Tower confirms McLaughlin in Daytona 24 line-up

Scott McLaughlin will return to the Tower Motorsports line-up to contest the LMP2 class at next month’s 24 Hours of Daytona.

The New Zealander will be part of a four-strong Tower driving crew for the IMSA SportsCar Championship season-opener, comprised also of John Farano, Michael Dinan, and Ferdinand Habsburg.

McLaughlin made his prototype debut with the squad at Daytona this year, a relationship which would extend to a total of three of the four Michelin Endurance Cup races.

Those outings were either rocks or diamonds, with a water bottle leak frying the ECU on Lap 1 at Daytona, followed up by a class victory and outright podium in the 12 Hours of Sebring.

In the season finale at Petit Le Mans, co-driver Ari Balogh crashed on both the formation lap and first lap proper at Michelin Road Atlanta.

Farano and Charlie Eastwood will contest the full IMSA season for Tower, with Dinan also in for the other Michelin Endurance Cup rounds.

McLaughlin is one of multiple more IndyCar drivers to be newly announced in the Daytona field, with McLaren’s Pato O’Ward and Felix Rosenqvist added to United Autosports’ two-pronged attack on the LMP2 class.

O’Ward will share Car #2 with Ben Keating, Ben Hanley, and Nico Pino, while Rosenqvist will join forces with Daniel Goldburg, Paul di Resta, and a yet-to-be-announced driver in Car #22.

Some teams will test at Daytona International Speedway on December 6-7, before the Roar Before the 24 takes place on January 19-21, and the race event itself on the ‘weekend’ of January 25-28.