Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Some Rolex 24 drivers dislike curbing changes to famous chicane at Daytona: ‘You will damage the car a lot’

Rolex 24 at Daytona drivers are predicting one of the most action-packed sections of the Daytona International Speedway road course could race significantly differently this year.

The Le Mans Chicane (also historically known as the “Bus Stop”) on the backstretch will be slower and more treacherous because of raised curbing that likely will preclude side-by-side racing through an area famous for its daring passes.

After testing his No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac on the 12-turn, 3.56-mile layout last month, Filipe Albuquerque was concerned the new curbs will disrupt the rhythm of a lap while also limiting options.

Key information on the 2025 Rolex 24 at Daytona, which will be held Jan. 25-26 at Daytona International Speedway.

“Personally, I don’t like it,” said Albuquerque, who has two overall victories in 12 Rolex 24 starts. “The line is just not fluid. It just has weird kinks. It’s not round. It’s very tricky.

“I think now we can really damage the inner floor if you go over the (curb), especially the second chicane, You will damage the car a lot. I’m not a big fan.”

Grand Touring Prototype drivers such as Albuquerque traditionally have managed contact with the curbing throughout the 24 hours, electing to punish the car later in the race when the risks of sustaining damage can be worth the positions gained.

For the production-based GT cars, hitting the previous chicane curbing was much less of a penalty, but the December test revealed some new limitations. Danny Formal, who drives the No. 45 Lamborghini for Wayne Taylor Racing, “committed to hitting the curbs pretty hard once” in the Le Mans Chicane, and “it sounded like everything broke.

“It’s definitely a lot different,” Formal said. “It’s kind of funny because it’s a lot slower, but you brake deeper. Before it was more of a tap of the brake, release and roll a lot of speed and then with a GT car, you could put the the curb under (the rear). Now you can’t even touch the first curb. It really upsets the car.

IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship

#4: Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports, Corvette Z06 GT3.R, GTD PRO: Tommy Milner, Nicky Catsburg, Earl Bamber, #77: AO Racing, Porsche 911 GT3 R (992), GTD PRO: Laurin Heinrich, Seb Priaulx, Michael Christensen

The No. 4 Corvette leads a parade of cars through The Le Mans Chicane during last year’s Rolex 24 at Daytona (IMSA/Michael L. Levitt/LAT Images).

“I don’t like it. For me, it’s one of the coolest corners that Daytona had. A lot of commitment, a lot of speed. And now it’s more of a brake, and you can’t really do much over the curbing. Hopefully, you never make a mistake there because if you do, you’re definitely going to break the diffuser of the car. Even for the GT, the curb is way, way, way, way bigger than last year.”

Prototypes, which are several seconds faster than GTs, often have to overtake the slower cars in traffic through the section, but Albuquerque said passing now would be virtually impossible.

“Sometimes a prototype comes in on a GT, and we don’t know if the GT saw us or not, and sometimes we hesitate to not compromise anybody, but we ended up flowing into the entry of the Bus Stop,” Albuquerque said. “But I don’t think now you can squeeze two cars. Before you could squeeze a little bit the car on the edge of the curb, which you normally never touch, and the GT on the edge of the other curb. I think now just one of them will go over it and it will fly.

“It’s going to be interesting, but not in a good way.”

The changes to the Le Mans Chicane can be traced to Ryan Preece’s terrifying wreck at Daytona in the NASCAR Cup Series race Aug. 26, 2023. Preece was hospitalized overnight for observation after his No. 41 Ford skidded over the Le Mans Chicane curbing and went tumbling violently through the backstretch grass, rolling 10 times before coming to a stop.

Preece back behind the wheel after Daytona wreck
Ryan Preece is back in the race car one week after his scary wreck at Daytona, and he shares what this week has been like and praises his team for being "up to speed right away" ahead of a long race at Darlington.

NASCAR, which owns the Daytona track, conducted a safety review that resulted in alterations to the previous curbing and concrete pads. After last year’s Daytona 500, the grass surrounding the chicane was paved.

Louis Deletraz, who drives Wayne Taylor Racing’s No. 40 Cadillac, said the changes will make The Le Mans Chicane tougher to navigate at night. “There is a light panel on the top right, which is flashing and is the reference, but it’s much harder to find your position, because it’s just so wide, so big. We’re always scared of those big curbs, and you don’t want to end up with it on the bottom of the car and lift up the wheels. It’s definitely rough, and we’ll have to watch out more than usual.”

Four-time IMSA champion Dane Cameron, who is moving to the LMP2 of AO Racing after being part of last year’s No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport overall winner at Daytona, compared the new setup with the backstretch chicane at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval layout.

“There’s a lot of new pavement, so the visual is very different, and it kind of makes the radius feel pretty different,” Cameron said. “It definitely is a bit slower. Yeah, it’ll be interesting to see the way that it races because there’s quite some really big curves now. Where before being able to drive over what was there kind of gave you this ability to go two wide, which I think will kind of go away now. It’s going to bring it more one lane, one line.”

IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship

#31: Cadillac Whelen, Cadillac V-Series.R, GTP: Jack Aitken, Earl Bamber, Frederik Vesti, Felipe Drugovich

The No. 31 Cadillac navigates the overhauled Le Mans Chicane during a December test at Daytona International Speedway (IMSA/Brandon Badraoui/LAT Images).

Because of the “huge paved spaces to the left and right,” Cameron said the new layout also could raise the specter of enforcing track limits if a driver took evasive action around the curbing during the race.

“We’ll see how it races,” he said. “I think it’ll be different because there’s always some games and some ability between different cars of who could use more or less curb. And now it’s kind of going to be the same for everybody. So it’ll be sort of interesting, honestly. I don’t have a great feeling how it’ll play out.

“I didn’t mind the feel of it, but it takes away a small aspect of it for sure by kind of forcing everyone to do a bit more of the same as opposed to before that was one of the more aggressive places on the cars. A lot of teams, there was always very different levels of directives on how much curb and when to start using the curb, and obviously that’ll be kind of out the window now, so it’ll be it’ll be a change for sure.”

The full field of 61 cars and more than 200 drivers will get its first taste of the changes Friday as Roar Before the Rolex 24 testing begins at Daytona International Speedway. There will be seven practice sessions of more than 10 hours on the road course.