’t get to race the full distance, but we led the race in night, day, dry and wet, so I think we all deserve this one. You had to survive every lap.

“It wasn’t a matter of lap times or anything like that. It was a matter of crossing the line, putting the lap together and at the end, it worked.”

Alonso, who retired from F1 at the end of the 2018 season, is the third F1 champion to win after Phil Hill and Mario Andretti.

Nasr, Eric Curran and Pipo Derani were second on Sunday in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac DPi-V.R, finishing ahead of the No.7 Acura Team Penske driven by Ricky Taylor, Helio Castroneves and Alexander Rossi.

It certainly was a chaotic race which even resulted in the LMP2 Mazda cars catching fire as well.

The Spaniard – who has also won at Le Mans – made his debut in the Daytona race last year, finishing in 38th position.

He will try to join Britain’s Graham Hill as the only racers to win the triple crown of the Monaco Grand Prix, 24 Hours of Le Mans and Indianapolis 500 when he competes in the latter for the second time in May.

Most of the final eight hours of the 24-hour event was run under a yellow flag and racing was halted under red-flag conditions for the final two hours of the event.