The Daytona 24 Hours begins on Saturday 27 January and concludes on Sunday 28 January. The 24-hour endurance race takes place at Daytona International Speedway in Florida. The Sports Car Course layout used for the race is 5.73km (3.56 miles) in length and includes runs on Daytona’s banked oval circuit, mixed with some infield corners.
The iconic event attracts drivers from various areas of motorsport, including Formula 1. Here are all the former F1 drivers taking part in this year’s Daytona 24 Hours and all F1 winners of the event.
Formula 1 drivers competing in Daytona 24 Hours
Jenson Button – GTP
F1 starts: 306
F1 championships: 1 (Brawn - 2009)
Daytona 24 Hours starts: 0
Daytona 24 Hours wins: 0
Jenson Button will be driving the Acura ARX-06 for the Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti team, alongside his full-season IMSA team-mates Jordan Taylor and Louis Deletraz, with Colton Herta completing the lineup. Button spent 17 years racing in Formula 1 for teams including Williams, Benetton, Renault and McLaren, amongst others.
The British driver won the F1 world championship in 2009 with the Brawn GP team and helped it to secure the constructors’ championship in the same year. Following his F1 career, Button has continued to compete in other motorsport events including winning the 2018 Super GT title with team-mate Naoki Yamamoto.
While he’s best-known for his time in Formula 1, Button does have some experience with endurance racing. Before reaching F1 he contested the 1999 24 Hours of Spa, partnering Tomas Enge and David Saelens, but cockpit fumes early on led to a DNF after 22 laps. He made his Le Mans 24 Hours debut in 2018 (but failed to finish due to an engine issue) as one of four appearances during the 2018-19 World Endurance Championship for SMP Racing, taking a best finish of third in Shanghai.
Button raced in both IMSA and at Le Mans in 2023. He secured a fifth-place finish at IMSA's Petit Le Mans race at Road Atlanta driving a Porsche 963 for the JDC-Miller Motorsport team, and drove a modified NASCAR car in the Garage 56 class on his Le Mans return. After his Daytona one-off, Button will race full-time in the WEC for Jota in a 963 this season.
Button joined the Sky Sports F1 commentary team in 2019, offering his insight and knowledge on select race broadcasts.
Felipe Massa – LMP2
F1 starts: 269
F1 championships: 0
Daytona 24 Hours starts: 0
Daytona 24 Hours wins: 0
Felipe Massa will race alongside Gar Robinson, Felipe Fraga, and Josh Burden in an ORECA-Gibson 07 for the Riley team on a one-off deal. The Brazilian driver completed 15 seasons in Formula 1, where he raced for Sauber, Ferrari and Williams and successfully won 11 races.
Massa finished second in the 2008 F1 world championship, losing out by just one point to Lewis Hamilton. In August 2023 he began pursuing legal action against the FIA, following the result of the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, where he claims bosses failed to act on knowledge they had about the race, which left the championship’s reputation damaged.
Since his F1 career concluded in 2017, Massa has raced in Formula E and Brazilian Stock Cars.
Romain Grosjean – GT Daytona
F1 starts: 179
F1 championships: 0
Daytona 24 Hours starts: 1
Daytona 24 Hours wins: 0
Romain Grosjean will be competing in the pro-am GT Daytona category of the Daytona 24 Hours in a Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2 for Iron Lynx. The Franco-Swiss driver will be partnered by team-mates Claudio Schiavoni, Matteo Cressoni and Matteo Cairoli.
Grosjean had no wins but did take ten podiums during his ten-year Formula 1 career, where he drove for Renault, Lotus and Haas. During his last season in F1 in 2020, Grosjean suffered a serious crash during the first lap of the Bahrain Grand Prix, which saw his car wedged in a barrier and on fire. He missed the last two races of the season, and it was announced that Haas would not be renewing his contract for 2021.
Alongside his commitments as a Lamborghini factory driver, contesting the full WEC with an Iron Lynx-run SC63 Hypercar, Grosjean also competes in the IndyCar Series and has switched from Andretti to the Juncos Hollinger Racing team for 2024.
Paul di Resta – LMP2
F1 starts: 59
F1 championships: 0
Daytona 24 Hours starts: 1
Daytona 24 Hours wins: 0
Paul di Resta will drive an ORECA-Gibson 07 for United Autosports alongside team-mates Dan Goldburg, Bijoy Garg and Felix Rosenqvist. The Scottish driver spent ten seasons in the DTM, taking the title with Mercedes in 2010, before spending the next three seasons in F1, scoring a total of 121 points between 2011 and 2013 for Force India.
He made a one-off appearance for the 2017 Hungarian Grand Prix for Williams, subbing for the illness-stricken Felipe Massa, but retired ten laps from the end with an oil leak.
His time in DTM bookended his F1 career, with four seasons before and six seasons afterwards. While he wasn’t able to win a second title on his return, he did finish third in the championship in 2018.
Di Resta has been competing in endurance events since 2018 with United Autosports, the year he made his first and only start to date at Daytona. His tenure with the team peaked with an LMP2 class victory in the 2020 Le Mans 24 Hours. In addition to a part-time IMSA programme and full-time European Le Mans Series deal with United Autosports in 2024, he will also contest the full WEC with Peugeot.
Di Resta joined the French manufacturer for its long-awaited entry into the WEC in 2022, and has been an ever-present of its lineup since then, with a best finish to date of third at Monza in the team's 9X8 Hypercar achieved last season.
Felipe Nasr – GTP
F1 starts: 39
F1 championships: 0
Daytona 24 Hours starts: 8
Daytona 24 Hours class wins: 1
Felipe Nasr is competing with team-mates Dane Cameron, Josef Newgarden and Matt Campbell in their Porsche 963 for the factory Porsche Penske Motorsport team. The Brazilian spent two seasons in Formula 1 in 2015-2016 and raced for Sauber, scoring 29 career points.
The lion's share of these came in his rookie season, when he finished fifth on his debut in Australia. But his two points secured for finishing ninth in the 2016 Brazilian Grand Prix were pivotal in moving Sauber ahead of Manor to secure tenth in the constructors' championship, as the only points achieved by the Swiss team in a trying season.
Nasr won IMSA Sportscar titles in 2019 and 2021 with the Action Express Cadillac team, twice finishing runner-up at Daytona in 2018 and 2019, before joining Porsche for 2022 and winning the GTD Pro category at Daytona. He will contest the full IMSA season with Cameron.
Marcus Ericsson - GTP
F1 starts: 97
F1 championships: 0
Daytona 24 Hours starts: 1
Daytona 24 Hours wins: 0
Marcus Ericsson will be driving a second Acura ARX-06 entry from Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti. The Swedish driver will join full-season IMSA team-mates Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque, with fellow former F1 driver Brendon Hartley completing the lineup.
Ericsson spent four years in Formula 1 between 2014-2018 with Caterham and Sauber. He enjoyed limited success, scoring just 18 points and a best result of eighth.
He switched codes to IndyCar in 2019 and had more success, scoring four wins so far including a stylish victory at the 2022 Indianapolis 500. His primary programme will be in IndyCar this year, switching from Chip Ganassi Racing to Andretti Global.
Sebastien Bourdais – GTP
F1 starts: 27
F1 championships: 0
Daytona 24 Hours starts: 14
Daytona 24 Hours class wins: 2
Sebastien Bourdais will contest the full IMSA season with Cadillac and will be joined by team-mates Renger van der Zande, Scott Dixon and Alex Palou for the Daytona 24 Hours in their Cadillac V-Series. R, which is entered under the Cadillac Racing banner by Chip Ganassi Racing.
Six years after he won the 2002 International Formula 3000 title, Bourdais finally got his Formula 1 opportunity in 2008 after racking up four Champ Car titles in as many seasons. He spent one and a half years with Toro Rosso, spending a full season alongside team-mate Sebastian Vettel in 2008 and the first nine rounds of 2009, but was only able to score six points.
The Frenchman has raced in many sports car series across his career and claimed centrepiece victories including the Spa 24 Hours (2002), Daytona 24 Hours (2014) and Sebring 12 Hours (2021). A three-time runner-up at the Le Mans 24 Hours for Peugeot (in 2007, 2009 and 2011), he won the GTE Pro class at Le Mans with Ford in 2016, before adding a GTLM class win at Daytona the following year.
Brendon Hartley – GTP
F1 starts: 25
F1 championships: 0
Daytona 24 Hours starts: 3
Daytona 24 Hours wins: 0
Brendon Hartley will race an Acura ARX-06 for Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti, the New Zealander pairing up with IMSA full-timers Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque and Daytona-only extra Marcus Ericsson.
Hartley made 25 starts in Formula 1, making his debut at the 2017 United States Grand Prix where he replaced Pierre Gasly at Toro Rosso, as the French driver was taking part in the Japanese Super Formula Championship. He stayed on for the remainder of the season, replacing Daniil Kvyat, and became a full-time driver for the team in 2018.
While his time in Formula 1 was tricky, picking up just four points to team-mate Gasly’s 29, it’s endurance racing where Hartley has shone, claiming three outright Le Mans wins with two different manufacturers.
His first, in 2017, came with Timo Bernhard and Earl Bamber for Porsche. After his F1 stint, he joined Toyota and won the 2020 race with Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima, before adding a third in 2022 iteration with Buemi and Ryo Hirakawa. He’s also won the World Endurance Championship title four times (2015, 2017, 2022 and 2023) partnering fellow Australasian Mark Webber and German Timo Bernhard in 2015.
Hartley will join WTR with Andretti for the five endurance races on the IMSA calendar in 2024 alongside his Toyota commitments in the WEC.
Gianmaria Bruni – GTP
F1 starts: 18
F1 championships: 0
Daytona 24 Hours starts: 7
Daytona 24 Hours class wins: 1
Gianmaria Bruni will be driving the Porsche 963 for Proton Competition alongside team-mates Neel Jani, Romain Dumas and Alessio Picariello. The Italian driver lasted just one season in Formula 1, driving for Minardi in 2004. Paul Stoddart's cash-strapped team struggled with its car during the season as it was less developed than the rest of the grid, resulting in the team finishing last in the constructors’ championship.
Bruni usually outperformed team-mate Zsolt Baumgartner, but lost his best chance of scoring any points - then only awarded down to eighth - at Indianapolis to a first corner crash, as Baumgartner capitalised on a race of attrition to claim the final point.
Bruni became a leading force in GT racing after his F1 career, claiming four Le Mans 24 Hours class victories for Ferrari and Porsche, the most recent coming in 2022. Part of the privateer Proton team's prototype programme since the outset, Bruni was part of its LMP2 class-winning roster at Daytona last season when his team-mate James Allen snatched the victory at the line.
Alexander Rossi – GT Daytona Pro
F1 starts: 5
F1 championships: 0
Daytona 24 Hours starts: 5
Daytona 24 Hours wins: 1
Alexander Rossi is competing in the GT Daytona Pro series at Daytona 24 Hours in the McLaren 720S GT3 Evo for Pfaff Motorsports. The American will accompany full-season IMSA team-mates Oliver Jarvis, Marvin Kirchhofer and endurance co-driver James Hinchcliffe in a one-off appearance.
Rossi made five F1 starts in 2015 for Marussia as a mid-season replacement for Roberto Merhi, but scored no points with the difficult machinery (the team scored just one points finish from its 73 starts, when Jules Bianchi finished 9th at the 2014 Monaco GP).
Rossi now competes in the IndyCar Series where he’s had much more success, taking eight race wins including the Indianapolis 500 as a rookie in 2016. The Arrow McLaren driver won Daytona outright in 2021 with the Wayne Taylor Racing Acura team.
Jack Aitken – GTP
F1 starts: 1
F1 championships: 0
Daytona 24 Hours starts: 1
Daytona 24 Hours wins: 0
Jack Aitken will race alongside team-mates Pipo Derani and Tom Blomqvist in a Cadillac V-Series R for Action Express Racing. The British-South Korean's sole F1 start came when he raced for Williams at the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix as a replacement for George Russell, who was covering for Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes after the seven-time world champion received a positive COVID-19 test and could not race.
Aitken started his endurance racing career in 2021 but a heavy crash at the Spa 24 Hours disrupted his season. In 2023, he announced that he would be leaving his role as the Williams reserve driver to focus on his sportscar career and duly enjoyed a successful season as Action Express's third driver in IMSA, helping Derani and Alexander Sims to claim the inaugural GTP title.
For 2024, he will join team-mate Derani to compete full-time in IMSA, and harbours hopes of returning to the DTM after a race-winning maiden season with Emil Frey Racing in 2023.
F1 winners who have previously won Daytona 24 Hours
Here are Formula 1 drivers who have previously won a Formula 1 grand prix and the Daytona 24 Hours:
|
Drivers |
Daytona 24 Hours year(s) won |
Team |
F1 years active |
F1 teams |
|
Lorenzo Bandini |
1967 |
SpA Ferrari SEFAC |
1961 - 1967 |
Scuderia Centro Sud, Scuderia Ferrari |
|
Jo Siffert |
1968 |
Porsche System Engineering |
1962 - 1971 |
Lotus, Brabham, Rob Walker Racing Team, March, BRM |
|
Pedro Rodriguez |
1970 & 1971 |
J.W. Automotive Engineering |
1963 - 1971 |
Ferrari, Lotus, Cooper, BRM |
|
Thierry Boutsen |
1985 |
Henn’s Swap Shop Racing |
1983 - 1993 |
Arrows, Benetton, William, Ligier, Jordan |
|
2007, 2008 & 2013 |
Chip Ganassi Racing |
2001 - 2006 |
Williams, McLaren |
|
|
2019 |
Wayne Taylor Racing |
2001 - 2018, 2021 - present |
Minardi, Renault, Ferrari, McLaren, Alpine, Aston Martin |
