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On Sunday morning, simply outdoors IMSA’s race management, Mark Raffauf summarized the Rolex 24 at Daytona.
“It is all in regards to the watches!” he decreed, pausing for a beat. “Nicely, perhaps it is about successful too.”
The sector on the Rolex 24 at Daytona (photograph credit score: Rolex).
Raffauf, IMSA’s Senior Director of Race Operations, would know. As of 2025, he has labored on 50 editions of the Rolex 24 at Daytona, the annual endurance traditional that kicks off America’s racing calendar. Whereas Rolex started awarding its Oyster Cosmograph Daytona to race winners in 1992—formally linking the watch to the race—the Swiss model supported racing in Daytona Seashore from the Fifties onward. Or was it the Sixties, Raffauf questioned? It has been so lengthy that not even he remembers.
At a large financial institution of screens inside IMSA’s race management room, Scott Pruett sat, arms crossed, his black shirtsleeves framing a white-dial 16520 Daytona. Pruett has gained the massive race right here 5 occasions, his first in 1994. That is 5 race-won Rolexes, putting him among the many sport’s legends.
A prototype racecar on observe (photograph credit score: Rolex)
(photograph credit score: Rolex)
(photograph credit score: Rolex)
Nowadays, IMSA consults Pruett as a part of its arbitration course of. Pruett considers every angle of an on-track incident, relays his opinion from the driving force’s perspective, after which IMSA brass apply the penalties. Ought to a driver really feel hard-done-by a penalty, Rafauff joked, they cannot precisely complain to a legend like Pruett. “‘Cuz Pruett’s received extra watches.”
It was a joke, after all. Most likely. However on race day, contained in the Daytona Worldwide Speedway’s grounds, you may completely really feel the gravitas of a race-won Daytona. You see a parade of them within the paddock, perched like glistening songbirds on the wrists of well-manicured racegoers. However if you spot a race-worn watch, it is unmistakable. Any driver who’s gained a Daytona sports activities it like they’ve simply slapped a royal flush on the cardboard desk. Get a load’a that!
And any driver who does not have The Watch, pines for it. Do not consider me? Ask them your self.
Driver and Rolex Testimonee Jamie Chadwick was additionally the Grand Marshall for the race this 12 months. Right here, she speaks with the writer (photograph credit score: Rolex).
Rolex Testimonee and 2025 Daytona 24 Grand Marshall Jamie Chadwick hasn’t raced Daytona however has a drive lined up for Le Mans this 12 months and a curious eye towards America’s 24-hour traditional. I sat subsequent to Chadwick at a media breakfast on Sunday morning because the race drew to a frenetic shut. When requested why worldwide drivers had been so eager to check their mettle at Daytona—an ocean away from their regular arenas—the Brit thought for a second earlier than she responded. “I feel it is the watch. I actually assume that is a giant a part of it.”
Chadwick purchased herself a Rolex after one in all her first huge racing achievements. System 1 champion Jenson Button echoed the sentiment throughout an interview I did a few years in the past. He purchased a pair of Daytonas for himself and his father after a maiden F1 win. Not race-won watches, technically, however the level is that professional drivers abide by a bushido code—the Daytona have to be earned. After breakfast with Chadwick, I walked to the grandstands overlooking the observe. Forward of a extra formal interview with nine-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen, I discovered the Dane sat alone, ready for the yellow flag to raise and reignite the Daytona 24’s remaining two hours.
Tom Kristensen reveals the media across the observe at Daytona (photograph credit score: Rolex).
Automobiles lapping the observe (photograph credit score: Rolex)
Tom Kristensen speaks with the media at a trackside briefing (photograph credit score: Rolex).
In fact, I invited myself over to take a seat—What number of extra probabilities would I ever get?—and watched the race kick-off, Penske’s main Porsche buying and selling haymakers with a BMW Prototype. I requested Kristensen if he’d ever felt the itch to race right here. He defined that contracts had been completely different when he raced, as was the game in America. Kristensen by no means made it to Daytona, however Mr. Le Mans rapidly identified that he’d additionally gained Daytona’s sister race, the Sebring 12-hour, six occasions.
He raised a Rolex Daytona-clad wrist as much as scratch his eyebrow as if to assist me join the dots. It is at all times been an interesting [competition] throughout the drivers,” Kristensen supplied, “And what has been an important is, after all, you at all times have an opportunity of successful the timepiece, which suggests loads to any driver.”
Tom Kristensen conducting interviews (photograph credit score: Rolex).
In fact, the drivers on Rolex’s payroll—Kristensen, Chadwick, Pruett, Haywood, and Button included—are masterfully adept at weaving wristwatches into conversations in regards to the correct option to path brake into Daytona’s perilous first flip. However a humorous factor occurred within the winners’ circle post-race: Among the many chaos and spontaneity of victory, the Oyster Cosmograph Daytona insisted upon itself, identified merely in interviews as “The Watch” or “The Rolex.”
“Generally it felt prefer it was a bit hopeless…” LMP2 class winner Sebastien Bourdais stated, reflecting on his crew’s woes early within the race. “It is simply a type of races the place no one remembers how you bought [to the finish line], and personally, it is my third, however [winning] by no means will get outdated.” Along with his Nomex swimsuit nonetheless dripping champagne, Bourdais put a button on the achievement. “I am actually completely happy that we may deliver the consequence for John [Farano, Bourdais’s teammate], who’s been operating after that Rolex for a short time.”
Laurens Vanthoor, Felipe Nasir, and Nick Tandy of the Porsche Penske Motorsport crew, which celebrated back-to-back wins at Daytona this 12 months and final (photograph credit score: Rolex).
That is what’s nice about The Watch. Whereas lots of the touchstones in our passion communicate solely to the glories of yesteryear, victories rendered in black-and-white grain, this Rolex’s historical past is rewritten yearly. It is proper there for the taking. After this 12 months’s watches had been awarded and the confetti cannons and champagne magnums ran dry, the gang thinned, and the media scuttled off to write down their race reviews.
A GTD Professional driver for the successful Ford Multimatic crew slumped off the stage, the place I sat, pulled his watch over his race swimsuit, and mounted the clasp. I watched him raise his wrist and stare silently, the Daytona’s polished bracelet casting daylight like a two-tone disco ball. I grinned and questioned what that second felt like, however I knew I’d by no means discover out.
Celebrations after an extended 24 hours (photograph credit score: Rolex).
If materialism defines a wholesome chunk of this passion, a race-won Rolex Daytona speaks to one thing pure. It tells a vital reality. On the finish of America’s most grueling race, there are solely two sorts of drivers—these with a Daytona on their wrist and everybody else.
