Sportscar365’s Moment of the Year

Sportscar365 is recognizing its top competitors and storylines from 2025, with the new ‘moment of the year’ nomination next up.

Moment of the Year – Tandy’s 24-Hour ‘Grand Slam’, Porsche’s 20th Win at Daytona

January’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season opening Rolex 24 at Daytona delivered a number of historic achievements, largely centered around Nick Tandy and Porsche.

With his victory alongside Porsche Penske Motorsport co-drivers Laurens Vanthoor and Felipe Nasr, the 40-year old Englishman became the first driver to have claimed overall wins in all of the four major 24-hour races.

Tandy gave Porsche its first Le Mans triumph with the 919 Hybrid in 2015, followed by the Nürburgring 24 Hours in 2018 aboard a Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R, prior to his dramatic win in the delayed 2020 running of the 24 Hours of Spa aboard a ROWE Racing Porsche.

Daytona had been the only other major 24-hour race that had eluded the longtime Porsche factory driver, despite his GTLM class win there in 2014.

The Daytona win for the No. 7 Porsche 963 also marked Porsche’s landmark 20th overall win in the Florida endurance classic, cementing its advantage as the most successful manufacturer in the event’s history.

Tandy went on to create even more history less than two months later when he, Vanthoor and Nasr backed up their Daytona triumph with victory in the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.

It meant Tandy also became the first driver to have won the so-called ‘Big Six’ endurance races, adding in his historic overall Petit Le Mans triumph in a Porsche 911 RSR in the rain-shortened 2015 race.

While he and Nasr lost out on the WeatherTech Championship GTP drivers’ title to teammates Mathieu Jaminet and Matt Campbell after a challenging second half of the season, the opening phase of the campaign belonged to the No. 7 crew.

Honorable Mentions:

***This year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans also saw significant history made with Robert Kubica’s heroics giving Ferrari its third consecutive win in the French endurance classic.  The ex-Formula 1 driver took the satellite No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P to a narrow 14-second victory over the No. 6 Penske Porsche, in a race that saw reported late-race engine issues for both the factory 499Ps. The result marked a number of firsts, with both Kubica (Poland) and Yifei Ye (China) becoming the first drivers from their nation to win overall at Le Mans, in a car they shared with Brit Phil Hanson.

***When an utterly exhausted Grasser Racing Team driver Mirko Bortolotti crossed the line to win the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa, it marked Lamborghini’s long-awaited first overall victory in the Belgian enduro, in what came in a highly competitive race that featured a late strategic battle with the No. 96 Rutronik Racing Porsche, which finished just 8.703 seconds behind in second. Bortolotti, one of the longest-standing Lamborghini factory drivers, shared the historic win, after ten years of previous attempts with the Huracan GT3, with Jordan Pepper and Luca Engstler.

***SRO Motorsports Group’s growth in China, with the launch of the GT4-based GT Cup in record time, along with the creation of a street race in the capital city of Beijing for GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS, both deserve significant recognition in what could arguably be considered two of the Stephane Ratel-owned organization’s biggest achievements yet, especially considering the challenges of establishing new sporting events in the country. It came under the leadership of SRO Asia director Benjamin Franassovici, who has continued to break new ground for GT racing on the continent.