Watch The Pitstop That Helped Porsche Win At Daytona
Alegra Motorsports Pulled Off A Stellar Pit Stop To Take The Lead Late In The 24 Hour Race Last Week
The fact of the matter is that endurance racing these days has turned into an all-out sprint to the finish for some teams, and something as simple as an extra second in the pits can literally cost them the victory. Take, for instance, the GTD class battle shown in the video below. The #29 Audi and the Alegra Porsche #28 come in essentially at the same time with the Audi slightly ahead, forcing the Porsche to come in at an angle. The Riley-entered Mercedes AMG GT3 came into the pits third behind them.
While the race was running, pro-driver Ryan Eversley (factory Acura driver in Pirelli World Challenge) was watching along and tweeted this out. The presumption here is that he was banking on Riley's experience and training to have them serve a flawless pit stop, while the other two part-time teams would perhaps falter with a mistake or a bungled tire change. The possibility is never outside the realm of reality, but this time the Alegra team pulled zero punches and kicked their car up into the lead of the race with a quick and well-executed pit stop. As both cars drop off of their air jacks and continue with their fuel fill, the Audi team is forced to push back slightly before taking off, being that the Porsche is pitted in front of them. It is that tiny margin that allows the Alegra Porsche to exit just ahead. In the end, the fact that the Porsche fills its fuel in the front of the car and the Audi fuels from the rear may have even had an influence on the outcome of this stop.
At the finish line, it was Porsche factory driver Michael Christensen just a few tenths of a second ahead of the Land Motorsport Audi. The two cars were on relatively equal footing, and with the track position advantage, that Audi might well have held Michael off and won the race to the flag. It takes a lot of luck to win a 24 hour race, and it seems luck was really in Alegra's corner that day.
