After a great 2020 in which he not only won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the LMP2 class but also won the FIA World Endurance Championship and European Le Mans Series, Filipe Albuquerque entered “on the right foot” in 2021.
In the 24 Hours of Daytona, the first race of the year of the North American Endurance Championship (IMSA), the Portuguese rider once again climbed to the highest place on the podium, winning his second overall victory in the race (the third was achieved in 2013 in the GTD category).
Debuting on board the Acura of his new team, Wayne Taylor Racing, the Portuguese driver shared the wheel with drivers Ricky Taylor, Helio Castroneves and Alexander Rossi.
a hard victory
The race disputed in Daytona ended with a difference of just 4.704s between the Acura of Albuquerque and the Cadillac of the Japanese Kamui Kobayashi (Cadillac) and of 6.562 seconds between the first place and the third.
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The Acura number 10, piloted by the Portuguese, reached the first place of the race about 12 hours from the end and since then it has practically not left that position, resisting the “attacks” of the opponents.
About this competition, Filipe Albuquerque said: “I don't even have words to describe the feeling of this victory. It was the most difficult race of my life, always on the limits, trying to make up for the progress of our opponents”.
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Note also the result achieved by João Barbosa (who has already won the competition three times, the last in 2018 sharing a car with Filipe Albuquerque). This time, the Portuguese driver raced in the LMP3 category and, driving a Ligier JS P320 Nissan from the Sean Creech Motorsport team, achieved second place in the class.