Williams Formula One driver Lance Stroll confirmed that he’ll be joining the Jackie Chan DC Racing Prototype team at the 24 Hours of Daytona, reports Autosport. Stroll is the second F1 driver to announce that he’ll be at Daytona this year after Fernando Alonso. I really hope this means Alonso started a trend of cool top-level crossover drives.
Motorsports became so siloed in recent years that crossover appearances like Stroll’s and Alonso’s became far too rare. We, as fans, love to see drivers who can hop into anything and drive the crap out of it. Yet teams’ worries that a star driver might get hurt racing elsewhere seemed to keep everyone neatly in their places, prioritizing the what-ifs over more seat time and fun.
It’s refreshing to see teams like Williams and McLaren approve of a driver heading off to try out a completely different kind of racing before the season begins. More like this, please.
Best of all, Stroll told Autosport he’s doing Daytona to chill with his buds:
Sometimes it’s nice to step back and do something that’s a bit less high pressure — I’m looking forward to having some fun.
I’ll be out there with some of my buddies in the same car, and it’s going to be a pleasure to do this race again because I just love to race.
We’ve been skeptical of Stroll in the past, as he came from money and landed his Williams drive at a really young age. But he showed some promise this year, and saying that he’s doing Daytona not for sponsors or any kind of bland racing-jargon-heavy reason, but for fun—as we’d all do if our dad was made of cash—is as endearing as it gets.
One of us! One of us!
This is Stroll’s second run at the Rolex 24, as he last competed in a Ganassi Riley-Ford Daytona Prototype in 2016.