Enlarge / Nine GTP race cars from Acura, Cadillac, BMW, and Porsche took part in this year's 24-hour race at Daytona. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

BMW provided flights from DC to Orlando and back, plus four nights in a hotel, so we could attend the Rolex 24 at Daytona. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.

DAYTONA BEACH, FLA.—With just one race on the books, it's probably too soon to declare this the dawn of a new golden era in racing, but that thought was on many minds at last weekend's spectator-packed Rolex 24 at Daytona. The grueling 24-hour race is the season-opening event for the WeatherTech Sportscar Championship, and 2023 saw the introduction of a new class of hybrid prototype race cars called GTP (for Grand Touring Prototype).

The crowds were heavier than ever, buoyed by the debut of the new machines, which put on a good show. And the complicated new energy-based pit stop formula didn't appear to present anyone any trouble.

The same can't be said for the race itself. Twenty-four-hour racing is hard —I speak from some experience—and making it to the end should be, and is, a challenge. A 24-hour race as the first race of the year for all-new cars is even more difficult, despite the thousands of miles each car covered in testing over the past few months. As such, some feared we might be in for a repeat of 2003; that year saw a new prototype class introduced, the best of which finished 24 laps behind the winning car, a racing version of a Porsche 911.

Enlarge / The new Porsche 963 sports prototype made its world debut at this year's Goodwood Festival of Speed in England. (credit: Porsche)

Last month, Porsche used the Goodwood Festival of Speed in the UK to formally debut its newest model. It's not another 911, nor a new SUV; it's a hybrid sports prototype designed to win on track here in the US and at Le Mans. You can tell the car has big shoes to fill just by looking at its name—Porsche is calling the new racing car the 963 because it's the spiritual successor to the legendary 962 that dominated sports car racing in the 1980s.

Unfortunately, Goodwood took place at the same time as my vacation at Watkins Glen in New York for IMSA's six-hour race, so Ars wasn't able to see the 963 run in person. But I was able to sit down with a pair of Porsche's factory racing drivers to find out a bit more about the new car.

Mathieu Jaminet and Matt Campbell are currently contesting the IMSA WeatherTech championship in a GT car—a Porsche 911 GT3R that started life on the same production line as the road-going 911s. But next year, the pair will be among the Porsche factory drivers who have been chosen to campaign the faster, more complex 963 here in the US or in the World Endurance Championship (WEC).