McLaren CEO Zak Brown has celebrated a surprise victory in the 2025 Daytona 24 Hours following the announcement of a shock penalty.
It was confirmed on Wednesday evening by IMSA that the initial winner of the LMP2 class, the #8 Tower Motorsports, had been demoted to last in class after failing a post-race inspection.
As a result, the #22 United Autosports car inherited the win, much to Brown's obvious delight.
Brown is the co-founder and co-owner of the company, which only recently celebrated a second victory in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
"DAYTONA RACE WINNERS!" wrote Brown on X (formerly known as Twitter). "The #22 United Autosports USA team has been promoted to LMP2 class winners in the 2025 Rolex 24 at Daytona!
"Another huge achievement for United Autosport – two-time Le Mans winners, two-time Daytona polesitters, Rolex 24 at Daytona race winners and total legends who give it everything.
"Congratulations to Daniel Goldburg, Paul di Resta, Rasmus Lindh and James Allen... we will all celebrate together very soon!"
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Di Resta delight
The four-driver #22 team consisted of Daniel Goldburg, former F1 driver Paul di Resta, Rasmus Lindh and James Allen.
For Di Resta, the surprise victory marks his second 24-hour win with United Autosports, having raced for the team in its 2020 LMP2 Le Mans victory.
"It’s massive to have another 24-hour win!” said Di Resta. "We’ve achieved the two big ones in LMP2 both with United Autosports in the #22 … which is a very cool thing to say.
"It takes relentless dedication. We felt very hard done by on race day with the penalty – and after watching the video back, it does feel wrong. But we kept fighting, you fight all the way to the very end.
"It’s massive for the championship - Daniel Goldburg did a remarkable lap to qualify on pole, and now with what we’ve achieved… it’s just huge.
"I think the best thing will be when I see everyone again, the team that were involved in that race, to actually celebrate together. I’m very thankful to Richard Dean and everyone at United Autosports.
"It’s never nice getting handed the win a couple of days after, but that’s part of it, you’ve got to pass all the necessary tests. We put our car in a window that got us to the end of the race in a really strong position and now we’ve won, so next we need to get everyone together to celebrate!"
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