Pruett, Albuquerque to Action Express

Action Express Corvette DP

It's hard for Action Express Racing to get better after two successive championship years in what was then-the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship.

Yet their lineup for the Rolex 24 at Daytona, at least for the defending series champion Mustang Sampling-backed No. 5 Corvette DP, might be even better than what was already a stout lineup of Joao Barbosa, Christian Fittipaldi and Sebastien Bourdais the last two years.

Bourdais is expected to join the Ford Chip Ganassi Racing team for selected Tequila Patron North American Endurance Cup rounds, although he has not been publicly confirmed.

Meanwhile Barbosa will have Portuguese countryman Filipe Albuquerque, the Audi factory ace, on to replace Bourdais. Scott Pruett, then, joins Action Express after his decade-plus-long stint with Ganassi for the opening two races, including the No. 5 car at the Rolex 24.

The combination sees two of the most successful drivers from IMSA, in its various iterations as the TUDOR Championship and the GRAND-AM Rolex Series, now united before the 2016 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season kicks off.

"To tell you the truth I wasn't even expecting to have Scott Pruett as a teammate anytime soon," Barbosa told Sportscar365. "I have raced against him for a long time, and there's a lot of respect for what he has achieved.

"I was very surprised when my team called me, and asked what I thought about driving with Scott Pruett. I said, ‘Is that really a possibility?'

"But he can be a big plus for us, in seeking another win at Daytona. We try to have the best team we can get, and obviously Scott being a multiple-time winner, it's great to have him on board." Sportscar365