It's hard to imagine seeing 14 ex-Formula 1 drivers in a single race other than in some sort of exhibition, but this year they are actually part of one of motorsport's increasingly popular events: the 24 Hours of Daytona.
The race kicks off the IMSA SportsCar Championship season, featuring 11 different manufacturers (a number that will rise through the year), and has become an enormous event on the racing calendar.
The rise of IMSA has been headlined by its move to LMDh rules for its top GTP class starting in 2023, which meant its cars could compete on an even playing field with those that fill up the World Endurance Championship and Le Mans 24 Hours entries. But it has also been underpinned by its wildly successful GT classes, with 37 cars entered across those two categories.
The Race has picked out some key things to watch at Daytona this year, as well as some explanations as to why this event and IMSA itself are part of an endurance racing boom.
Magnussen + the wider ex-F1 brigade
Of course, there will be plenty of eyes on Kevin Magnussen for this event as he begins his post-F1 career (again), and rightfully so. He's part of an impressive BMW line-up in the top class gunning for outright victory, alongside Philipp Eng, Raffaele Marciello and Dries Vanthoor.
That entry, run by IndyCar squad Rahal Letterman Lanigan in conjunction with BMW, improved during 2024 and took its first win with the M Hybrid V8 at Indianapolis in September.
The history books will also tell you that Magnussen finished fifth in his first Daytona 24 Hours in 2021, but that was after a really late puncture. Before that, he'd been in contention for victory for most of the race on his debut, so he knows how to go well here.
And things have started well for Magnussen in 2025, too, as Vanthoor put the #24 BMW on pole on Thursday.
Magnussen is far from the only ex-F1 driver on the board, and you need to look no further than last year's winner Felipe Nasr for someone to watch closely in 2025.
Nasr won with Dane Cameron, Matt Campbell and Josef Newgarden last year but Porsche Penske Motorsport has both shrunk its respective line-ups to three drivers each and swapped Nick Tandy into Nasr's #7 car, with Campbell joining the sister #6 line-up and Newgarden dropping out altogether.
Alongside Nasr and Tandy will be Laurens Vanthoor, so it's a potent line-up and Nasr was comfortably this writer's pick for driver of the year on his way to the IMSA title in 2024.
Team-mates Brendon Hartley/Will Stevens (#10) and Kamui Kobayashi (#40) are also getting an endurance outing with the Wayne Taylor Racing squad fielding Cadillacs (more on that shortly), while Jack Aitken is in the Whelen-run sister Cadillac which took pole last year.
In Aitken's car are F1 reserve drivers Felipe Drugovich (Aston Martin) and Mercedes' Frederik Vesti, while Ferrari development driver Arthur Leclerc is also entered in an AF Corse Ferrari in the GTD class too. We haven't included them in that list of 14 drivers, but all three have obvious F1 connections.
Romain Grosjean is back in action with Lamborghini, and this year he's joined by Daniil Kvyat, although it's unclear if the progress made with the SC63 in 2024 will be built upon after Lamborghini had to take the running and development of the car effectively in-house after Iron Lynx took care of it last year.
While there is no F1-linked representative at Acura, Max Verstappen did drive its car before the Las Vegas Grand Prix last year. Every cockpit he touches seems to turn to gold so perhaps it will be a good omen for Acura this year.
There's no Daytona appearance for Jenson Button this year, but his ex-F1 contemporary Felipe Massa is getting a run out in the LMP2 division in the #74 Riley machine as part of a 12-car strong category full of class. Sebastien Bourdais, Paul Di Resta (part of the pole-starting United Autosports line-up) and Pietro Fittipaldi are all racing here in LMP2 too.
Perhaps the most shocking thing is that some of these drivers aren't even considered the best in their respective teams' line-ups, showing how good the level is in top endurance racing classes these days.
IndyCar and Formula E well represented
Reigning IndyCar champion Alex Palou and 2024 Formula E title winner Pascal Wehrlein are both ones to watch in the top class, although Wehrlein's outing comes in a privateer Porsche for JDC Miller (above) in one of the few line-ups that doesn't boast all top-ranked drivers.
Platinum is the best rating, but Wehrlein has a gold and a silver (Tijmen van der Helm and Bryce Aron respectively) installed alongside him, as well as fellow ex-F1 driver Gianmaria Bruni, who like Wehrlein is platinum-rated.
It is worth pointing out that van der Helm was in that team last year and a gold rating seems harsh; no doubt that will be corrected in a future season.
Palou drives a Meyer Shank-branded Acura - although Honda is having a big hand in running this car directly, with the engineering and strategy making. The sister car has Palou's Ganassi IndyCar team-mate Scott Dixon and Felix Rosenqvist, who is driving for Shank in IndyCar. In that series, Ganassi and Shank have agreed a technical partnership so the three drivers are part of the same family.
Envision Formula E driver Robin Frijns (#25 BMW) and Mahindra's Edoardo Mortara (#63 Lamborghini) also get top-class entries.
A glance down the classes shows how star-studded the entry really is.
In LMP2, IndyCar runner-up Colton Herta (#04) and Prema signing Callum Ilott (#73) jump out, alongside Porsche's Formula E points leader Antonio Felix da Costa (#43). Ed Carpenter Racing's Christian Rasmussen won the class last year, but has swapped teams to the #99 AO Racing squad.
And incredibly, Herta's Andretti IndyCar team-mate Kyle Kirkwood will drive both of Vasser Sullivan's Lexus GTD entries at some point, although his talent might not be enough for him to drive both at the same time...
Scott McLaughlin is part of a heartwarming story as the Penske driver teams up with Shane van Gisbergen, his once sworn enemy from their time fighting tooth-and-nail in Australian Supercars, in a Trackhouse Corvette entry alongside rising talent Connor Zilisch and ace 'am' driver Ben Keating.
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McLaughlin is now a frontrunner in IndyCar and van Gisbergen will run the full NASCAR Cup schedule with Trackhouse, but both are just as excited to race together as they are to start their respective campaigns after rekindling their friendship following years of brutal competition.
Reconciliation after 2023 controversy
It might sound like a cliche to say that IMSA gets better every year but at the moment that really is the case.
Having five manufacturers in the top class with more on the way is pushing up the level of drivers and team members and generally, there's quite a lot of shuffling each off-season as teams try to find an edge.
Not a single top-class entry has the same driver line-up as it had in 2024, and perhaps the most interesting change of the lot is Acura's return to having its programme run by Meyer Shank.
Shank stepped back last year and didn't run a team. In 2023, while running an Acura as it will do this year, its race-winning #60 car was penalised by IMSA for "manipulation of tyre pressure data" at Daytona, an action Acura admonished at the time. The entry was fined and penalised 200 points, which turned out to be crucial in costing the #60 the championship that year.
But the two groups, Acura/Honda and Meyer Shank, have reconnected and have two very strong line-ups this year.
That change was also facilitated by Wayne Taylor Racing swapping from Acura to Cadillac for 2025. WTR is under the TWG Global umbrella of teams that includes Cadillac F1 and Andretti's IndyCar and Formula E programmes, so it's a move that made a lot of sense.
JDC Miller Motorsports and Proton Competition will both run privateer Porsches again and we've covered Lamborghini's change of operating team.
Daytona GTP entries
Porsche 963 - 4 (2 privateer)
Cadillac V-Series.R - 3
Acura ARX-06 - 2
BMW M Hybrid V8 - 2
Lamborghini SC63 - 1
Why it's one of the best 24-hour races
This race especially is often picked out as one of the best 24-hour events of the year by drivers.
While the Daytona road course layout is never, ever going to beat something like Spa or the Nurburgring in terms of a technical challenge, the race does have a few key things in its favour.
Because it's so early in the year, it has a 'first day back at school' vibe to it, and it's basically the unofficial start of the US racing season. The time it is hosted, coupled with the attractiveness of the series in its current guise, means the stars come out to play, and that has a repetitive effect: the more big names that come out to do it, the more popular the event and series get, the more people that want to do it, and so on.
The second reason is IMSA's propensity to throw caution flags, which is also the norm in North America, means if you hit trouble you can claw time back when the field is neutralised. So an issue that might ruin your race at Le Mans, you might be able to bounce back from at Daytona.
Explaining how the classes work
The top class in IMSA is called GTP. All cars entered at Daytona use the LMDh ruleset. They all use a similar chassis from a list of approved manufacturers, they are rear-wheel drive and equipped with a hybrid system that is spec to all cars. The main things the manufacturers have control over is the software, the type of engine used and the bodywork.
The latter two are very important to manufacturers. Developing your own engine - for example, the Cadillac power plant has double the displacement of the Acura and yet balance of performance means it is in the same class! - means you can reflect your road range. The same applies to bodywork and things like headlights, which can be the same shape as road cars, creating a direct marketing link between road and racing cars.
The secondary class is straightforward in that it's for LMP2 machinery and each entry has to have a bronze-rated driver - who always qualifies the car - and a maximum of one platinum and one gold-rated driver.
GTD Pro is for GT cars which can have an all-pro line-up, while GTD (without the 'Pro' suffix) requires each team to have an amateur driver from the silver or bronze category.
When is the race?
The 24 Hours of Daytona starts at 1.40pm local time on Saturday, January 25, which is 6.40pm UK time. It can be watched in the UK on YouTube. NBC has the rights to the TV coverage in America.
Last year's winners
GTP: #7 Porsche Penkse Motorsport 963
Dane Cameron, Matt Campbell, Felipe Nasr, Josef Newgarden
LMP2: #18 ERA Motorsport
Ryan Dalziel, Dwight Merriman, Christian Rasmussen, Connor Zilisch
GTD Pro: #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3
James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi, Davide Rigon, Daniel Serra
GTD: #57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo
Indy Dontje, Philip Ellis, Daniel Morad, Russell Ward
