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Porsche GT repaired for Long Beach race

Saturday, 08 April 2017

By Marshall Pruett (words & image)

The Porsche GT Team has completed extensive repairs of the No. 911 RSR in time to compete in today's 100-minute IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race in Long Beach.

French factory driver Patrick Pilet clouted the Turn 9 wall with the left rear of his Porsche while exiting the corner, and despite the impact looking local to the wheel and suspension, a complete change of the mechanical components at the back of the car was required.
The team worked until 1:30 a.m. to replace the subframe, most of the related items that attach to the subframe, and the engine and gearbox as a precaution when the impact shifted the subframe to the right of the car.
"The car held up really well from the impact," team manager Morgan Brady told RACER. "Most of the damage was just bolt-on components. Our guys did a great job getting everything fixed up last night and we're ready to go."
Pilet and teammate Dirk Werner will start the race from 34th on the grid – last in the field – for the Bubba Burger Sports Car Grand Prix at Long Beach, which starts at 1 p.m. PT.
As the defending class winner at Long Beach, the No. 911 entry will face steep odds to repeat the feat with so far to travel during IMSA's shortest race of the year. The sister No. 912 Porsche 911 RSR driven by Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor will roll away from fourth on the GT Le Mans grid.

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[h=2]Parente earns PWC pole with Long Beach record[/h] Saturday, 08 April 2017


By RACER Staff / Image by Richard James

Defending race winner Alvaro Parente bested his own track record on the way to his second straight Pirelli World Challenge pole for Sunday's 50-minute race at Long Beach.
Parente, who had never seen the streets of Long Beach until last year, set a lap of 1m18.883 seconds in his K-PAX McLaren 650S with only a few minutes left in the 20-minute qualifying round.
"It was definitely not full-dry conditions so you couldn't really attack," Parente explained, "especially that braking area into Turn 9. In between turns 9 and 10, it was also wet there so I was quite impressed with the lap time. If it was fully dry, I believe the pack would have gone quite a bit quicker, especially if everything was normal.
"I'm happy to have come back, got that last sector right with three minutes to go, and then concluded my lap. Mentally, I knew that the end would have been better so maybe even waiting another five minutes would have helped but we didn't do that since all of our main competition didn't do it. So, we decided to go too and we didn't have a problem."
Current GT points leader Patrick Long, who leads Parente by two, was second fastest and just .100 behind in second place.
"We went with the strategy of putting a lap in early," said Long. "Where we got caught off gaurd was that all weekend we had a 15-minute practice session but when we got out and the tuggers left, that's when we got the update of a 20-minute session so we ended up running out of fuel at the end. Everybody's doing their best and we learn from it. In the end, no excuses. Alvaro (Parente) is a class act and tomorrow is the race so we'll see."
Parente's K-PAX teammate Bryan Sellers was third fastest at 1m19.088s. The top 12 drivers were all within one second of Parente.
Daniel Mancinelli, who rammed into the back of Tim Pappas' Mercedes Benz AMG GT3 in the closing minutes of the second, was fourth fastest, followed by the Ferrari 488 GT3-R of Alex Riberas. Manicelli was able to continue but Pappas fell to 21st overall.
In GTA, James Sofronos' fast weekend continued as the FP1 leader laid down a time of 1m20.147s late in the session, followed by Michael Schein (1m20.155s) and Magnus' John Potter (1m20.604s).
"We thought about the weather and scuffed in our tires in practice," Sofronas said. "I think it hurt us in the end but we were hedging that we could put a fast lap early in case someone got a red flag because our tires would come up quicker. Obviously it was a green session and I probably didn't get the best of the tire. In one way, we got a good race pace but we probably didn't get the most of the tires. However, the car is balanced and we'll take the pole. I'm happy to be on pole, but we have a lot of work to do tomorrow."
GT and GTA classes hit the streets for Round 3 competition at 1 p.m. ET. Fans can keep track of timing and scoring in real-time at PWC's TSL link at Event Details - Pirelli World Challenge - 7th-9th April - Long Beach :: Timing Solutions Ltd. under the LIVE TIMING link. CBS Sports Network will air the same-day broadcast at 2:30 p.m. ET as well as an encore presentation at 6:30 p.m. ET (3:30 p.m. PT).

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[h=2]Castroneves on third straight Long Beach pole[/h] Saturday, 08 April 2017



By Mark Glendenning / Image by LAT

Helio Castroneves will start tomorrow’s Verizon IndyCar Series race at Long Beach from pole position after topping a dramatic qualifying session on Saturday.

The Brazilian broke his own track record from 2015 with his 1m06.2254s effort, earning him his third consecutive Long Beach pole, and the 48th pole of his career. But he was also an unwitting player in an incident that ultimately eliminated one of his teammates from the Fast Six.

was running just behind Simon Pagenaud late in the first qualifying phase when the reigning champion braked suddenly and forced Castroneves, who had been several car lengths back a couple of corners earlier, to check up and swerve to avoid running into the back of the No.1.
Pagenaud ended that phase with the fastest time, but after reviewing the incident, race control charged him with qualifying interference, removed his two best laps and benched him from the rest of qualifying. That relegated the Frenchman to the back of the grid for tomorrow’s race, and he directed the blame elsewhere in the Team Penske camp.
“It starts with [Will] Power,” he said. “On the first lap on reds he was really slow so I caught him and had to abort my lap. All three Penske cars were close, so I was boxed in. I didn’t want to start my [next] lap in [Power’s] turbulence.
“It’s a real shame; the car was phenomenal. We had the car for pole, and Will started backing everybody up. I don’t understand why the guy that’s behind [faces] the consequence for the problem. But it is what it is.
“In my head, there was no doubt we were going to contend for the pole position. We’ll have a good race car, and with some strategy we can do something good tomorrow.”
Power didn’t make it to the Fast Six either.
“Just made a mistake at the last corner and ruined my first lap and last lap [on reds],” Power said. “All we needed was less than a tenth to get through, but that’s IndyCar – it’s tight right now.”
With Josef Newgarden also falling a fraction short of progressing, it was left to a gaggle of Hondas to join Castroneves in the battle for pole. Ganassi’s Scott Dixon came closest, setting a provisional new track record at the end of the second phase and then falling 0.18s short of Castroneves’ time in the Fast Six.
Ryan Hunter-Reay also came close, ending the afternoon just 0.02 down on Dixon, with James Hinchcliffe, Alexander Rossi and Graham Rahal – who later said that his best lap was derailed by an overboost penalty - rounding out the first three rows.

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Long Beach IMSA thriller goes to Taylor Cadillac
Saturday, 08 April 2017

By Marshall Pruett / Images by LAT

The Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac train rolled through Long Beach and claimed its third consecutive win of the year, but victory was only assured in the final minutes as a thrilling battle with Nissan went down to the wire. Corvette Racing took GT Le Mans honors after a crazy last-lap, last-corner incident robbed the leader of a win, and the Riley Motorsports/WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG team took command of GT Daytona to score its first win of 2017.
A steady flow of caution periods jumbled the field during the 100-minute event as five yellows inspired many teams to try alternative strategies, and in the final run to the checkered flag, Jordan Taylor in the No. 10 WTR Cadillac DPi-V.R found himself trailing the speedy No. 2 Tequila Patron ESM Nissan Onroak DPi piloted by Ryan Dalziel.
With the Scot absolutely flying in the twin-turbo V6 Nissan, Taylor had no answer in clean air as the ESM driver left the 6.2-liter V8-powered Cadillac in his wake exiting the corners. Dalziel set a new race lap record while moving the lead out to nearly two seconds, but the gap was quickly erased when traffic began to slow his progress. As the clock counted down to the five-minute mark, Taylor seized on the traffic jam facing Dalziel and pounced entering Turn 1 (watch video below).
Coming from a seemingly impossible distance, the black No. 10 DPi-V.R swung to the right and executed a daring pass under braking and took the lead by going the long way around Dalziel. Watching from pit lane, Jordan's brother Ricky watched in amazement as the team completed a clean sweep of the 37 hours and 40 minutes of racing held by IMSA in 2017.
"I still can't believe it," said Ricky, who earned pole position and handed over to Jordan after 55 minutes of racing. "That was incredible. I saw the ESM car was there and Dane was so quick and things weren't going our way. Jordan drove so incredibly making all those moves. No matter what happens the car has been running flawlessly, our boys were great in the pits and the strategy was perfect."

Taylor, second-place Dalziel, and the third-place No. 55 Mazda RT24-P driven by Jonathan Bomarito gave IMSA its first podium of the new Daytona Prototype international era where one model from each of the three DPi manufacturers was represented on the podium.

“All around, it is a good result,” Dalziel said. “If we came in this weekend thinking we were going to lead laps, be competitive and finish second, we would have been thrilled. To have led so many laps, see how strong we were, and just get ruined by lapped cars driving like morons is frustrating. We did everything we could do. The car was excellent and strategy was perfect. I feel bummed, but we will take second.”
Bomarito was more enthused with his result.
“You have to be so flexible with the race environment as you could see from the race,” he said. “There were a lot of yellows so you really had to stay clean. Its risk vs reward. You don’t want to lose to the cars in front of you but you can’t take a big chance. Some took chances today and you saw their cars in the wall. Good day for the team, SpeedSource, and a first podium for the new Mazda RT24-P.”
The three DPi drivers were fortunate to have crossed the finish line under the checkered flag before the race's second track blockage at the preceding hairpin altered the outcome of the GT Le Mans race. A questionable move on the last lap by 3GT Lexus driver Robert Alon took two additional GT Daytona cars – a Michael Shank Racing Acura and the Turner BMW – into the exit of the hairpin where the trio stopped nose-first against the barrier.

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The next cars on the scene happened to be the GTLM leaders as the pole-sitting No. 3 Corvette Racing C7.R of Antonio Garcia, the second-placed sister Corvette of Tommy Milner and Ryan Briscoe's third-placed Ford Chip Ganassi Racing GT were left to find a path through the blockage. Unfortunately for Garcia, the choice to go wide proved to the wrong one and, with the GTD cars impeding his path, Milner waited for a moment for the Spaniard to find a solution. With no way out of the logjam, Garcia sat and watched as Milner made a hard right to use the only available opening behind the GTD cars and accelerated to victory. Briscoe, following the Corvette's cue, followed the No. 4 C7.R to take second and Kevin Estre completed the top three in his No. 912 Porsche GT Team 911.
Garcia, within walking distance of the finish line, was left to settle for an unrepresentative fifth once the GTD cars were cleared.
"What a weird finish to a race – unbelievable," said Milner, who lost last year's race when his car was spun in the same hairpin and fell down the running order in the same manner that was dealt to Garcia. "In some ways I had experience already with a blocked hairpin; I thought I knew where to go and figured the race was over and done with at that point. The last time I went to the outside and it was blocked, so I went to the inside. I think I was a better chess player [today]."
Mercedes-AMG ensured the three marques that won Prototype (Cadillac), GTLM (Corvette) and GT Daytona at Sebring were repeated at Long Beach as the No. 50 Riley Motorsports/WeatherTech Racing entry captured the victory with Gunnar Jeannette and Cooper MacNeil behind the wheel.
Their win came amid plenty of mistakes made throughout GTD, but other than being hit by the No. 5 Action Express Racing Cadillac driven by Christian Fittipaldi, who failed to clear MacNeil while going around the outside in the tight Turn 9, the rapid No. 50 was not going to be denied after rolling the dice with a one-stop strategy.
"It feels really good," said MacNeil, whose car took the lead on lap 29 and held it until the lap 63 finish. "We had some luck on our side. We played some good strategy and it all came together and had a couple of fortunate yellows that got us to the end; we would have had to stop without them."

The Bubba Burger Sports Car Grand Prix opened in a mess as Risi Competizione's Toni Vilander spun Ed Brown in the No. 22 Nissan DPi exiting Turn 5. With Brown's car wedged backwards between the exit wall and Vilander's Ferrari 488, the crash was expanded with the unwilling Joey Hand, whose Ford GT was punted into the back of Vilander by a Corvette.

Hand would eventually continue but Vilander and Brown were recorded as the race's first and second retirements. More yellows and spins would continue until the race wound down to 65 minutes when Fittipaldi crashed and the AXR team made an error by changing drivers during what was classified as an emergency stop by the No. 5 Cadillac. The ensuing penalty – a stop-plus 60 seconds – would relegate the car to seventh in class and 29th overall at the finish.
Fifteen minutes later, Dirk Werner in the No. 911 Porsche spun Dirk Muller's No. 66 Ford in the hairpin. The race-leading No. 10 WTR Cadillac got through before Muller moved forward and all but stopped the second-place No. 55 Mazda along with a half-dozen other cars as they waited for the damaged Ford to complete a multi-point turn and pull away.
Mazda was running 2-3 behind the WTR Cadillac and looked primed to earn a double podium until the No. 70 pitted and was released without the right-rear wheel properly attached to the car. Well spotted by the IMSA officials who stopped the car from leaving, the No 70 was pushed back and the SpeedSource team installed the wheel nut. The car would finish sixth in class and 21st overall.
The drama wasn't finished for AXR, whose California nightmare worsened when Dane Cameron suffered the biggest crash of the weekend with the No. 31 Cadillac. Chasing the WTR car into Turn 8, Cameron attempted to shortcut the curbing and lost the front end of his DPi-V.R after clipping the inside wall, which launched the Dallara-built car hard into the concrete barriers with the left-front corner.
The impact was hard enough to move the barriers back, and with the left-rear corner slamming into the wall as well, the Cadillac was finished on the spot. Cameron was unhurt in the incident.

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Live Stream IMSA Long Beach starts around 4:30
2017 Bubba Burger Sports Car Grand Prix At Long Beach



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ-qA7If5m8

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Last lap crash at Long Beach last 3 minutes of race

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XHOzcasOxE

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Last Lap crash, last turn, last 8 minutes of race

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGRJ4DvlqlA

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Last 16 minutes battle all the way at Long Beach rubbing fenders and doors....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlgf6rh0LjI

at 7:11 the Cadillac takes the lead!

at 10 min: Corvette, Corvette, Ford

12 min: nosed into the wall

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