Corvette Gets A Break! - Roar at Daytona Day 2 Report

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Jan 22, 2022

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David Land
69.9K subscribersSurprise, surprise... the story of the new GTD Pro class continues to be an ever changing one! Corvette and BMW's new cars have gotten a performance boost... did it help? We talk about that and MORE from day two at the Rolex 24 at Daytona!

 

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Rolex 24 Predictions + Preview

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Jan 28, 2022

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David Land
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Are we expecting something to happen here?
Wondering about the lead time required to get a video up....

The Rolex 24 TV schedule will begin at 1:30 p.m. ET on NBC and move to Peacock at 2:30 p.m. USA Network will pick up coverage from 4-7 p.m. and then Peacock again from 7-10 pm. Coverage will return to USA Network from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. and then move to Peacock until 6 a.m.

IMSA now says: So what if you waited several hours to watch the race,
Screw you

 

Very Much a Beginners Guide to the 2022 Rolex 24 hours of Daytona

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Jan 20, 2022

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SRA SmokingPuppy841
193 subscribersNew to sportscar racing and the 24 hours of Daytona? From the cars to the big name stars, hopefully this can help you understand one of the best - but also more confusing - races in international motorsport.

 

2022 IMSA Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona 1st Practice...Pushing the cars to stay warm....built in "heaters" inside a nice warm race car...lol

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Jan 27, 2022

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MidKnightR1
4.84K subscribersThe first green flag of the 2022 racing season at Daytona International Speedway will drop this weekend, as IMSA fans will descend upon the track in preparation for the Rolex 24 weekend at Daytona.

 

24 Horas a Daytona 2022 | Guía & Previa 60th Rolex 24 at Daytona

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Jan 27, 2022

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DC12F1
603 subscribersSe vienen las 24 horas a Daytona 2022! La apertura de la IMSA perfila un escenario en el que podremos ver variedad de crossovers entre pilotos y equipos en distintas multiclases, dispersos en una grilla de 61 autos en total. Aquí hay de todo para todos. Esta mi guía y previa de la edición 60 de la Rolex 24 at Daytona

 

2022 ROAR Before The Rolex 24 - Behind The Scenes

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Jan 24, 2022

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Jordan Taylor
3.17K subscribersA few clips from this weekend's ROAR before the Rolex 24. Our first outing in the new GTD-Pro class. Had some audio troubles on this one, but let me know what types of things you liked seeing and what you'd like to see more of!

 

Keating going for two at Rolex 24

Jake Galstad/Motorsport Images
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emailBy Richard S. James | January 28, 2022 7:22 PM ET

Ben Keating is no stranger to running two cars in two different classes, as he is always looking to maximize his chances of winning the Rolex 24 at Daytona. Last year, he attempted LMP2 and GTD. This year, though, he’s gunning for the top.

Keating will race LMP2 for PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports as he begins the defense of the championship he won last year with Mikkel Jensen. Additionally, he will partner with Tristan Vautier, Richard Westbrook and Loic Duval in the No. 5 JDC-Miller Motorsports Cadillac, the only Bronze-rated driver in the DPi field. If all goes well, Keating could become the first driver to win the Rolex 24 in two different classes in the same event, while also earning his first overall win.

“This is unique, because it’s the first time I’ve ever been able to run in the top class,” said Keating, who won the GTD category at Daytona in 2015. “And, you know, I’ll always believe that every car in a 24-hour race is a long shot. And that’s the reason why I’ve wanted to be a team member in two cars. But, there’s something special about having the opportunity to compete for an overall win.”

More IMSA!

Rolex 24 Hour 1: Kobayashi leads as first hour ends under caution

RETRO: Shank’s breakthrough 2012 Rolex 24 win

INSIGHT: The art and science of handling Rolex 24 traffic

Keating had his first laps in the Cadillac on Friday at the Roar Before the 24. Knowing that the DPi cars are based on LMP2 chassis, he expected to find the two cars somewhat alike to drive. He was surprised, but in a good way.

“I expected the two cars to be much more similar than they were,” he said. “It was much more different than I expected, which is really, really fun. I mean, both cars are incredibly quick but they make up their speed in different ways. And I think that my time in the DPi car improved my driving in the LMP2, just because they do different things better or worse.”

The Texan admitted that he felt a little selfish with the deal, because he has to go back and forth between two teams, two different team meetings and two post-race debriefs, requiring both teams to be flexible to make it work.

“I feel like a giant pain in the ass, to tell the truth.” he laughed, also expressing gratitude for the opportunity.
Keating will be in rare company in sharing driving duties in the No. 5 machine in addition to his LMP2 responsibilities for PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports in the Rolex 24. Jake Galstad/Motorsport Images

The actual logistics of driving in both cars are made a bit easier by a couple of factors. First, being the Bronze driver in the LMP2 lineup that includes Jensen, Scott Huffaker and Nicolas Lapierre, means he has to qualify and start the race. That means he’ll get a good chunk of his four-and-a-half hour minimum driving time taken care of right away. Then it’s time to get his minimum two hours of drive time in the DPi, which could happen in three stints if a caution comes out while he’s in the car.

“I’ll probably do a couple of stints [in the LMP2], then go change suits and get a different helmet, and fully concentrate on the DPi car until my time is done, then I’ll switch back to LMP2,” he said. “Realistically, I think that my three co-drivers in the Cadillac DPi … there’ll be three drivers doing an 18-hour race.

“My time in the No. 5 car is just about making sure that I stay safe and keep all the dive planes on the car and take care of the Cadillac for my teammates to be able to go race it. Whereas in the LMP2, I compete well against the other drivers in the car, and I’m more comfortable, having won the season last year. I’ve got a lot more seat time and I’m just more comfortable in that car. So I’ll finish my last, what I expect to be somewhere around three hours, three-and-a-half, hours in that car in the middle of the night sometime.”

If both cars win, Keating would be a double winner in the same race, a rare if not singular occurrence. But he is quick to acknowledge that despite that achievement, it took a lot of people to get there, and he would have only played a small part.

“I don’t want it to be about me; I want to be a good teammate.” he said. “But I want to be a good teammate in two cars, which is a big challenge in any way.”

 

RETRO: Shank’s breakthrough 2012 Rolex 24 win

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emailBy Marshall Pruett | January 29, 2022 2:29 PM ET

At the time it happened, Mike and Mary Beth Shank didn’t know how much their breakthrough win at the 2012 Rolex 24 At Daytona would mean to their modest team.

Outfitted with Riley Technologies’ newest Daytona Prototype chassis and bodywork, powered by a stout 5.0-liter Ford V8, MSR’s No. 60 entry had great potential at a race where the Ohio-based team had come close to victory and been met with crushing defeats.

Entering the new Grand-Am Rolex Series season against the likes of Chip Ganassi Racing, Action Express Racing, SunTrust Racing — forerunner to today’s Wayne Taylor Racing — and other formidable DP teams, MSR was by no means a pre-race favorite.

But that’s where underdogs love to live and where upsets are made. Armed with close friends and former Champ Car teammates AJ Allmendinger and Justin Wilson, along with the massively respected veteran Ozz Negri and skilled Pro-Am driver John Pew, the No. 60 emerged as a real challenger, and in the end, the most memorable aspect of the race took place in the closing hours on Sunday.

In an identical Riley-Ford, Starworks Motorsport’s No. 8 entry, with Le Mans legend Allan McNish strapped in as the closer, traded hits, hip-checks, and torrid attacks with Allmendinger to settle the win.

More IMSA!

Rolex 24 Hour 1: Kobayashi leads as first hour ends under caution

INSIGHT: The art and science of handling Rolex 24 traffic

Thomas wins incident-filled Mazda MX-5 Race 2 at Daytona

The victory changed everything for the Shanks. A stronger relationship with Ford was forged, and before long Honda would come calling to engage MSR as a factory partner, and by 2021, the team would add its second great racing achievement by winning the Indianapolis 500. Every step of progress and growth ties back directly to the 2012 Rolex win.

Shank, Negri, the late Wilson’s younger brother Stefan Wilson, and Allmendinger joined us for a look back and some storytelling about this pivotal event in a new podcast to celebrate the 10th anniversary where brotherhood and sisterhood reigned supreme.

“Mike had said to me prior to [2012], ‘Man, you deserve to win this race. If Chip [Ganassi] asked me about you, or teams ask me if you want to go drive for one of them, I completely understand,’” Allmendinger reveals. “I was like, ‘You know, f*** off, Mike. We’re gonna win or die together trying to win this race. I won’t quit you, man.’”

 

The art and science of handling Rolex 24 traffic

Chris du Mond/IMSA
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emailBy Richard S. James | January 29, 2022 12:32 PM ET

Traffic management is a key to any multi-class endurance race; that’s a given. What makes this years Rolex 24 At Daytona different is that the number of cars has increased dramatically, and the type of cars has changed. It’s pushed the traffic equation to another level.

IMSA added LMP3 to some rounds of the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, including Daytona, last year. That added an additional element, and another tier of speed for other drivers to manage. This year, instead of a handful of GTLM cars and 19 GTD cars, there are 35 GTD cars. Those cars are spread across two classes, but those classes are defined by the pace of the drivers, not the capability of the cars.

There are 61 cars slated to start the race. The drivers are going to be very, very busy, and getting into a groove where the laps just roll by will be difficult, perhaps impossible. The quiet periods where the DPi and LMP2 drivers aren’t either passing a car or trying to figure out how they’re going to pass the car ahead will be infrequent and brief. For some drivers that will be a blessing; others will find it frustrating. And it will most definitely make a difference in winners and losers in some classes, if not all.

“I was waiting for traffic, because I think at the end of the day, this is what makes this race so interesting,” said Filipe Albuquerque after he and Ricky Taylor won last week’s qualifying race in the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura. “It’s exactly the traffic because it gives us opportunities to overtake. That was what had happened to me. I mean, I managed to go up to P2 just managing traffic. I just loved it.”

More IMSA!

Rolex 24 Hour 1: Kobayashi leads as first hour ends under caution

RETRO: Shank’s breakthrough 2012 Rolex 24 win

Thomas wins incident-filled Mazda MX-5 Race 2 at Daytona

Tristan Vautier, whose No. 5 JDC-Miller Motorsports Cadillac finished second in the qualifying race, with his co-driver Richard Westbrook hounding Taylor through the final laps, had a different take on the traffic.

“The luck factor is going to be a bit more involved than usual,” he said. “I was surprised in the qualifying race; there were a lot of very unpredictable situations because of the difference of experience levels of the drivers in GTD, LMP2 and LMP3. With the number of cars, it hasn’t been as straightforward as other years. Before, pretty much every corner, you knew which side to the pass the GTD or which side to pass the LMP3 and so on. This year, just because I think there are many more drivers and different levels of experience, it has been way less straightforward. There were many more situations where things were a bit confusing, and you’re not really sure which side to go. So I think there’s going to be a bit more luck involved, and you’re going to have to be very good at judging situations as a driver, and finding the right level of attack and conservation.”

Vautier and Taylor and their counterparts in DPi and LMP2 have the advantage of lots of power and higher corner exit speeds to help them get by GTD cars. The equation changes radically when DPi cars encounter LMP2 traffic, or LMP3 cars are passing GTD competitors. Lap times don’t tell the whole story … different combinations of power, weight, mechanical grip and downforce mean cars that produce seemingly comparable lap times produce those times in very different ways. As shown in the chart below of the maximum and minimum speeds of cars from different classes at some key points on the track, aggregated from teams and IMSA’s data gatherers, where a car catches another can make a huge difference. A DPi catching a car at the entrance of Turn 3, the International Horseshoe, is going to suffer much less than the same situation at the Bus Stop — or Le Mans Chicane as it has been renamed.

“The hardest thing is the Bus Stop for us, because we’re so much faster,” says Mikkel Jensen, driver of the No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen ORECA LMP2 car. “And you can say there, it’s easier if you caught a GTLM before than a GTD now, because you lose one-and-a-half, two seconds if you get to them right at the braking. We just have so much more mid-corner speed, the Bus Stop is a killer when you catch them there.”

For some combinations of passer and passee, because of the different abilities of the car, where a faster car catches a slower car can really cause a ripple effect and kill a lap. LMP3s and GTD cars aren’t far off in lap time, but they make that time in different ways. That can make it very difficult to pass, notes Jarett Andretti, driver of the No. 36 Andretti Autosport Ligier that earned the class pole. And they have to manage their own passing often while being overtaken by a DPi or LMP2 car. That created some very sketchy moments in the qualifying race.

“The GTDs and us make speed very differently. They have ABS, they do have more power, although we are quicker on the banking,” Andretti explains. “So it’s about catching them in the right spot. I think that playing that strategy game is very, very difficult. It’s about not losing that extra second or two in traffic, every now and again. In the qualifying race, at least, the P2 cars and the in the DPi cars were pretty respectful; they may not be as such in the real race, but I think that they were pretty calm. It’s just about kind of letting them by whenever it doesn’t cost you time.”

That speaks to the fact that there is an art to being passed as much as passing. Getting passed in the wrong spot can cost time – the chart of lap time range during the qualifying race (pictured below), provided by Ken Lin of P1 Software, illustrates how lap times will vary for the cars as they deal with traffic. Or getting passed in certain locations can mess up a driver’s battle with the car ahead or behind, giving the opponent an advantage the driver obviously didn’t want them to have.
Click on the graph to view in PDF format

“I just try to be predictable,” says No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 driver Frankie Montecalvo. “The easiest way for them to read you is just stay on your line and just be predictable. But once in a while, if it’s going to be a super-late pass and it’s going to blow my lap or something like that, I will just obviously pull over in the kink to the left and just say, ‘Hey, you’ve got to wait until after because you’re gonna blow my lap. Or set me up for the GTD car that I’m fighting with in class to get by if you pass me here.’”

In the end, winning the Rolex 24 At Daytona this year will require patience and care in dealing with traffic, no matter what end of the passing equation a driver is on. It’s almost guaranteed that at least one contender will remove themselves from the race with an impatient, ill-timed move. Those who survive to fight for victory will have had both patience and luck on their side.

“Sometimes lifting 20 percent will save you from lifting and braking 100 percent the next corner, and losing a dive plane or a splitter,” says Andretti. “As a racer, you just want to go flat wherever, but sometimes you just gotta say, ‘OK, I’m gonna give it up here, and I’m gonna live to fight the next day.’ I think it’s about just being smart, and understanding where you can give and where you can take.”