Team Penske, finally broke a 54-year jinx at the Rolex 24 of Daytona this Sunday, yet it turns out they didn’t quite hit the 24-hour mark on the nose. In a nail-biting finish, Felipe Nasr kept two-time champ Tom Blomqvist at bay in the last stretch of America’s most iconic endurance race. The race was every bit as heart-pounding and grueling as expected, but this time, there was a twist in the tale due to a bit of a mix-up by IMSA officials.

In what we can call a slight whoops moment, the officials running the show admitted they jumped the gun by waving the checkered flag a lap too early. So, despite the intense finale, the race wrapped up just shy of the full 24 hours. Even if Felipe Nasr had floored it and clocked the race’s fastest lap next, he’d still have been a whisker—0.277 seconds, to be precise—late to the 24-hour party.

IMSA released a statement admitting the blunder 

Over a day after the Rolex 24 hours of Daytona wrapped up, IMSA officials came clean about jumping the gun with the checkered flag. Turns out, the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport GTP car was hailed as the winner with a minute and some change left on the clock, turning the legendary 24 hours of Daytona racing into more of a 23.9775-hour sprint at the Daytona International Speedway.

On the following Monday, IMSA broke the news with 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.”

“Based on Article 49 of the 2024 IMSA Sporting Regulations and Standard Supplementary Regulations, should the checkered flag be inadvertently or otherwise displayed before the leading car completes the scheduled number of laps or before the prescribed time has been completed, the race is nevertheless deemed ended when the flag is displayed,” the statement concluded.

And that’s why it doesn’t really shake things up in terms of the winner or anyone else’s standing. The premature finish threw everyone for a loop, both at the track and for folks watching at home. Even one of the victors, Josef Newgarden, was caught on camera in a state of disbelief, asking, “Is it over? Did we win?” 

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Neither Team Penske nor their top-tier rivals technically made it through the full 24 hours of Daytona. The official time clock for the GTP winner was 23 hours, 58 minutes, and 24 seconds. And well, believe it or not, this isn’t the first time the Daytona Endurance race has been cut short by an eager flag wave.

The last time the early end of the race happened was in 1989

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The recent mix-up wasn’t the first rodeo for an early curtain call in racing; it took everyone down memory lane to the Grand Prix of Portland back in ’89, where history had its hiccup. Back then, Price Cobb was cruising ahead, thinking he had bagged the win when, in reality, the race still had five more laps out of 102 to go. The folks at race control were quick to buzz the teams, making it clear the show wasn’t over yet.

Price Cobb, thinking he was in the clear, eased off the gas, only to kick back into gear when he noticed Brabham, hot on his heels, hadn’t let up. Sure enough, Brabham swooped in, overtaking Cobb two laps down the line and snagging the win by a whisker—.345 seconds, to be exact.

Throwback to Jeff Gordon’s Manifesting Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona Victory Alongside Jordan Taylor

But later, when Cobb appealed the decision, it led to a twist where the panel sided with him. They ruled that the premature checkered flag call meant the race was done, handing him the win after all. Fast forward 35 years, and it’s like déjà vu all over again, with history taking a similar turn.