Category-leading pace during the 2025 Rolex 24 at Daytona has left Mario Farnbacher feeling confident of a strong IMSA SportsCar Championship campaign this year with Forte Racing, despite a taxing race in Florida.
Mario, who teamed with Misha Goikhberg, Parker Kligerman and Franck Perera for his 13th consecutive 24-hour event at Daytona, remained well in contention for GTD class victory throughout IMSA’s opening weekend. Indeed, the two-time GTD IMSA Sports Car Champion was on course to secure a well-deserved category podium on his first race aboard the #78 Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2.
An on-track, multi-car clash early on Sunday morning however, in which the Forte Racing Lamborghini was an unfortunate victim, ultimately led to the car’s retirement from the race.
Despite the frustration, Mario would like to congratulate Forte’s mechanics and engineers for their sterling efforts at Daytona, and is already looking positively ahead to round two of the season at the Sebring International Raceway in March.
Mario Farnbacher: “Firstly, I want to say a big thanks to the team. It was a pretty late deal with Forte Racing, so I want to thank the team’s managers for putting their trust in me. Also a big thanks to the whole crew and the mechanics for their awesome work. They did an amazing job preparing the car and getting everything ready for the past two weekends in Daytona.”
Mario’s 2025 IMSA program got off to a fighting start at the ‘Roar before the 24’ shakedown. Forte Racing topped the Roar’s third official practice session and posted the fastest time of any GTD runner – a 1m 48.036s – en-route to banking 5th on the category grid for the following weekend’s Rolex 24.
The start of the 63rd Rolex 24 at Daytona proved similarly fruitful, as the #78 Lamborghini made rapid progress from 5th on the grid to 2nd in-class during the opening laps. Despite heavier than expected tyre wear on the Lamborghini, Mario, a class podium finisher already at the event in 2017, helped maintain Forte Racing’s place at the sharp end in GTD with an opening double stint (the first of seven in total). By one-third distance, the team had taken the class lead, and after 16 hours, Mario, Goikhberg, Kligerman and Perera were still running 2nd, just 20 seconds behind the class leader.
Sadly, this fighting drive came to a premature end with only five hours of the race left to run. Heading into turn one as the race resumed from a full-course caution, the #78 Lamborghini was collected by a rival GTD car, heavily damaging the Huracán’s left flank and underbody. Even after a herculean effort by Forte Racing’s mechanics to get the Lamborghini back on-track in just 90 minutes, recurring technical issues left Forte Racing with no choice but to retire the car on safety grounds.
Mario Farnbacher: “Once we’d got the tyre wear sorted out, we were in a really good position. We stayed consistently on the lead lap and we had a really good chance of a strong finish. Unfortunately, on Sunday morning, a car spun behind us at the restart and collected us. More or less because of that, we had to retire the car. It’s a shame, because we would have definitely had a chance at a podium finish.”
Battling for class victory at Daytona has nevertheless left Mario confident of a similarly strong performance when the IMSA SportsCar Championship returns to action at the Sebring International Raceway.
Mario Farnbacher continues his 2025 program with Forte Racing on 15-16 March at the historic 12 Hours of Sebring. Tellingly, Mario, who enters the event for the 10th time in 2025, is a two-time winner at Sebring, having triumphed in GTD in both 2015 and 2017. Moreover, the former GT World Challenge America Pro-Am title winner took a class podium at the 12 Hours of Sebring in 2014, and took a top five finish in-class on his most recent outing in 2024.
