Alonso 'happy' with Daytona 24 Hours outing as Action Express claim 1-2

A happy Fernando Alonso described his maiden participation in the Daytona 24 Hours as "very good fun", despite being hampered by reliability issues as his United Autosports Ligier team finished 13th in their class.

Action Express take Daytona top places

Alonso, Lando Norris and Phil Hanson came 38th overall as Action Express recorded a 1-2, with the Mustang Sampling Cadillac trio of Filipe Albuquerque, Christian Fittipaldi and Joao Barbosa claiming victory with a record total of 808 laps.

The second Action Express car, shared by Mike Conway, Eric Curran, Felipe Nasr and Stuart Middleton, claimed runner-up honours, with the two Team Penske teams having each encountered problems shortly after the halfway mark.

Although Formula One star Alonso was also left to rue a series of mechanical issues, the Spaniard thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

In an Instagram post following his last stint in the race, Alonso said: "[I'm] happy - obviously, the result, it was not what we wanted. We had so many issues with the reliability that unfortunately that stopped us to get a better result. But nevertheless, I'm happy.

"[It was] very, very good fun - the whole event and the race itself. A lot of traffic, but when you are a prototype car you get a lot of overtaking manoeuvres.

"In the race we were one of the fastest cars, Lando and Phil did an amazing job, the team as well, repairing every issue that happened to the car. So I really enjoyed. Now I'm ready for the pre-season in the F1."

The GT Le Mans class was won by the Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT of Scott Dixon, Ryan Briscoe and Richard Westbrook, ahead of team-mates Dirk Mueller, Joey Hand and Sebastien Bourdais.