JONSSON: Rolex 24 Debrief

The Rolex 24 is always something you look forward to, for several different reasons. It’s always very interesting to show up at Daytona, the first race of the year, to see what everyone’s been up to over the winter.

This year was even more exciting with the new TUDOR United SportsCar Championship being the new sanctioning body. There are many fresh and interesting rules the organizers have come out with.

The main challenge for the Series has been managing the timetable, with which the teams have had to deal with some rules and Balance of Power decisions coming as late as the Monday before the race.

I believe it was a good and entertaining race, even though there will have to be some more BoP done before Sebring to give everyone a fair chance to run up front and be more competitive.

For Krohn Racing, this was a new start with many challenges to overcome! Since the end of last season, where we ran in the WEC in Bahrain the first week of December, the team has moved its race shop from Road Atlanta to Houston, rebuilt the car, gained several new team members, and been faced with BOP and new car specifications.

With a lot of new faces at Krohn Racing, I came to Daytona for the start of a new and exciting season. This year marks my 11th season with Krohn Racing team owner, co-driver, and friend Tracy Krohn. Krohn Racing has become an extended family to me and I could not ask to be a part of a better and more professional team.

With Krohn Racing being the only privateer in the GTLM class against all the factory cars, we know we have a challenging, but exciting season ahead of us.

We felt good about our car and it’s handling entering into the 24-hour race. The key to success was to stay out of trouble and make sure the car was in one piece when the sun came up on Sunday morning.

Unfortunately, we faced several issues throughout the night, but the Krohn crew worked very hard to get the car back on track to make sure we finished the race.

After finishing the 24-hour race, although not in as high a position as we had hoped, we are still pleased to finish and are looking forward to the rest of the season. We learned a lot that we will use to our advantage moving forward, and will make sure we get the results we are looking for.

Although we were not completely satisfied with our finishing position, we are still fortunate to have come away from the race safely and with our Ferrari 458 in one piece.

My thoughts go out to the drivers and teams who were involved in a very serious accident on Saturday. We are a very small community with a huge drive to win and with a great competitive mind, but when something like this happens, nothing becomes more important than to make sure everyone is okay, and work hard on trying to prevent these types of incidents in the future.

The 2014 season is on its way and I can’t wait to get to Sebring for the test and race there in March.

A big thank you to all fans that make this possible for us to do! We love our sport and fans and appreciate all your great support.

Looking forward to seeing you in Sebring,