2020 Rolex 24 at Daytona resource guide

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emailBy: Marshall Pruett | 22 hours ago

It’s time to launch the seventh season of IMSA’s WeatherTech SportsCar Championship at Daytona International Speedway where 38 cars are preparing to earn overall and class honors at the 58th Rolex 24 at Daytona.

RACER will be on the ground starting Wednesday morning, and be sure to follow RACER and Chris Medland for regular updates on Twitter, and RACER.com for photos, videos, session reports and feature stories.

IMSA RADIO: Click Here

ENTRY LIST: Click Here

TICKETS: Click Here

WEATHER: Click Here

SPOTTERS GUIDE: Click Here

IMSA LIVE TIMING & SCORING: Click Here

WEATHERTECH CHAMPIONSHIP EVENT SCHEDULE:

Thursday, January 23 (all times Eastern)

10:05 — 11:05 a.m., Free Practice 1

12:45—2:15 p.m., Free Practice 2

4:15—5:20 p.m., Qualifying

7:15–8:45 p.m., Free Practice 3

Friday, January 24

9:50—10:50 a.m., Free Practice 4

Saturday, January 25

1:35 p.m., Race Start- WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Round 1 (24 Hours)

Sunday, January 26

1:35 p.m., Race End

TV TUNE INFO (all times Eastern)



IMSA

 

Jarvis, Mazda take Rolex 24 pole; GT lap records fall

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emailBy: Stephen Kilbey | January 23, 2020 2:42 PM

Mazda Team Joest’s No. 77 RT24-P will start the Rolex 24 At Daytona from pole, after Oliver Jarvis set a blistering 1m33.711s lap in qualifying.

It wasn’t quite enough for the record — the Briton just a tenth short of his time from last year — but it was nevertheless a stunning time.

“What a car they gave me,” said Jarvis, after scoring his fourth IMSA pole. “This year feels different, it feels business-like — last year there was so much emotion. This feels like a job, and we’ve done it. The track all day hasn’t been perfect. We have new Michelins that are quicker, so the lap record was definitely under threat, but it doesn’t matter — I still have the record.

“We’re really optimistic ahead of the race.”

It was almost half a second quicker than the No. 6 Acura Team Penske ARX-05 which will start alongside the No. 77 on the front row after Juan Pablo Montoya’s 1m34.154s.

The big story of the session though, concerned the sister Acura, the No. 7 of Ricky Taylor, which brought the session to a premature end after an off at the Bus Stop. The American lost control of the car and went nose-first into the barriers on driver’s left. The Penske mechanics now have a lot of work to do ahead of night practice to get the car ready.

The No. 55 Mazda will start third ahead of the No. 31 Action Express Cadillac. The defending champions in the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac will start from fifth, on the strength of Ryan Briscoe’s 1m34.442s — 0.731 off pole.

In LMP2, Ben Keating starred. The American — who is racing in two cars in two classes this weekend — set a 1m37.446s in the No. 52 PR1 ORECA, 0.282s quicker than Henrik Hedman who put DragonSpeed’s ORECA second. The No. 8 Starworks 07 Gibson will start third.
Nick Tandy’s record lap topped the GTLM field.

Before the prototypes headed out to the circuit to qualify, the GTLM qualifying lap record fell, Nick Tandy putting the No. 911 Porsche 911 RSR 19 on pole with a 1m42.207s, breaking his own record from last year by half a tenth.

“It was the limit — we didn’t time it quite right this year but I did pick up a draft from a Ferrari which helped. It all starts off well with our new car, with a 1-2,” Tandy said.

Behind the No. 912 sister Porsche made it a 1-2 for the German marque, continuing its dominance today at the top of the times.

The two Corvette C8.Rs took both spots on the second row, with the No. 3 ahead of the No. 4. Antonio Garcia pushed the No. 3 to the limit in an attempt to spoil Porsche’s party with its new 911 RSR, but despite an improvement at the end of the session on his final flyer, a 1m42.545s wasn’t enough.

The two RLL BMWs will start fifth and sixth, with the Risi Ferrari completing the class in seventh.
Zach Robichon continued the Porsche party in GTD. Image Michael Levitt/LAT

Zach Robichon broke the GTD lap record with a 1m45.237s to take the class pole in the No. 9 Pfaff Porsche.

“We’ve made a lot of improvements — if there’s one race where pole doesn’t matter as much it’s this one but we’ll take it!” Robichon said after the session.

He took the top spot by almost half a second in the GTD session. The No. 63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 GT3 will start from second, ahead of the No. 57 Heinricher Racing Acura.

The No. 96 Turner Motorsports BMW, which was quickest in the category in Practice 2, took fourth with a 1m45.872s from Rob Foley, almost two tenths quicker than Stejin Schothorst in the No. 11 Grasser Lamborghini who made it five brands in the top five.

The top seven in the class were all from different makes, though, as the No. 88 WRT Audi will start from sixth, with the No. 12 AVS Lexus seventh.

Only 15 of the 18 GTD cars took part in the session. The No. 14 Lexus didn’t make it out due to an engine change, and neither did the Black Swan Porsche which is still being repaired after its Practice 1 shunt. The No. 44 Magnus Racing Lamborghini was the third of the no-shows.

RESULTS

UP NEXT: Night practice at 7:15 p.m. ET

 

Le Mans potential with LMDh excites Rossi, Montoya

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emailBy: Chris Medland | 9 hours ago

The potential to race the same car at Le Mans as in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship appeals to Juan Pablo Montoya (pictured at microphone, above) and Alexander Rossi, following Friday’s announcement of plans for a convergence of prototype regulations between the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO) and IMSA.

The new regulations could allow manufacturers to race the same car at flagship events in both categories, and Rossi – who is racing the No. 7 Acura Team Penske ARX-05 at this weekend’s Rolex 24 At Daytona – told RACER the idea that he could also do so at Le Mans excites him.

“I mean, we’ll see what comes of it,” Rossi said ahead of the announcement. “Obviously the relationships I have here (at Acura) now over the past two years are pretty good, and I think we’ve done a good job in the car, so we’ll see. That would be pretty awesome.”

The more experienced Montoya is in the sister No. 6 Acura Team Penske ARX-05 this weekend and could chase a Triple Crown at Le Mans, having already won the Monaco Grand Prix and Indianapolis 500. He sees the DPi regulations as a good basis for both championships.

“I ran the 24 Hours two years ago – it was good, we finished third and everything – but it’s a weird deal,” Montoya said. “With the ACO coming here, hopefully something gets solved. I understand they want the Hypercar and everything, but this (DPi) formula really works. It works for the manufacturers, it works for everybody.

“It’s a logical way of doing it. You can keep the LMP2 class for the teams that don’t have a manufacturer and then you open whatever we call (DPi) – you can call it whatever you want, but it’s based on the same car, so you don’t need to build a new car. You don’t need to start from zero, you don’t need designers… It’s so much simpler, and the racing is amazing.

“I love racing back here, I love racing right now here in IMSA. It’s a blast.”

ACO, Alexander Rossi, Convergence, DPi, Juan Pablo Montoya, LMDh, IMSA, Le Mans/WEC

 

See also post #27

Black Swan secures replacement car for Rolex 24

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emailBy: Stephen Kilbey | 20 hours ago

Black Swan Racing has sourced a replacement Porsche 911 GT3 R for this weekend’s Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona.

The team missed out on two practice sessions and qualifying today after Trenton Estep had a big off during Practice 1, damaging the car beyond repair.

Related

Black Swan Porsche’s Rolex 24 in jeopardy

But the team has found a solution. Its new Porsche, which is currently being prepped in the garage, is a spare chassis from fellow Porsche customer team Wright Motorsports. The new car requires a lot of work, and currently lacks, among other things, an engine, gearbox, electronics, brakes and suspension.

A Black Swan Racing engineer, who was overseeing the team’s prep work of the inside of the car, told RACER that in return for the gesture, the team will buy Wright Motorsports a new chassis.

It remains to be seen whether or not the team will run during the final practice session tomorrow morning. Its drivers completed night laps during the Roar Before The Rolex 24, so ts four drivers are already eligible to take the start on Saturday despite missing Thursday’s night practice.

IMSA

 

You never know your limits until you exceed them.

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  • Kobayashi leads final Rolex 24 practice

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emailBy: Stephen Kilbey | 10 hours ago

The fourth and final practice session ahead of the Rolex 24 At Daytona was topped by the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac DPi, Kamui Kobayashi setting a 1m35.340s.

The No. 7 Acura, which was repaired and passed technical checks before the session following its shunt in qualifying, ended up second, with Helio Castroneves managing a 1m35.733s. The No. 5 JDC Cadillac ended up third, with the No. 31 Action Express example fourth.

There were two notable stories in the session. The first was the return of Black Swan Racing, its newly-sourced (ex-Wright Motorsports) Porsche prepped overnight and out touring the circuit during the session. And it was on the pace quickly too, Jeroen Bleekemolen setting a 1m46.467s to go third fastest in GTD. This represented an incredible job by the Black Swan crew to get it ready on such short notice, and a sporting gesture from Wright Motorsports which shouldn’t go unnoticed.
A hefty clout of the tire barriers for the Performance Tech ORECA….

The second headline concerned the No. 38 Performance Tech ORECA, which had a sizeable off at the entry to the banking at Turn 6. Don Yount was aboard and had an off into the tires on driver’s left, leaving the car heavily damaged and propped up on the tires in the closing minutes. This brought the session to an end early. It remains to be seen whether the car is repairable ahead of the race tomorrow.

Yount told RACER that his left foot, normally used for braking, caught the edge of the gas pedal leading the car to accelerate. He was able to readjust his foot but by that point he had missed the braking zone, and he was sent veering off into the tire barriers.

Elsewhere, the No. 8 Starworks ORECA topped LMP1, with a 1m37.230s from Nicolas Lapierre.

In the GT ranks, for the first time all week it wasn’t Porsche atop the GTLM class. This time the No. 3 Corvette C8.R led the way, with a 1m42.962s from Antonio Garcia. The two Porsches completed the top three in the category, the No. 911 leading the No. 912.

In GTD, the No. 11 Grasser Lamborghini finished up a tenth up on the competition after a 1m46.308s tour of the speedway from Franck Perera.

RESULTS

UP NEXT: The start of the Rolex 24 At Daytona is set for Saturday at 1:35 p.m. ET.

 

The Day At Daytona, with Keating, Thiim, Tandy, Dixon and Jarvis

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emailBy: Marshall Pruett | 19 hours ago

It’s a special edition of the Inside The Sports Car Paddock interview show from the Rolex 24 At Daytona where Graham Goodwin, Stephen Kilbey and Chris Medland discuss Thursday’s WeatherTech SportsCar Championship activities before speaking with LMP2 polesitter Ben Keating, Aston Martin factory driver Nicki Thiim, GT Le Mans polesitter Nick Tandy from Porsche, Wayne Taylor Racing’s Scott Dixon, and DPi polesitter Oliver Jarvis from Mazda.
2020 Rolex 24 at Daytona resource guide

Rolex 24, IMSA, Podcasts

 

Action Express leads Rolex night practice

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emailBy: Stephen Kilbey | January 23, 2020 6:11 PM

The No. 31 Action Express crew put a Cadillac DPi at the top of the times for the first time this week, Filipe Albuquerque setting a 1m34.914s under the floodlights in night practice at Daytona.

Action Express’ sole DPi led a Cadillac 1-2-3. Behind the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing example finished up second, while the No. 5 Mustang Sampling JDC entry took third.

Only five DPis turned competitive laps in the session. The No. 7 Acura spent almost the entire session in the garage being worked on after Ricky Taylor’s off in qualifying, before heading out for a couple of shakedown runs. The two Mazdas meanwhile, spent time being looked at by mechanics too.

In LMP2, the No. 52 PR1 ORECA, which will start the race from class pole on Saturday, topped the time. Gabriel Aubry’s 1m37.084s was three and a half tenths up on the No. 81 DragonSpeed 07 Gibson that took second.



In GTLM, it was Porsche once again setting the best time, the new 911 RSR 19 proving untouchable so far this week. The No. 24 BMW though, split up the two all-conquering Porsches on this occasion, slotting in second with a 1m43.611s from Augusto Farfus. The No. 911 Porsche finished the night third, with the No. 3 Corvette fourth.

More IMSA!

The Day at Daytona, January 24

‘Too early’ to expect manufacturer response to IMSA/ACO convergence

PRUETT: Converging toward some home truths

In GTD, Wright Motorsports topped the times with its No. 16 Porsche, leading a Porsche 1-1, the No. 9 pole-winning Pfaff 911 coming in second.

Best of the rest was the No. 48 Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini Huracan, which came a tenth shy of the best time in the class.

Further down the order, AIM Vasser Sullivan’s No. 14 Lexus RC F GT3 made a welcome return to track action in the session, after its engine change ahead of qualifying. It managed plenty of laps with its new power plant and ended up 11th in class, with a 1m46.363s best time from Jack Hawksworth.

Elsewhere, the Black Swan Racing team has sourced a spare chassis to ensure it makes the start on Saturday. Its original 911 RSR GT3 was damaged beyond repair in its incident during opening practice, leaving the team scrambling for a solution. The new car is in the early stages of being prepped for the race.

RESULTS

UP NEXT: Practice 4, 9:50 a.m.



Action Express, Rolex 24, IMSA, WeatherTech Sportscar Championship

 

PRUETT: Rolex 24/IMSA year of changes

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emailBy: Marshall Pruett | 10 hours ago

Welcome to an undeniably different opening to IMSA’s WeatherTech SportsCar championship season where change is the main story.

Teams and drivers have come into the series, others have left, new developments abound, some old questions remain, and in many cases, you’ll find the usual assortment of positives and negatives to process before the green flag waves today in Daytona, starting with:

NBC TrackPass: Having used NBC’s Gold live streaming service to watch a lot of IndyCar action last year, I’m pleased to see IMSA’s TV partner has added endurance racing to the dedicated streaming world with TrackPass. Like Gold, it isn’t free, but that’s no different than Netflix or any other streaming solution that I pay for. For the first time, I’ll watch the entire Rolex 24 At Daytona via streaming, and expect to do so at other IMSA races where I need to focus on the home front.

Click here for sign-up info.

Jan The Man: The Rolex 24 will take the green flag without Jan Magnussen for the first time since 2004. The mighty Dane, a Corvette Racing legend who parted ways with the team after October’s Petit Le Mans, will be missed by his many IMSA fans this season.

GRT/Magnus: Team Fun, aka Magnus Racing, has morphed into something rather different with owner/driver John Potter sending his car and equipment to Grasser Racing to run on his behalf. Potter’s girded by his familiar co-driver Andy Lally for the year, which is excellent, but the team’s primary instigator of fun, PR ace Sean Heckman, has stepped away from racing. Will they produce fewer laughs but more wins with the switch to Grasser?

New President: Scott Atherton steered the American Le Mans Series from its infancy, brought the ALMS together with Grand Am to recreate today’s IMSA, and presided over the series through the end of 2019. He’s remained an advisor to IMSA after handing the keys to new president John Doonan, who left Mazda to fill Atherton’s considerable void. Doonan pulled off the biggest move to date for IMSA with getting prototype convergence over the line and signed with the ACO, which could be hard to top.

A fun note about IMSA’s new boss: Volunteer corner workers reported that early Friday morning at the Roar Before The 24 test — which would have been Doonan’s first day on the ground as president — he showed up at their group meeting and privately thanked all of them for their contributions to IMSA. First day. At the crack of dawn. I think we’ll be in good hands going forward.

No Ford GTs: They might have sounded like they needed to drink a few gallons of Maalox, but there’s no doubt the absence of Ford’s bellowing GTs from the grid will make the year less fun. Ford’s four-year factory GT Le Mans program was a great addition to IMSA, and with convergence in the works, it might not be a long wait until the Blue Oval is back with a new hybrid prototype.

In The Middle: With Ford’s GTs on the way out, IMSA’s rich GTLM class has received an infusion of interest with Corvette’s brand-new mid-engine C8.R, which sounds like nothing we’ve ever heard from a V8-powered entry produced by Corvette Racing. Defending GTLM champions Porsche also have a new model, with its mid-rear-engine 911 RSR ‘2.0’ taking pole at Daytona. GTLM is down a couple of cars for the year, but the quality hasn’t been lost.
How Corvette’s new C8.R will match up against the latest Porsche is one of the key’s to the GT season ahead. Image by Michael Levitt/LAT

 

LMP2 Ups And Downs: With IMSA’s pro-am prototype class struggling to attract entries last season, the series took a knife to LMP2’s 2020 calendar, trimmed a number of races to help bring operating budgets down, and team owners have responded. Two full-time cars in 2019 should float between 5-6 throughout the year, and if the experiment ends up working as well as it should, the cost-cutting LMP2 blueprint could be worth considering in some of the other WeatherTech Championship classes where budgets are teetering on untenable.

Where’s Joey And Westy And Dirk? With the shuttering of Ford’s GT project, three of its factory drivers have struggled to penetrate an overflowing market and find work in IMSA. Joey Hand, Richard Westbrook, and Dirk Muller — a trio who will be future first-ballot inductees in domestic and international racing hall of fames — epitomize the crazy economy at play in the sport. With too few paying opportunities to fill, the Ford trio will be spectators this weekend. It makes zero sense.

Good Messaging: One of the mightiest little teams you’ve likely never heard of is found deep within the paddock as IMSA’s tiny communications team, led by Gregg Elkin, continues to punch well above its weight. With Elkin leading, veteran journalist and PR man Nate Siebens at his side, and the young and multi-talented Jennifer Klein looking after the series, IMSA’s comms department has become a powerful source of messaging and information in ways that humble rival series with bigger budgets and staffs. Outside of the few specialist racing outlets like RACER who report on the series, a significant amount of the compelling stories you read about IMSA on the web comes from Elkin’s group.

Will Mazda Survive The Witching Hour? It’s two poles in a row for Mazda Team Joest at the Rolex 24, and the lingering question of whether the Japanese brand can get to the finish line without significant interruption. Since Mazda arrived at Daytona in 2014 with its diesel-powered prototypes, and upgraded to the gas-fueled RT24-P DPis in 2017, some form of mechanical or electrical malady has ruined its plans to capture a major 10-, 12-, or 24-hour IMSA victory. Will 2020 be the year where the cartoon anvil misses its favorite target?

Heinricher Racing’s New Plan: Jackie Heinricher’s introduction to IMSA in 2019 came with an all-female driving squad and initiative to foster more participation by women in the sport. Her drivers moved laterally in the GT Daytona paddock to a different team, and with the change, Heinricher has returned to Meyer Shank Racing with a new sponsor and an all-male driving squad. Heinricher will embark on her second season as a co-entrant adjusting to those differences while continuing her efforts to inspire women to take a variety of roles in the series.
Similar but different: Heinricher Racing w/MSR Curb-Agajanian Acura NSX GT3 and Mustang Sampling Cadillac. Image by Jake Galstad/LAT

Risi As Marauders: Giuseppe Risi’s privateer Ferrari GTLM team continues to corner the market on upsetting the full-fledged factory programs, and it never gets old, and never fails to delight. Winners of the most recent endurance race at Petit Le Mans, the Houston-based giant killers are an instant favorite whenever the red No. 62 entry is on the grid.

Related

Risi team bolsters David act vs factory Goliaths with new Ferrari

No Juncos: Ricardo Juncos made waves during his debut as an IMSA team owner last year using a Cadillac DPi-V.R, but a lack of budget has kept the spirited Argentinian from returning.

GEAR/Grasser: Katherine Legge and Christina Nielsen continue to work they started with Heinricher Racing with Austria’s Grasser group and, more importantly, as the full-time drivers and leaders of Mark Ruggieri’s GEAR project — Girl Empowerment Around Racing — in 2020. The amazing pop-art livery for their car will make it the most unmistakable entry at every round.

Related

Legge energized by GEAR mission

No. 5 Is Still Alive: It looks the same and sounds the same, but the No. 5 Cadillac DPi-V.R is no longer being run by the Action Express Racing team. In fact, the car number, primary sponsor, colors and liver, and one of AXR’s drivers have made one giant move to the burgeoning JDC-Miller Motorsports team. With AXR running out of funding to keep the No. 5 in motion, its champion driver Joao Barbosa, the passionate folks at Mustang Sampling, AXR sporting director Christian Fittipaldi and former AXR endurance driver Sebastien Bourdais — who lost his seat in IndyCar and has gone full-time in IMSA — are now at JDC, where they’ll look to make the team a regular contender for podiums.

Heart of Racing and Aston Martin: Gaming company founder and legend Gabe Newell, whose benevolence has generated millions of dollars in donations to help sick and afflicted children, partnered with a few colleagues to bring The Heart of Racing back to IMSA in GTD with former drivers Ian James, Alex Riberas, in a new partnership with Aston Martin Racing. They’ve also drafted in rising IMSA star Roman De Angelis, a Canadian teenager, to make an impact on and off the track. If you know me, you know I love those who try and use their platform to help others, and with THoR, it’s the central inspiration behind everything they’ll do in IMSA.

Related

Big week ahead for Aston Martin GT program

Heart of Racing GTD team reunites Riberas and James

And there’s plenty more that’s changed to document, but it’s time to go endurance racing. Enjoy all that lies ahead.

 

The Day at Daytona, January 24

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emailBy: Marshall Pruett | January 24, 2020 2:43 PM

It’s another special edition of the Inside The Sports Car Paddock interview show from the 2020 Rolex 24 At Daytona where Graham Goodwin and Stephen Kilbey discuss the newly-announced prototype convergence with IMSA president John Doonan, ACO president Pierre Fillon, FIA WEC CEO Gerard Neveu, former IMSA president Scott Atherton, and Mazda Motorsports director Nelson Cosgrove.