Driving for 24 Hours Straight? Endurance Racing Explained

Introduction [0:00]

James Roe: One of the biggest races in the world added to your resume, and that's the reality of it. Rolex 24, anyone in the world of motorsport knows about it. The icing on the cake.

Mathieu Jaminet: To really push the machine and the human really to its limit. See who comes on top at the end.

Matt Campbell: Getting a Rolex is always nice at the end of the day.

Kevin Magnussen: There are Formula One drivers and then there are racing drivers. I've always felt like a racing driver.

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Why might Kevin Magnussen call endurance racing, and the Rolex 24, “real racing” [0:30]

Kevin Magnussen: I'm very much looking forward to going into something that I feel is real racing.

Greg: Can you imagine driving for 24 hours straight? Doing that under normal circumstances is dangerous, let alone in a race car at 200 miles an hour.

But that's exactly what Kevin Magnuson was describing as real racing. Following this statement, Kevin went on to race the Rolex 24 at the Daytona International Speedway.

In this episode, we're taking you behind the scenes during that weekend to find out exactly why endurance racing is so intense. He and his teammates, alongside 60 other teams, took on the grueling challenge of racing for a full 24 hours. While drivers rotate in and out of the car, and pit stops are essential for fuel and tires, the race itself never pauses.

On top of that, racing for that long actually requires teams to be up for more like 36 hours. If you've ever pulled an all-nighter then you know exactly what that feels like. They face intense sleep deprivation, battling a level of fatigue that severely impairs brain function and reaction time. In the end, they race a distance that would take them coast to coast from New York to LA.

That, in a nutshell, is endurance racing. A mental and physical test of both the individual and the team.

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Comparing Formula 1 to the 24 Hours of Daytona [1:49]

Greg: To take it one step further, let's quickly compare Kevin when he raced at the 2024 Formula 1 British Grand Prix. A single lap around Silverstone measures 3.7 miles. In just over an hour and 20 minutes, not even three quarters of the new F1 movie's runtime, Kevin Magnussen's number 20 Haas completed the race having finished 52 laps, or nearly 190 miles.

That wouldn't even get him from New York to Washington, D.C.

He needed to complete the full British Grand Prix nearly 14 more times to go the same distance as the Rolex 24. When you compare the two races side by side like this, F1 seems a little bit easier, doesn't it? But, the reality is, none of this is easy.

It's actually a lot more nuanced, and the average person couldn't do any of it. It's just that Kevin likes to think there's more of a challenge in endurance racing, and he's not alone. In fact, the Rolex 24 is actually part of an unofficial triple crown of endurance racing, alongside Le Mans in France and the 12 Hours of Sebring.

However, knowing that it's prestigious doesn't explain why drivers like Kevin find it more challenging, or why they're willing to subject themselves to these conditions.

Race commentary: We've got a spinner. Drama here at Daytona.

Greg: Why are they fighting through the night?

Race commentary: Pratt Miller LMP2, another car.

Greg: Why are they pushing their bodies and their machines to the limit?

Race commentary: It's the Porsche Penske number six. They are still working on that car. A lot of track position lost. Oh, this is utter heartbreak. Seems to be unraveling dramatically.

Greg: From young drivers to veterans, we're going to take you through the weekend to find out why they love Daytona and ultimately why they volunteer to race for 24 hours.

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What draws James Roe to endurance racing? How does he prepare for his first 24 hour race? [3:25]

Announcer: Please welcome Pietro Fittipaldi, James Roe, Chris Cumming, and Callum Ilott!

Greg: You could race anywhere. Why do a 24 hour race? Why this?

James Roe: For me, when the opportunity came up to be a silver in the LMP2 car with Pratt Miller, it was honestly a no brainer just to go racing, 24 hour racing, endurance racing.

I've never done a 24 hour race, so for me, it's like the less you know the better. Just get on with it and see what we got. Just go.

Greg: Okay. So then with that, what's your prep been like? What do you need to do mentally? What do you need to do physically? Or are you just like, 'Hey, I'm here. Let's go'.

James Roe: That's my personality. It's a lot of just 'let's just get on with it'. Show up and go. Unfortunately, I missed all the preseason testing because I broke my wrist last June in Detroit in the Indy NXT car, so I really didn't have any prep to do because I couldn't drive. I came to the test, hung out and then just came to the Roar and, as I said, new team, new car, new people, and just got on with it.

It's been a steep learning curve, to put it mildly. As I said, now we're finally in a good spot and it's all good.

Greg: I love it. You don't even seem the least bit stressed about any of this.

James Roe: No, I guess probably the beauty of it is just, again, good people around me. You just just lean on them and yeah, it's all good.

Greg: How have you been working with the other drivers on the team to be able to get ready to go for all of this? How do you get in sync having never raced with them in a competition like this?

James Roe: Honestly, as simple as it sounds, the WhatsApp group chat is what we had, and all firing our own questions in.

The engineer's been answering. And then, asking Pietro and Callum a lot of questions. They're probably like, "this guy doesn't stop asking questions, but..."

Pietro walks in to the trailer I asked him a lot of questions.

Greg: How are his questions, Pietro? Are they good?

Pietro Fittipaldi: [jokingly] Super dirty questions.

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Why teamwork makes endurance racing special (Pietro Fittipaldi and Porsche Penske’s Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet) [5:10]

Editor's note: We sat down with Pietro at the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Access Pietro's full Insider episode here.

Pietro Fittipaldi: I also really enjoy endurance racing because we have four teammates, or three teammates for that race. Four drivers in the lineup. And usually your teammate is your biggest competition because you're always getting compared to him. But, in endurance racing, it's your friend. Just working with three other guys trying to make the car better and trying to find the best strategy for the race and that camaraderie that you have during the race weekends...

It's something that I really enjoy about endurance racing

Matt Campbell: The aspect that I love about endurance racing is the team. Working with your teammates - there's no single person in endurance racing, you know, it's working with your group and getting the most out of your entire group.

Not just for yourselves as drivers, but also your engineering staff and everyone jumping over the wall. You've all got to be pushing together. That's personally the thing I love most about endurance racing.

Greg: Clearly you guys are very good friends. What's it like for both of you to be able to do this together again?

Matt Campbell: For me it's really cool. Obviously, we were teammates for many, many years and back sharing a car in IMSA like we were in 2022, which was very successful at the end of the day. So hopefully we can replicate something like that.

Being good mates on and off tracks always helps. We give each other a lot of shit at times, but we have good banter and we always have a lot of fun. You need this. You need to have fun off track and relax, but also have someone that you're working with that you really trust.

And vice versa, you need to be able to pull the other person back a little bit, and they need to push you sometimes. I really love that balance. I feel like we have that, and I think that's why it's really good to be back together again, finally.

Mathieu Jaminet: In the end we are really pushing each other on track with the car and for sure trying to show we are the best. But we are really helping each other. When one is struggling a bit in a weekend or another, or we need to share information, there is just one open book. Many people see us as an old couple. You have some days where you want to hit the guy, but it's okay. We get along, and we keep going.

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How drivers prepare for race day (mind and body) [7:13]

Greg: Can you explain what the prep is like and what it really takes to be ready on Saturday to race? Do you deprive yourself of sleep heading into the week? Do you eat a certain way? How do you change your behavior and your mindset to say, 'Okay, I'm ready to go?'

Mathieu Jaminet: Personally, I don't do much of anything in particular to my normal everyday life.

I just go with the flow. I try to listen to my body. On the food, obviously you try to eat healthy even though the options are pretty limited around Daytona. Let's say you do your best. Obviously, don't go for burgers and beers every day. Obviously a lot of water. Try to stay hydrated.

Prepare your body also because you can become dehydrated with the race. Try to stock the days before and then go from there.

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Why 24 hour endurance races are challenging, including how much drivers sleep [8:10]

Greg: Having never done the 24 - maybe it's partly their advice - but what do you think is going to be the hardest part of this?

James Roe: Tire management, fuel saving, and traffic management. They're the three things that, coming from sprint racing flat out, Indy NXT, you just go. Then of course night driving - never driven in the night.

So when I went out for the first night session last week, I was like, "I might have gone severely blind or this is how it is". That was a massive learning curve. Again, it's just about just ticking my boxes and keeping it simple. I say to the engineer and team manager, "just let me know what I've got to do for us doing this race". That's all I need to worry about.

Anything else - I didn't have to worry about qualifying, that was Chris. I'm more than likely not going to be in the car in the last 3-4 hours, so I don't have to worry about finishing it. I got my scenes in the race, where I've just got to check that box, and that's my job.

Then it's the boys job.

Greg: Are you going to be getting more of the night shifts?

James Roe: Yeah.

Pietro Fittipaldi: People think, "oh, it's 24 hours", but it's actually not because there's days leading up to it. So you're already tired leading up to the race and then you're for sure awake before the race starts. So you're up for, I would say 32 hours, because before the race starts, you have to prep the car and everything.

So if the race starts at 1 PM, the mechanics are at the garage at six in the morning. You're up for a very long time. For the driver, when you have four drivers and you're rotating, usually when you get in the car, or out of the car, you have around, let's say four or five hours of rest.

That's your time that you need to try to get to sleep. I've been part of a few 24 hour races and because of the adrenaline, I've never been able to sleep. Some guys actually are able to do it. I'm just not able to. The first 24 hours race I did, I was super frustrated in the motorhome, I was "what the fuck?".

I need to get to sleep, and I couldn't. Then, I felt like I was wasting more energy just overthinking it, so then the other ones, I would just lay down. I'm fine with not sleeping, and that ends up being better rest than overthinking it.

Greg: Do you think you're gonna sleep? We've asked a lot of people. Maybe the question is, how much sleep do you think you'll get?

James Roe: That's, honestly, a million dollar question because I don't sleep a whole lot. As it is, it's just my nature. I sleep five hours a night, maybe four hours. So when I started thinking about it, I was like, "oh, maybe this is made for me. Maybe this is where I'm going to get a little advantage because I'll be feeling good."

Yeah, I don't know. Some people say you don't sleep, others say you have to sleep. I guess I'm going to find out come Saturday. Ask me on Sunday, I'll tell you.

Matt Campbell: I always try to have a little nap. I never try and force it. For example, if I'm on the pit stand getting quite tired and falling asleep, for sure you fall asleep for maybe 10 or 15 minutes, but if you get 30 to 1 hour of sleep - that's a standard 24. It's usually not more. Some races, depending on how much driving you're doing, maybe you get none.

So every race is different but between 30 minutes and 1 hour for me.

Mathieu Jaminet: I'd say for me, it's very different from race to race. It depends my state physically. How much running I know I'm going to get. Some races you struggle more than others, so sometimes I prefer to have physio treatments instead of sleep to recover better with my body.

Sometimes, I just feel good, so I just try to go and sleep. On the other hand, I know that if we are running up front, I'm always so scared that something is going to happen, and that I miss it. It's really hard to fall asleep because you always have this excitement and tension.

We are staying in these RVs next to the track, so it's loud and you never know. Then suddenly you hear not a lot of noise and you're like, "oh man must be yellow or safety car. Okay, what's happening? Is this our car that maybe an issue or anything?"

So I'm always a bit stressed. Difficult to sleep, but if I can get two to three hours, usually that's what I'm targeting.

Greg: That's a lot - hearing that 15 minutes... 3 hours is good.

Mathieu Jaminet: Yeah, let's say on every day life I'm more on the 10 to 11 hours sleep every day. So I'm a big sleeping guy. For me, two to three hours... I tell you I'm struggling.

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The most difficult time during an endurance race [12:25]

Greg: When you're in the race what is that moment where it really gets hard? When is that point? What does that feel like?

Mathieu Jaminet: I think in every 24 hour race, there is always this moment where for the guys, for mechanics, for engineers, for drivers, I always feel like at the end of the night, early morning. It's the moment where it's hitting you hard in terms of everybody really starts to feel their bodies get tired.

That's for everyone. That's actually the moments where the mistakes can happen. This is where you need to stay even more focused to stay in the race and manage the effort because it's still usually a long way to go. This is really, actually where it starts to get interesting.

It's the last four or five hours, but this at the same time, the moment where everybody is already kind of dying from being awake for the last 25. It's always this balance of managing your energy and making sure you put everything on the line for these last tension moments.

That's going to be key to bringing a result. Your strategies need to be sharp. The drivers need to perform at their best at the very end. The mechanics with the pit stops. This is where I also think that the driver has a key role coming out of the car and trying to push the guys to try to bring the spirit up in this kind of moment in the very last few hours.

I think it really helps moving the team forward because it's just so hard. Everybody's just done a full week of work. That's actually the moment where everything is going to be decided, so you have to put it on the line at this specific time

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What does winning the 24 Hours of Daytona feel like? [14:09]

Greg: When you think about this and the end result being able to win this. What does that feel like to you? What do you think that would be like?

James Roe: I just think it would be one of the biggest races in the world added to your resume. That's the reality of it. Rolex 24, anyone in the world of motorsport knows about it, no matter if it's NASCAR, IndyCar, F1, dirt track racing. Whatever, you name it.

You mentioned Rolex 24 hour, and yeah, you've got them. I think from a career perspective, winning it with this team, Pratt Miller, one of the most winningest teams in U.S. sports car, would be the icing on the cake.

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Why endurance racing over any other series? Why the Rolex 24? [14:48]

Greg: Why do you guys do this? Why this, of anything else you can fill your calendar with? Why doing this?

Mathieu Jaminet: Why do this? Obviously the 24 hours race in endurance is always the pinnacle of motorsport. Longer the races, harder it is physically, mentally, for the car... The harder it gets, the more reward you have from having a good result and performing and having a win. This is what makes it so historical here in Daytona or in Le Mans or Nürburgring and Spa.

They are the four big events that every driver and every manufacturer really wants to win. It's part of the challenge to really put the machine and the human to their limits and see who comes on top at the end.

Matt Campbell: For me, endurance racing is for sure the pinnacle. It's the hardest test you can do.

Daytona is such a prestigious race as well, not only for us as drivers. We want to be able to get a good result and try and win the race to be able to get the famous Rolex at the end of it, but also for the manufacturer. You look back through the history, especially with Porsche and their history and success at this race, and it's definitely both a driver and and a big team thing as well.

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Who won the 2025 Rolex 24 and what I learned [16:02]

Greg: Unfortunately for Matt and Mathieu, history was not on their side this year. As many drivers mentioned, things can really come apart in the final hours. While their No. 6 Porsche Penske crossed the finish in a highly respectable third place, it was their team's sister car that held it together and won the day.

It was during the final hours of the race and the podium celebrations that followed that the "Why" of endurance racing finally clicked for me. Drivers and teams raced on the edge for 21, 22, 23 hours, and at the end of the day, they were just hoping to get across the finish line in one piece. In that time, they live the full range of emotions, from frustration, to fatigue, to elation, and ultimately to the one that matters most, pride.

Even if you lose, and to be clear, 57 of the 61 teams do lose, there is one thing that no one can take away from you. That's the badge of honor that you've competed in a 24 hour endurance race. That's why drivers do this. They are pushing man and machine to the limit for 24 hours in a way that so few people on the planet ever do.

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James Roe’s biggest learnings from the 24 Hours at Daytona [17:14]

Greg: I caught up with Pratt Miller's James Roe about a month later and asked him, "what was your biggest learning from that weekend?"

James Roe: A: How fun sports car racing is. B: How crazy night driving is. You never know who's behind you or what's going on with lap traffic and different things. Then just what endurance racing is about.

There were times where I was in the car for 2-3 hours. Now I look at a 55 minute race and I'm like, 'that's nothing. I did a 3 hour stint at Daytona in the middle of the night. I'll be fine.'

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