IMSA admits error: 24 Hours of Daytona flagged off too early

A blunder of sorts, you could call it. With 1 minute and 35 to go, the Penske Motorsport car (including Felipe Nasr in the #7 Porsche) was shown the finish flag. Too early, in other words. And that while the battle for victory was not yet over. The #31-Whelen Engineering Cadillac of Action Express Racing was one second behind.

IMSA, the organiser of the American counterpart of the WEC, provided more clarity on what exactly happened via a statement. 'Due to an officiating error in race control, IMSA inadvertently announced and subsequently displayed the white flag with under three minutes remaining in the race. At the end of the lap, the race-leading No. 7 GTP car then received the checkered flag with 1 minute, 35.277 seconds still remaining, ending the race short of the planned 24 hours by effectively one lap.'