ROLEX 24 AT DAYTONA

January 26, 2025

Sebastien Bourdais

John Farano

Sebastian Alvarez

Job Van Uitert

Media Conference

THE MODERATOR: We have now our LMP2 winners here at the Rolex 24 at Daytona. In the No. 8 Tower Motorsports ORECA LMP2 07. From left to right, Sebastien Bourdais, John Farano, Sebastian Alvarez, and Job Van Uitert.

For Seb, 14th victory in IMSA competition; third win in the Rolex 24 at Daytona. He won prototype and overall in 2014, GTLM in 2017.

John, this is his sixth IMSA win; first Rolex 24 win. Previous best was second in 2021. This was his 10th Rolex 24 start.

For Sebastian Alvarez, this is his first IMSA victory; fourth career start in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. This is third Rolex 24 appearance.

For Job, second IMSA win; previously won Petit LeMans in 2020; first Rolex 24 win, fourth career start for him.

Q. Sebastien, you almost got caught up in the big one, how close was it to completely ending right then and there?

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: I was part of the big one, big time. The car over my left fender, a car over my right fender and I don't think I had trim time to back off because I made contact because I was in the gearbox of the Pratt Miller car and it all came to a stop. It was like Days of Thunder.

Yeah, honestly, when it all cleared in front of me and the car still had four wheels on it and the steering wheel was straight, I was like, man, this is just a miracle. That's about as much as I know because I didn't see anything coming I had no warning, and all of a sudden it came to a stop in front and it was no chance.

For more than one reason we feel very, very fortunate to be sitting here because it could have been over quite a few times actually.

Q. This new chapter with Tower Motorsports and IMSA (indiscernible)?

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: Yeah, what can we say? The boys did an amazing job. Rick's team of mechanics, which is the best ESM group that Philippe Dumas put together. Bunch of French actually and a few Americans, and a really, really solid group of mechanics.

Ryan did a really, really good strategy for us. We definitely didn't have the fast he's car, but we kept our heads down and mostly stayed out of trouble.

Yeah, there was a lot of carnage around us, just a lot of really, really aggressive driving which ended up in contacts.

I was very surprised, to be honest. I'm not used to that in GTP, and I don't think I have managed to pass someone without someone just hitting me, plain and simple, which I'm not a big fan of that. Really every time I was super happy that the car was still straight and we kept going forward because it was a pretty solid hit.

Yeah, it was very strange, but thanks to John for putting this together and thanks to my teammates who really did a great job. It was a solid effort. We looked really strong at night and then kind of faded a bit when it got hotter, which we were kind of afraid of.

But definitely no better way to start the relationship with Tower Motorsports, and we'll head to Sebring with our heads high and our hopes up.

Q. For Sebastien, where would you put this in your list of accomplishments considering moving to this team for this year?

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: I don't know, to be honest with you. It's almost like it was awarded to us in some respect because it seemed for a minute that nobody wanted to win it because, like, I've rarely seen someone torpedo another car like Beche did with Palou. It was just one incident like this after another in front of us or behind us or around us.

It was a weird race, but we had hopes at times. Sometimes it felt like it was a bit hopeless, and to come out on top no matter how you got there at some point, it's just one of those races where nobody remembers how you got there, and personally it's my third, but it never gets old winning. I'm really happy that we could bring the result for John who's been running after that Rolex for a little while.

It's a lot of financial commitment to put those LMP2 efforts on the privateer side, and I think people forget that a little too often.

Really, hats off to John for putting that effort together with Rick, and yeah, we had quite a bit of fun doing it. Can't complain.

Q. Your name has been mentioned for possible Indy 500 ride. Is that likely, or how would you characterize any likelihood of that happening?

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: You've got to ask Chip.

Q. Job, you continue the tradition of Dutch class victories in the Rolex 24, which is a great thing of course. A lot of emotions for you here at Daytona. Once you didn't even get to race because your teammate crashed out, then you came really close. It was heartbreak it didn't happen. Take us through the emotions what winning this one means to you.

JOB VAN UITERT: Yeah, I think for all of us it's a childhood dream that comes true. We all want to win these big races, if it's Daytona, Le Mans, Spa 24-hour, Nürburgring 24-hour. We all work really hard for it. The amount of hours that go into it, not even on track here but just the preparation over the past months and also the personal involvement that you have with it, the amount of passion that you give towards it, yeah, that makes it even more important.

Yeah, to finally make it happen on a big 24-hour race, for me that was an emotional feeling after the race. Definitely some tears here and there. I hope I can feel that more often in the future.

Q. You mentioned your grandfather after the race. Did you have the feeling he was with you in that car?

JOB VAN UITERT: Yeah, I never knew my grandfather actually but he has the same name as me, so I always feel as if I'm a bit in this world for him. It makes me proud thinking about him every time I jump in the car, and that's what I...

Q. Sebastien, you and I were speaking earlier in the weekend and you said you're still getting up to grips in the P2 car. Still finding feel. Ultimately you weren't quite having yet the best time. Has that changed at all?

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: We had quite a few inside jokes for sure with Job and it's an interesting tread sometimes. But the car was really difficult to drive. Daytona is historically a very tough track because it's low grip. It's quite worn out in the infield and it makes tire deg quite high, you're running low downforce.

The P2 has been a little sabotaged to not go too, too fast, as well, so it doesn't make it the easiest handling car to get around, and the smallest difference in mechanical grip makes a big lap time difference. I think we're still kind of trying to find the best setup, but for sure it was the best car we had from the November test, the Roar and the 24 weekend all together.

We're still probably missing about a half a second, but it's the closest we had been, and at night when it got cold, we definitely picked up enough grip that we were in contention. It looked like it was going to be really difficult during the day, and finally it kind of came to us mostly because of indents and unforced errors from others.

But yeah, it's not an easy car to drive. To kind of get 90 percent out of it is easy, but it's not a car that you can hustle around. You really have to be very fine with it, and especially when it's a bit grip limited like it was all weekend.

It's always good because it sharpens you. When the car is really demanding and difficult to put a lap together and you really have to be on your toes and listen to your feelings and measure your movements and your foot and everything, it's a good workout, good practice. I think it will serve me well for places like Bahrain or whatever when we get to them in GTP.

Q. Talk us through your last couple hours in the car. Obviously a lot happened up in front of you and you were able to extend that last final stint quite a ways to make it work. What were you going through in the car?

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: It's like, maybe we got a shot. Nope, we don't. Look, we have actually got this. Nope, we don't. It was just like a total roller coaster.

Yeah, at the end it turned -- we kind of lost it when dash went by and there was no way of defending, just literally drove around us in the straight, and I was like, well, that's an anti climactic way to lose the race.

Yeah, he torpedoed the competitors so gave us the lead, and then after that it was a pure make it to the end. Everybody was pretty far behind. It was like 45 seconds or something, so the engineer was on the radio going, you cannot go slow enough right now. We need to go behind the GTP so we don't do an extra lap because we don't have the fuel for it, and we were hitting I think it was literally 20 percent of fuel saving, so it was massive numbers.

I was lifting at the stripe a little bit before. I was lifting at the 3 marker or even before going into the Bus Stop, taking everything a gear up and taking the throttle really, really gently.

It was a matter of bringing it home. Racing in IMSA and those races sometimes comes to just very strange circumstances, and this one definitely was not a convention at one.

Q. Gentlemen, there's been some bumps in the road on the way here. 2018 you give a young kid a shot and took an LMP championship in Europe. Talk about having gotten here and done this.

JOHN FARANO: First of all, I want to take full credit for hand selecting these three, and I mean it. I had no input from anybody else. I think these are the three drivers I want.

This guy is my lucky charm because we won the championship in the LMS, we won 2020 at Petit LeMans. Sebastian and I had a really good feeling about, and of course this guy, what can you say. Yeah, with Job being back and all the successes we've had, it's truly wonderful for sure.

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: People don't know that but before John had to do his last stint, his back was totally locked up and he couldn't even sit up. He's a trooper because he got back in the car and did his drive time, and yep --

JOHN FARANO: All for that Rolex.

Q. This is your first win here. Tell us what it means to you?

SEBASTIAN ALVAREZ: Obviously it's very cool. It's quite close to home. I've been racing mostly in Europe, so this race is very close to México. I had a lot of fans, a lot of family over, so it's really special to be able to celebrate this moment with them.

I think Daytona, like Job said, is one of the most legendary races in motorsports, so as a kid you always want to win this race, so it's been a roller coaster and sometimes it's like we can win it or we can't win it. At the end when we finally crossed the checkered flag it was a very special moment.

Q. For John, kind of got quite a list of accomplishments here in IMSA, between championships, the pilot challenge championship as well as the WeatherTech Championship, won Sebring, now you've got this. What does all that mean?

JOHN FARANO: Well, I've won Sebring, as you say, three Petits, won the championship here, and this was truly the one that was missing. This is truly special. Worked really hard for it. The whole team really worked hard for it. So in 2020 -- we've come close a couple of times. We've been on the podium twice before this.

Just a lot of effort and a lot of pain to go through to get to this spot, but we truly worked hard, and this is truly a dream come true for sure.