IMSA REPORT

Big Battles Brewing In Prototype And Gt Classes

Story Courtesy of IMSA

The results are in, and they are conclusive. Fans are in for a whale of a season in the reborn Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

All four competing manufacturers – Acura, Cadillac, Porsche, and BMW – were highly competitive in the hybrid-powered top prototype class at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring. Each led laps in the grueling endurance event and the fastest race laps turned by each were within less than a half-second of each other.

What’s more, all four were in contention for podium finishes as the 12-hour marathon ticked away the final minutes. Even with the wild ending that included a crash eliminating three frontrunning GTP entries, three different manufacturers were represented on that postrace podium.

That included teams from BMW and Porsche, both manufacturers making dramatic improvements from the class debut in January at the Rolex 24 At Daytona. In that opener, neither had a car finish closer than 15 laps behind the race winner, the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 driven by Tom Blomqvist, Colin Braun, Helio Castroneves, and Simon Pagenaud. At Sebring, the Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963s were running first and third when collected in the late-race melee that also included the No. 10 Konica Minolta Acura ARX-06 that was in second place.

The result of that skirmish opened the door for the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Racing Cadillac V-Series.R to claim the win, followed to the finish line by the No. 25 BMW M Team RLL BMW Hybrid V8. Though it didn’t complete the race, the No. 6 Penske Porsche was scored third in GTP.

“To be on the podium in our second race, it just shows things to come,” said Nick Yelloly, the closing driver in the runner-up No. 25 BMW. “We made a good step forward in terms of pace and can actually mix it up a little bit in the race. It was nice to get in and amongst it a few times today as well, whereas at Daytona we weren’t really doing that.”

Yelloly credited the continued dedication of the BMW and Team RLL engineers and staffs following the Daytona disappointment where Acura and Cadillac swept the first five finishing positions. Long hours of work both in Germany and at the team’s Indianapolis shop led to performance gains in a recent Sebring test, a harbinger of things to come on race weekend.

“Our boys and girls were able to sort through all the data, piece things together and come here for the test a couple of weeks ago and make already a small step forward,” said Yelloly. “And then when we got here (for the race), obviously we made another step forward. Really quite promising looking forward.”

BMW M Head of Motorsport Andreas Roos was also delighted with the GTP program’s progress on a weekend when he also saw his brand’s GT3 cars finish 1-2 in the GT Daytona (GTD) class and BMW GT4s do the same in the Grand Sport (GS) class of the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge race.

“We are gradually getting closer to the performance level that we want to achieve,” Roos said of the GTP cars. “Therefore, this second place scored by our No. 25 car is a great motivation for us to continue in the same fashion in the coming weeks and months.”

Porsche is feeling the same way, despite the extreme disappointment of its two cars seeing the chance at victory slip away with the finish line in sight. The Sebring results may list the Porsche 963s in third and fifth place but Urs Kuratle, Porsche Director of Factory Motorsport LMDh, saw a bright lining to the dark cloud at Sebring.

“We showed that we can achieve anything with our new Porsche 963 in the IMSA series,” he said. “We have a good platform with great potential. We’re feeling confident about the future because we now know that we can win through our own efforts.”

Gt Classes Looking Wide Open

The opening two races of the 2023 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship resulted in GT class victories for Mercedes-AMG and Aston Martin at the Rolex 24 At Daytona, Porsche and BMW at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, and McLaren is installed atop the GT Daytona (GTD) standings.

Talk about close competition. That’s half the manufacturers entered in the GT classes already represented by race wins or points leads in just two races.

It’s a slim GTD advantage for the No. 70 Inception Racing McLaren 720S GT3 driven by Brendan Iribe, Frederik Schandorff and Ollie Millroy – just one point over Sebring winners Bryan Sellers, Corey Lewis, Madison Snow, and the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3. And just to show that every minute cars are on track matters, the Inception McLaren gained that advantage through a slightly better qualifying performance – fifth at Daytona and eighth at Sebring, versus the PMR BMW’s ninth and fifth in the opening two rounds. The No. 1 BMW finished eighth at the Rolex 24 to collect 628 points to date, while the No. 70 McLaren was more consistent with third- and fourth-place finishes (and 629 points) to open the 2023 campaign. The No. 44 Magnus Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 and the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 are just 50 points back.

Meanwhile in GTD PRO, the Daytona-winning No. 79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 co-driven by Daniel Juncadella, Jules Gounon and Maro Engel (plus Cooper MacNeil at the Rolex 24) added a podium finish at Sebring to build a 26-point cushion over the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F and season-long co-drivers Jack Hawksworth and Ben Barnicoat, who had their own pair of podiums to open the year.

From there it’s another 23 points back to Sebring victors Patrick Pilet, Klaus Bachler, and Laurens Vanthoor and the 2022 class champion No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R (992).

Taken as a whole, all ten WeatherTech Championship GT manufacturers enjoyed at least a moment in the sun during the season-opening Florida swing of the two endurance races. Kyle Marcelli nabbed the GTD pole at Sebring for Acura in the No. 93 Racers Edge Motorsport with WTR NSX GT3. The Vasser Sullivan Lexus entries fared strongly in both classes, with the No. 14 earning GTD PRO podium finishes at both races and the No. 12 coming home fifth both times in GTD. The new Ferrari 296 GT3 was impressive at Sebring, the No. 62 Risi Competizione entry contending for a podium before settling for sixth place. Corvette looked set to win Sebring until an unscheduled pit stop to change a rear shock/damper relegated it to fifth at the flag. The new EVO2 version of the Lamborghini Huracán has demonstrated consistency and reliability out of the box.

Two races make up less than 20 percent of the full GT season, with a wide variety of racetracks still to come – starting with the street course at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, which is about as different from Sebring as Sebring is from Daytona.

Given that the range of cars participating in GTD and GTD PRO come in all different shapes and sizes – front-, mid- and rear-engine, with six, eight or ten cylinders – it’s logical that some cars are better suited to some tracks than others.

The challenge, then, is to find the combination of consistency, pace and reliability that has landed the No. 70 Inception McLaren atop the early GTD standings.

“The McLaren lacks torque and traction, but it’s great on fast circuits – look at the European tracks like Spa and Silverstone,” said Millroy, the team’s IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup driver who also serves as Iribe’s driver coach. “In the US, we’ve had two strong Daytona 24s because it’s all about top speed. We struggle a bit in the middle sector. We’re not that strong at Daytona in terms of lap time. We’re sort of strong enough to fight, but never outstandingly quick. But the car is great for racing. It’s great in slipstreams.

“VIRginia International Raceway is a good example of a US track that works for it – fast and flowing, with high grip. Where we struggle with the McLaren is with grunt and traction, areas the Mercedes is strong in.”

If There’s a Benchmark, It’s Mercedes-AMG. That’s a common theme you’ll hear from competitors – the well-developed Mercedes-AMG is often the benchmark car, using compact size and a torquey V-8 thrust to its advantage.

“The Porsche, Mercedes and Lexus tend to be strong in hard braking sections, but we have strong front grip and rotation,” observed Roman De Angelis, who shares the No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 with Marco Sorenson and Ian James. “The Aston will definitely be strong in the faster places like Watkins

Glen, Lime Rock and Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, and we’ll be able to show our true colours for sure.”

“The GTD class is so close, it doesn’t take much for things to go anyone’s way,” added James, who also serves as the Heart of Racing’s team principal. “Obviously, there’s ebb and flow with the performance between different cars, but the performance parameters of the cars in GTD are pretty close.”

At Sebring, the No. 79 Mercedes looked like it had the pace to win GTD PRO had the race run clean to the end. It was an impressive performance, especially on the heels of the powerful run to victory six weeks earlier at Daytona. And the No. 32 Team Korthoff Motorsports and No. 57 Winward Racing entries continued to show class-leading speed in GTD.

“We definitely have an amazing car,” said Engel. “The Mercedes-AMG GT3 is a car that’s well adapted to all forms of GT racing, whether long-distance or the sprint rounds. It’s always a car that gives the driver confidence.”

Fuel strategy turned out to be the difference maker at Sebring, resulting in wins for Porsche (GTD PRO) and BMW (GTD).

“We were not the quickest, clearly,” said Pilet, whose fuel-miserly final stint secured the victory for the Pfaff Porsche. “But we have such a good group of people, and we got a great effort. We gambled on yellows, and the strategy worked.”

Pilet stretched his last tank of fuel over the final 1 hour, 52 minutes of the 12 hours at Sebring. That’s longer than the upcoming race at Long Beach, a sprint event of 100 minutes. IT