Matt Campbell has begun the 2022 season with an historic win after producing a class victory at the popular 24 Hours of Daytona over the weekend.
 
Behind the wheel of the Pfaff Motorsports 911 GT3 R with Brazil’s Felipe Nasr and fellow Porsche works driver and regular teammate Mathieu Jaminet, Campbell was a major contributor in helping the team claim victory in the brand new GTD-Pro class.
 
Having qualified second in class, the trio ended up in a huge battle with Hong Kong customer squad, KCMG, throughout the 24-hour race.
 
Although both teams took turns in holding the lead for multiple parts of the race, the race went down to the final stint after the 17th safety car intervention with Jaminet steering the car home.
 
In what was a thrilling conclusion to a battle that went down the final three minutes, Jaminet lost the lead to KCMG’s Laurens Vanthoor on the penultimate lap before the pressure of wheel-to-wheel action got all too much for the Belgian who spun on the last lap, handing Jaminet the lead and the ultimate class victory.
 

Despite having done a solid job in helping the team to first in class and 19th overall, an ecstatic Campbell paid tribute to his teammate for getting the job done.
 
“I can only shake my head in disbelief at this show,” Campbell said.,
 
“I’m full of adrenaline and emotions. It was exciting and exhausting to witness the duel from the pit wall.
 
“I take my hat off to Mathieu. He fought hard to achieve this victory for us. We won the 24 Hours of Daytona today – incredible.”

Campbell wasn’t the only Australian to be competing at the popular United States based event with Cameron Shields, Kenny Habul, James Allen and Scott Andrews also part of the 61-car race.

Finishing seven places behind Campbell on the outright standings was Andrews, who was competing in the GTD class alongside British driver Stevan McAleer and Americans Mike Skeen and Guy Cosmo.
 
Having started the race in P36, the four drivers managed to steer the Gilbert/Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes AMG up 10 places outright but more importantly, to a class podium after finishing third.

Finishing in the same place where Andrews started was Shields and his three teammates Nolan Siegel and Charles Crews from the US and Belgian Ugo De Wilde.
 
The four were behind the wheel of the Muehlner Motorsports America Duqueine D08 in the LMP2 class and started in P26, but they couldn’t improve on their position as they faced a number of issues throughout the 24 hours – eventually finishing sixth in class.


Unfortunately the remaining two Australians in Allen and Habul were classed as non-finishers.
 
Driving alongside American John Falb, Luca Ghiotto and Tijmen van der Helm for G-Drive Racing By APR, Allen and his teammates were only able to complete 556 laps of the race.
 
Habul and his Sun Energy 1 crew of Germans Luca Stolz and Fabian Schiller and Italian Raffaele Marciello were forced to retire their AMG after completing just 101 laps.
 
Click here to view the full results. 
  
The event was the season opener for the 2022 IMSA SportsCar Championship, which continues in March with the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring at Sebring International Raceway on 19 March.