DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Phillip Ellis called his late-race battle with Nicki Thiim for the lead and the ultimate Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) class victory at the Rolex 24 At Daytona “a little stressful.”
Ellis, in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3, fought door-to-door with Thiim’s No. 44 Magnus Racing Aston Martin GT3 EVO through Daytona International Speedway’s famous tri-oval with 10 minutes remaining in the annual 24-hour endurance contest. Slight contact between the cars sent both cars into lurid slides, caught masterfully by the drivers.
Ellis maintained a slim advantage under braking into Turn 1 and fought off another concentrated attack from Thiim before finally pulling away to a 1.367-second advantage over Thiim at the checkered flag.
Ellis shared his winning car with Russell Ward, Indy Dontje and Lucas Auer while Thiim sought to deliver a win in the Magnus Aston he shared with past Rolex 24 class winners John Potter, Spencer Pumpelly (who entered with a race-high 24 starts, although not consecutive) and team newcomer Madison Snow.
Tom Gamble, Zacharie Robichon, Mattia Drudi, and Dudu Barrichello (the 24-year-old son of former Formula 1 driver Rubens Barrichello) claimed third place in the No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo.
It was Winward Racing’s third GTD class win at the Rolex in the last six years, the others coming in 2021 and ’24. Making the day even better for the team owned by Russell Ward and his father, Bryce, their GTD PRO class entry finished third on its WeatherTech Championship debut.
“Honestly, these are my four sons, not just Russell,” said Bryce Ward, who participates as a driver for Winward Racing’s IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge effort. “It’s been such a pleasure to drive and work with these guys and also watch them be so successful in IMSA.”
But the talking point after the race was the intense duel between Thiim and Ellis, which brought the record Rolex 24 crowd to its feet.
“It was super-tight with Nicki, and to be fair, I think I just misjudged it a little bit,” said Ellis, a 12-time winner in IMSA competition. “I’m happy that we both continued and nothing bigger happened. Then we put on a good fight and a good show. Obviously, I’m super stoked that we came out on top. I can’t thank my teammates enough, who did an outstanding job this week and the entire race. The car was a rocket ship.”
Ellis only received a warning for incident responsibility after the close call with Thiim and kept on trucking. Pressed for details about the exciting dice, he responded:
“It was a good hard-fought battle between the two of us,” he said. “To be honest, once I got by him, I thought I would just drive away, and I was very surprised he stuck with me so much. I don’t know whether he found pace or did something when he was behind me, but I didn’t expect him to fight back so hard in the last 15 minutes. It made my life very hard. At that point I think I would have preferred being outside the car watching rather than being in it!
“I spoke to Nicki, and I think everything is good,” Ellis added. “It was a hard-fought battle, very on edge, but good motorsport.”
Both class winners also won the Michelin Endurance Cup portion of the event, scoring the most points at the four awarded intervals at six-, 12-, 18- and 24 hours.
That put Manthey’s No. 911 ‘Grello’ Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) out front for an hour, but a difficult final stint for DTM ace Thomas Preining left the car running fifth at the flag, just behind the rallying No. 4 Corvette.
Their collective woes allowed Mercedes-AMG to claim the final podium places, with the No. 75 car second and Scott Noble, Jason Hart, Maxime Martin, and Luca Stolz teaming for a third-place finish in the first GTD PRO race for defending IMSA GTD class champion Winward Racing’s new No. 48 entry.
“We did everything we could – there was nothing else we could do,” said Habul, who owns and operates the runner-up 75 Express team in addition to being part of the driver lineup. “It feels great to be on the podium after not finishing here the last five years, and we’ll just have to try to get one better.”
