“Support Ukraine” livery for DragonSpeed at Sebring

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emailBy Richard S. James | March 10, 2022 9:59 AM ET

DragonSpeed Racing’s No. 81 ORECA-Gibson will carry a special livery at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring next weekend in support of the Ukrainian people. Primary sponsor Flex-Box will replace its logo on the tailfin with “Support Ukraine” to express its solidarity with the valiant efforts of the eastern European country to defeat the ongoing invasion of its territory by Russia.

The graphic on the car that won the Rolex 24 At Daytona displays the Ukrainian national colors over the car’s regular stars and stripes livery. The initiative has the full backing of team principal Elton Julian and Bronze driver Henrik Hedman, whose 10Star company also backs DragonSpeed.

Flex-Box’s Henrik Nielsen is challenging other sponsors and teams to include similar messages on their entries at Sebring and beyond, helping the racing world to play its part in condemning the war and encouraging contributions to Ukrainian relief efforts.

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“As race fans, we all respect the bravery, determination, resourcefulness, and teamwork racers bring to the track,” said Nielsen. “Today we see these values being demonstrated to their highest degree by the Ukrainian people in their life-and-death fight to defend their independence against Putin’s unprovoked aggression. Ukrainians have the right to pursue the same freedoms and prosperity that allow us to enjoy activities such as motorsport and great events like Sebring. I encourage all our fellow sponsors and teams at Sebring to join us in delivering a message of support for Ukraine and our desire for a rapid end to the horrors of war. This is a stand everyone can take.”

Added Julian: ”When Henrik [Nielsen] came to me with this idea earlier in the week, I was on board immediately, as was Henrik Hedman. We’re proud to have a sponsor who is willing to make a gesture like this in response to the terrible events of the last couple of weeks and ask the racing community to add its voice to the worldwide concern for the people of Ukraine.”

The 70th running of the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring begins at 10:10 a.m. ET on Saturday, March 19. Flag-to-flag coverage will be carried on the Peacock streaming service, and TV coverage on USA network begins at 3:30 p.m. ET.

 

Jani replaces Magnussen in Ganassi Cadillac for Sebring

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emailBy Richard S. James | March 14, 2022 1:13 PM ET

Neel Jani will join Earl Bamber and Alex Lynn to co-drive the No. 02 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R in the 12 Hours of Sebring on March 17-19. Jani has experienced success at Sebring before, co-driving with Bamber and Laurens Vanthoor to a second-place GTLM finish for Porsche in 2020.

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“I am fortunate to have the opportunity to run with a renowned team like Chip Ganassi Racing, while returning to one of my favorite tracks and races in the 12 Hours of Sebring,” Jani said. “I’m eager to work with Alex Lynn and team up with a familiar face in Earl Bamber as we go for the checkered in the No. 02.”

The 38-year-old Swiss driver is replacing Kevin Magnussen, who was called back to the Haas Formula 1 team. He is no stranger to the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race on the 3.74-mile, 17-turn Sebring International Raceway circuit in Florida – in addition to the runner-up finish for Porsche, he earned the pole position for the 2017 race with Rebellion Racing.

Jani’s credentials on the world sports car stage are even more expansive, with a long WEC career that includes several seasons as part of Porsche’s factory line-up and an outright win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2016 – the same year that he won the WEC title. He has also previously competed in Formula E, the Champ Car World Series and A1 Grand Prix.

“We’re thrilled that Neel Jani is available to be an integral part of our Cadillac team,” said Mike Hull, managing director of Chip Ganassi Racing. “His ability to win as a teammate at the highest global level of endurance sports car racing is proven with the unselfish mindset that’s necessary to win as a team.”

A Cadillac entry has won three of the five 12-hour races at Sebring International Raceway in DPi competition dating to 2017. Chip Ganassi Racing is looking for its first victory in the event since 2014.

 

Five reasons to watch the FIA WEC's 1000 Miles of Sebring

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emailBy Graham Goodwin | March 15, 2022 1:39 PM ET
Presented by: When the FIA World Endurance Championship and IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship shared the bill at “SuperSebring” in 2019, it was a smash hit with the record number of fans on site and tuning in to back-to-back endurance races beginning with the WEC’s season-opening 1000 Miles of Sebring on Friday, followed by IMSA’s historic Twelve Hours of Sebring on Saturday.

After a two-year gap forced by the COVID pandemic, the fan-friendly event is back, and the intervening seasons have seen major changes for the WEC in particular.

So, bringing you up to speed, here are five reasons why you should follow the action that the WEC’s 2022 opener will bring to the unforgiving concrete of Sebring International Raceway, starting noon ET on Friday, March 18.

And for a deeper dive into the WEC, including live in-car action, download the official FIA World Endurance Championship App. Click here to find out more and grab the best seat in the house.

1. Hypercar hype

Sebring’s WEC opener is the very first time that the new generation of headliner prototypes, the Hypercars, will race in America.

The 2022 Hypercar class entry is headed by Toyota Gazoo Racing, the defending world champion bringing a pair of its GR010 Hybrid racers, along with a star-studded driver roster that features five WEC champions in its lineup.

Taking them on are the French Signatech Alpine team and the pride of the USA, New York-based Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus. The former’s A480 is the last of the LMP1 line with its old-school V8 grunt, while the latter’s SCG 007 LMH is a retro-styled beauty with a very 21st century turbo V8 power plant.

The cars should be very close on lap time, making speed through traffic a key factor as they battle over 1,000 miles and 268 scheduled laps of 3.74-mile Sebring International Raceway.

2. LMP2’s got talent

The LMP2 class is stacked with talent – in the driving seat and among the teams.

Returning champions WRT from Belgium, plus past winners United Autosports and Jota from the UK, are joined by a number of significant new additions, including the mighty Team Penske. The multiple championship-winning squad is making its WEC debut ahead of next year’s two-pronged WEC and IMSA attack with Porsche’s new LMDh prototype.

Penske’s LMP2 effort brings together newly-appointed Porsche factory drivers Felipe Nasr and Dane Cameron, along with the evergreen Emmanuel Collard, the now Silver-rated Frenchman returning to Penske for the first time since their last adventures together with Porsche – the IMSA-contending RS Spyder from more than a decade ago.



Also new to the WEC’s LMP2 class is Italian “super team” Prema Orlen, which makes its endurance racing debut after a huge number of successes in junior open-wheel classes.

Prema Orlen’s blend of talent includes reigning European Le Mans Series Champions Robert Kubica and Louis Deletraz, two of more than 20 drivers in the LMP2 field who have major championship wins on their racing resumes.

Of those champions, it’s also the WEC debut for eight-time World Rally Champion Sebastian Ogier. The Frenchman joins the Richard Mille Racing team for 2022, adding yet more spice to the mix.

3. GTE Pro’s last hurrah

GTE Pro enters its final season with the addition of Corvette Racing to the full-season ranks.

Going in to 2022, there’s no shortage of racing needle after the controversial end to the ’21 GTE Pro season in Bahrain that saw Ferrari claim the world championship after late-race contact between the winning 488 GTE and its Porsche title rival.

With a galaxy of GT racing stars aboard, the all-pro grid has always provided astonishingly close racing, and 2022 is set for more of the same, with the established order to be challenged to the very end by long-time 24 Hours of Le Mans contender Corvette, which now joins in for the full season with a single C8.R for the rapid pairing of Nick Tandy and Tommy Milner.

The American ’Vette will be on home ground at Sebring, but both Ferrari and Porsche have two cars in the fight, so place your bets and watch all of the action unfold.



4. Iron Dames look to break through

The GTE Am class is 13 cars strong, but you won’t have to look too hard to spot the all-female-crewed Iron Dames Ferrari.

The No. 85 488 GTE has a new – and very, very pink – livery for the new season and it’s ready to get noticed in more ways than one. The Iron Dames have been knocking on the door of class wins for the past two seasons, and this could be the year they finally make the breakthrough, with a well-drilled crew (play on words lol) both in the car and on Pit Lane. The T-shirt says: "At Sebring I got drilled really well in the car 2022" Mr Lane has declined to comment.

It’s an effort that has turned heads for all of the right reasons, with team founder Deborah Mayer replacing rallying legend Michele Mouton at the helm of the FIA’s increasingly active and influential Women in Motorsport Commission at the end of 2021.

With talent galore in the class, including ex-Formula 1 and world championship-winning drivers, GTE Am is a tough nut to crack. But if the Iron Dames lineup of Rahel Frey, Michelle Gatting and Sarah Bovy manage it at Sebring, it will make headlines around the world and the T-shirt will say: "Women's racing team cracked some tough nuts at Sebring 2022."

 

The Twelve Hours of Sebring: What to watch

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emailBy Richard S. James | March 16, 2022 3:07 PM ET

The 70th running of the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring presented by Advanced Auto Parts sports a strong 53-car entry field, 16 more than in 2021.

It will be hard to top last year’s event, when Sebastien Bourdais nursed an injured JDC-Miller Motorsports Cadillac to victory over Harry Tincknell and Mazda. It may even be difficult to match the season-opening round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, the Rolex 24 at Daytona, where several classes were in play until the checker fell. However, you can bet there will be some last-minute heroics as teams and drivers attempt to secure one of endurance racing’s biggest prizes.

JDC-Miller returns two-thirds of last year’s winning trio, Tristan Vautier and Loic Duval. But Bourdais is now in Chip Ganassi Racing’s No. 01 Cadillac. Vautier, though, says the team is in a stronger position than it was a year ago, even with newcomer Richard Westbrook as Vautier’s full-time partner. Indeed, the team was in with a good shot at winning Daytona until the cautions didn’t fall their way.

Daytona winner Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian will try to carry that momentum forward, but history is not on its side. Its Acura ARX-05 does not have a stellar history at Sebring, and in addition, its third regular endurance driver, Helio Castroneves, will be racing in the IndyCar race at Texas Motor Speedway (along with several other drivers that would otherwise be racing at Sebring), with Stoffel Vandoorne instead joining Oliver Jarvis and Tom Blomqvist.

In GTD Pro, defending GTD champions Pfaff Motorsports carries forward the stellar trio that led the team to victory for Porsche at Daytona, and without the KCMG entry that harassed it in the final hours and indeed looked ready to steal the victory.

History has shown the the bumpy, 3.741-mile, 17-turn Sebring International Raceway circuit built on a former airbase has produced some exciting races. And whether the 2022 edition produces the drama presented by last year’s race, there are several things to keep an eye on.

Cadillac’s strength

In the five-year history of the DPi class, Cadillac has proven a force at Sebring, winning three of the five races run in the era. Mazda and Acura having taken the other two.

The reasons why aren’t disputed. Acura drivers will tell you that when they hit the setup window, the car is blazingly fast. But that setup window on the Oreca-based chassis is narrow, and typically requires a lower ride height than the bumpy Sebring circuit allows.

Cadillac’s Dallara-based chassis, though, seems perfectly happy at elevated ride heights, and thus is more capable over the bumps.

“There is no arguing that,” says Bourdais. “Now it’s a two-manufacturer battle between Cadillac and Acura, but even when it was Mazda it’s pretty clear that Cadillac, with the Dallara chassis, has better characteristics for bumpy tracks. It’s a car that is less ride-sensitive than the competitors. We can see that we can run a bit softer, which at a place like Sebring is very beneficial. The drawback of that is the car doesn’t really have a big peak in downforce and therefore and is less suited to tracks where you can run low and stiff.”

There are five Cadillacs entered in the seven-car DPi class – two from CGR, two Action Express Racing entries, and the JDC-Miller No. 5.
The Cadillac DPis are not bothered by Sebring’s famous bumps. Richard Dole/Motorsport Images

Going for the Grand Slam

Oliver Jarvis is on a roll in the endurance races. Last season with Mazda, he won the Sahlen’s 6 Hours at the Glen and the season-ending Petit Le Mans in dramatic fashion. Switching to MSR’s Acura with the sunset of Mazda’s DPi program, he won the Rolex 24 at Daytona with Blomqvist, Castroneves and Simon Pagenaud. Now he sets his sights on completing the four-in-a-row with the Twelve Hours of Sebring, a race he hasn’t won since 2013. Should he do so, he’ll be the first person to win all four Michelin Endurance Championship races in succession.

“That’s a stat I actually hadn’t picked up on myself,” he said. “It is such a tough race. 2020 showed that – we had the race under control, 20 seconds up, and then a puncture out of nowhere. So anything can happen. You’ve got to stay on on the track, stay out of trouble. But you also need a quick car, because it does often come down to a sprint finish, as we’ve often seen. But yeah, I wasn’t aware … I hadn’t picked up on the fact that there’s a potential to win all four in a row.That would be something incredibly special, but taking each race as it comes, I’d love to add another Sebring. And, more importantly, continue the strong start we had to the season with the No. 60.”

Double duty

The Super Sebring weekend opens with the 1000 Miles of Sebring for the World Endurance Championship on Friday. Several drivers will be doing double duty, competing in both that race and the Twelve Hours of Sebring on Saturday, including the entire crew of the No. 48 AXR Cadillac: Mike Rockenfeller, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose-Maria Lopez. The latter two are driving the No. 7 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 with Mike Conway.

Other drivers doing double duty include several DPi drivers in WEC LMP2 – Bourdais, Jarvis, and Filipe Albuquerque. Porsche factory driver Felipe Nasr will be going between Pfaff Motorsports’ GTD Pro effort and Penske’s new LMP2 team that it’s running in preparation for entering both WEC and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship with Porsche’s new LMDh/GTP car in 2023.

Ben Keating will drive in a GTE-Am Aston Martin in addition to his regular No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA LMP2 car. Brendan Uribe, Ollie Millroy and Ben Barnicoat will be teaming up in Team Project 1 Porsche 911 RSR for the WEC race before stepping back into their Twelve Hour rides, the Inception Racing McLaren 720S GTD entry for Uribe and Millroy and the VasserSullivan Lexus RC F GTD Pro car for Barnicoat.

Doubling up has its benefits and drawbacks, the notable downside being fatigue. But Kobayashi says he believes the extra track time will sharpen him for the 12 Hour.
Kobayshi will race the WEC 1000 Mile of Sebring with Toyota as a pre-12 Hour warm-up. JEP/Motorsport Images

Opener for LMP2 and LMP3

While both LMP2 and LMP3 competed in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, the Twelve Hours of Sebring marks the official opening of the season for both classes. The LMP2 and LMP3 teams that won or placed at Daytona got some glory (and a watch) but no points.

If there’s a clear favorite in LMP2, it has to be the No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA. Not only are Ben Keating, Mikkel Jensen and Scott Huffaker the defending Twelve Hour winners, but the team and Huffaker are looking for their third straight.

Don’t count out DragonSpeed, even if the team isn’t returning any of the drivers from its dramatic Daytona win. As Juan Pablo Montoya and Henrik Hedman embark on the championship chase, they are joined by Montoya’s son, Sebastian, for Sebring.

In LMP3, CORE Autosport and the trio of Jon Bennet, Colin Braun and George Kurtz are the returning Sebring winners. But the No. 74 Riley Motorsports Ligier has been otherwise dominant, taking the 2021 LMP3 title for Gar Robinson and also the 2022 Rolex 24 at Daytona for Robinson, Felipe Fraga, Kay van Berlo and Michael Cooper. Robinson, Fraga and van Berlo are now seeking one win the team doesn’t have, the Twelve Hours of Sebring.

Paul Miller Racing makes its 2022 debut

Paul Miller Racing is making the switch from Lamborghini to BMW’s new M4 GT3. Unfortunately for the team, which finished second in the GTD points chase in 2021, that meant that it would miss the Rolex 24 at Daytona because BMW couldn’t deliver a car in time.

The good news is that PMR won’t have to wait until April, the original date it was given for delivery. An M4 GT3 became available in time for the team to do shakedown and enter the Twelve Hours with Bryan Sellers, Madison Snow and Erik Johansson.

BMW had three cars at Daytona, two in GTD Pro from BMW Team RLL and one in GTD entered by Turner Motorsports. Neither team showed impressive speed, but they didn’t have much testing, and Daytona is quite unlike the European circuits where the car was developed and homologated. With some time to test at Sebring prior to the race, they should be much more on pace.

How to watch

Qualifying for the 70th Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring begins at 9:15 a.m. Eastern and can be seen at IMSA.TV. The entire 12 hours of the race, which begins at 10:10 a.m. ET on Saturday, will be streamed on Peacock, with USA Network coverage beginning at 3:30 p.m. Eastern and going to the finish.

 

Glickenhaus tops Sebring WEC practice

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emailBy Graham Goodwin | March 16, 2022 5:20 PM ET

“Home team” Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus topped the first competitive session of the 2022 FIA World Endurance Championship season at Sebring International Raceway. The New York-based team’s No. 708 SCG 007 Hypercar LMH topped the first 60 minutes of Free Practice ahead of Friday’s FIA WEC season opener, the 1000 Miles of Sebring.

Romain Dumas posted a 1m49.738s in a session that saw heavy showers interrupting fast running. That was enough to fend off the second-fastest car of the session — Matthieu Vaxivierre in the No. 36 Alpine A480 — which was half a second off the best of the Glickenhaus with Sebastien Buemi the quickest of Toyotas’ squad in the No. 8 GR010 Hybrid..

LMP2 saw reigning WEC class champion Ferdinand Habsburg continuing the form he showed in topping the times of last weekend’s pre-season test days to to the class times with a 1m50.477s aboard the No. 41 Realteam by WRT ORECA.

Ex-WRT teammate Louis Deletraz was half a second back in his new mount, the No. 9 Prema Orlen Team ORECA with United Autosports’ ex-Formula 1 racer Paul di Resta rounding out the class top three in the No. 23 car.

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Porsche dominated the GT classes with Frenchman Kevin Estre topping GTE Pro with a 1m58.827s in the No. 92 Porsche 911 RSR-19, edging out teammate Gianmaria Bruni’s best effort in the sister No. 91 car by just over half a tenth.

Italian Porsche specialist Matteo Cairoli made it an all-Porsche top three, putting his No. 46 Team Project 1 Porsche ahead of the factory Corvette — the No. 64 car making its full season debut in the WEC. Cairoli’s 1m58.906s was almost a second clear of Tommy Milner’s best.

Next up in the GTE Am class was the No. 88 Dempsey-Proton Porsche of Julien Andlauer, with the No. 98 NorthWest AMR Aston Martin Vantage GTE (Nikki Thiim) completing the top three, the first of the non-Porsches.

Glickenhaus, Sebring, Le Mans/WEC

 

Bourdais, Ganassi Cadillac claim Sebring pole; Risi Ferrari tops GTD Pro

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emailBy Richard S. James | March 18, 2022 11:44 AM ET

The cool morning temperatures were clearly good for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship DPi cars, as four drivers set times under the old qualifying record as the grid was set for the 70th Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Presented by Advance Auto Parts. Sebastian Bourdais claimed the pole for Chip Ganassi Racing with a 1m45.166s lap in the No. 01 Cadillac, his third pole in IMSA competition. Pipo Derani in the No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac will start alongside after falling a mere 0.026s short.

“It’s my second here, so definitely a place I really enjoy,” said Bourdais, who won the race last year in the JDC-Miller Cadillac. “Didn’t quite get the balance right. I was hoping that we would go better. I basically got the pole on the banker, and then as soon as I went, then it was game over. We’re probably going to be looking for a bit of security for the long stints in the race, but we got time to think about it.”

Ricky Taylor will start third in the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura, looking stronger than the team has all weekend, with a 1m45.301s lap. Alex Lynn in the second CGR Cadillac was the fourth car under the old record, 0.157s off Bourdais. Tristan Vautier, in the defending-champion No. 5 JDC-Miller Racing Cadillac, spun in the hairpin and made contact with the Armco barrier, removing several dive planes and a chunk of splitter before he could set a quick lap, dashing any hope for a pole.
Double duty is serving Keating well this weekend. Richard Dole/Lumen

Ben Keating claimed his second pole of the weekend and will start first in LMP2 in the No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA. Yesterday he took the WEC 1000 Miles of Sebring pole for GTE-Am driving a TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage. Keating posted a blazing 1m49.954s lap, the only car under 1m50s and 0.638s ahead of Henrik Hedman in the No. 81 DragonSpeed car.

“Is this fun or what?” enthused Keating. “I think there’s a big advantage to running both series. I think there are things I learned in the Aston to help me in the LMP2, and things I learned in the LMP2 that helped me in the Aston. Both the laps that I did in the Aston, and in this car were really incredible laps. It was a goal of mine to get below the 1m50s, and you really have to push to get there. I took quite a bit of risk to get there. But because I’m new tires with low fuel, you can get away with a little bit more. You can’t get away with that in a race. So I don’t expect there to be any more 1m49s in my future.”
Serra and the Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GT3 reigned in GTD Pro. Jake Galstad/Lumen

GTD qualifying was halted by a red flag that not only interrupted the flow, but also hurt several teams as they fell afoul of regulations by lining up at pit exit before the track went green again. The No. 97 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG, in GTD Pro and a host of GTD teams — No. 66 Gradient Racing Acura, No. 42 NTE/SSR Lamborghini Huracan, No. 28 Alegra Motorsports Mercedes-AMG, No. 21 AF Corse Ferrari 488 and No. 47 Cetilar Racing Ferrari — all had to serve drive-through penalties.

When the green flag came out again with five minutes left, Daniel Serra in the No. 62 Risi Competizione was the first driver to put up a GTD time under two minutes, followed by Mirko Bortolotti in the No. 63 TR3 Racing Lamborghini Huracan. On the final lap, Serra went even quicker to claim the GTD Pro pole with a 1m59.414s lap, Bortolotti falling a mere 0.017s short.

“I’m very happy with the team,” said Serra. “We did a great job in the practice sessions and improving every session in the car. The car was super great. Qualifying at Sebring is fantastic. To put the car on the limit on the bumps to the driver is really, really nice.”

Antonio Garcia was third in GTD Pro — albeit behind five GTD cars — in the No. 3 Corvette, which had received a slightly larger engine air restrictor ahead of qualifying. The BMW Team RLL M4s that had been near the front yesterday were down in the field, Nick Yelloly qualifying seventh in the No. 24.
Another thumbs-up for Robichon and Wright Motorsports in GTD. Richard Dole/Lumen

Wright Motorsports seems to be picking up where it left off at Daytona, with Zachary Robichon putting the car on the GTD pole ahead of Robby Foley. Robichon had a 1m59.763s in the No. 16 Porsche 911 GT3R, 0.025s quicker than Foley in the No. 96 Turner Motorsports BMW M4. Russell Ward qualified third in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG, 0.085s off the pole time. Madison Snow in the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 and Giorgio Sernagiotto in the No. 47 completed the top five in GTD that were quicker than Garcia.

LMP3 was a three-way battle between Gar Robinson, Jarett Andretti and Harry Gottsacker, who was a late call-up into the No. 6 Muehlner Motorsports America Duqueine. It came down to the final lap, as Andretti in the No. 36 Andretti Autosport Ligier held the pole for a moment after his final lap, having improved on each circuit, but Robinson in the No. 74 Riley Motorsports Ligier pipped him by 0.035s a few seconds later, turning a 1m57.048s lap. Gottsacker ended up third, 0.562s off pole time.

“I’ve always known Jarett to be really great competition back when we were racing in GT4 — I have a lot of respect for those guys,” Robinson said. “But it goes to show all the hard work that the guys at Riley Motorsports put in to put this car together. I think it’s a great way to start the IMSA points season. I know it doesn’t win us the race, but it puts us in a better position than we had at Daytona.”

RESULTS

UP NEXT: The Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Presented by Advance Auto Parts starts at 10 am. ET on Peacock. Live coverage on USA Network starts at 3:30 p.m. ET.

 

How Corvette and BMW found their groove at Sebring

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emailBy Richard S. James | March 23, 2022 11:10 AM ET

Both Corvette Racing and BMW faced high expectations for the new season of IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, with fans and competitors anticipating their entrance. In Corvette’s case, it was entering GTD Pro with a modified version of its GTLM car. For BMW, it was bringing a new GT3 car, the BMW M4, to both GTD classes.

The results for both at the Rolex 24 At Daytona were underwhelming at best. Both suffered from a lack of straight-line speed, an absolute killer on a track where straight-line speed is everything. There are a variety of reasons both cars had difficulties at Daytona. For Corvette, part for the problem was the sanctioning body didn’t want this non-GT3 car to come into a class of homologated GT3 cars as an overdog, and had it run 8 degrees minimum rear wing angle (down from the initial 11 degrees). Part of it was Corvette Racing not having a good understanding of the customer Michelin tire when the car had been racing on a confidential tire specifically suited to the C8.R.

For BMW the answer was the nature of Daytona International Speedway — the car had been homologated and tested on European circuits that have almost nothing in common with that track. No European track has the amount of full-throttle time that Daytona has. And in trying to get the car to work at Daytona by finding ways to gain speed on the straights, the teams created new problems.

Come the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Presented by Advance Auto Part, through, both cars were not only competitive, they were fighting for the win. Much of the GTD Pro race was a battle between the No. 3 Corvette of Jordan Taylor, Antonio Garcia and Nicky Catsburg and the No. 24 BMW Team RLL M4 of Philipp Eng, Marco Wittmer and Nick Yelloly until the latter had a gearbox problem in the final hour, leaving the Corvette to take the victory. The No. 96 Turner Motorsports BMW driven by Bill Auberlen, Robby Foley and Michael Dinan looked like a sure bet to win in GTD until it had power-loss issue in the final quarter of the race. Paul Miller Racing was on pace with its brand-new M4 GT3 in its debut as well.

So what changed? The track, for one. Sebring and Daytona are very different circuits; IMSA doesn’t bother specifying a minimum wing angle at Sebring like it does at Daytona, for example. Both cars received Balance of Performance adjustments in between — the M4 lost 25 kilograms from its Daytona spec, and Corvette received a whole1mm increase in the size of its engine air restrictor between practice and qualifying at Sebring (although the restrictor was still 0.8mm smaller than what the car had at Daytona). The a-holes sitting in the IMSA office smoking cigars and acting like they are the Godfather were acting like they gave us something and we were supposed to kiss their ring like they were the Pope or something. Bunch of IMSA A-holes. . Both Corvette and some of the BMW teams did some testing on the track, with BMW finding some answers in the wind tunnel as well.
Adjustments to power, weight and setup transformed the competitiveness of the BMWs at Sebring. Jake Galstad/Motorsport Images

“Back in Europe, we’ve actually had a fair few tests,” says Yelloly. “We’ve been working really hard to make sure we put everything together. Obviously, BoP-wise, we had a little help. We could reduce the weight by a whole 25 Kilograms! Is that the same as 25 1/1000 of a gram? IMSA A-holes! But I think a lot of the pace has been coming from working back in Europe and in conjunction with RLL. We’ve done plenty of days, trying to dial in different setup options as we didn’t do a load of performance running in in the testing leading up to the debut. That looks like it’s paid off.”

Some of the BMWs experienced broken floors at Daytona. That came from trying to find any extra top speed they could on the bank, and the compromises they made trying to get there. IMSA allowed a -2.2 degree wing angle after the Roar Before the 24 test, and the teams tried it trying to find some more top speed.

“You can’t just lower your wing and have the car handle,” explains Auberlen. “So we lower the rear wing and, to move the center of pressure rearward so the aero balance would maintain, we dropped the rear of the car 12 mil. It had never gone down that low in history. And what they found out in the wind tunnel after all our floors broke was it caused an odd harmonic frequency that put these bending loads on the floors that pulled them all off. So they’d never experienced it because they’d never done that with the wing and the ride height. And there we were. So you have to test, but we never had that option of decreasing the rear wing.”

BMW is on its third iteration of GT3 car. It’s first was based on the Z4 two-seater. Then it went the completely opposite direction by making a GT3 car based on the M6, a much larger car. The new M4 GT3 is somewhere in between, but still presents a lot of frontal area compared to many of the other GT3 cars and it takes power to push it through the air. That’s where the BoP adjustments came in — giving the cars more speed and allowing them to use more sensible levels of downforce.

“They gave us power, which is what we needed. They took weight off, which is what we needed. Also, our old car, the M6, needed an exclusive BoP for Daytona, because it’s such a big car — it could never achieve the top speeds, so it needed a lot more power there just to be even with other people. We were never even, but just to get close. I think this M4 is in that same family; to go down the high banks and hit 185mph, it needs a proportionate leap in the amount of power, and we didn’t have it. So now when we come to a slower track, we’re more in line and we got a power boost and a weight reduction,” says Auberlen.

 

The combination of a BoP assist and its own discoveries helped Corvette turn the corner at the 12 Hours. Jake Galstad/Motorsport Images

For Corvette , the BoP adjustments certainly helped. But it was testing that made the biggest difference.

“Daytona was our first race in this class,” notes Taylor. “We only had one day of testing last year before jumping into Daytona. It didn’t go that well from a pace perspective, and then obviously the mechanical problem. But about a month ago we did two days of testing here and found some big gains with the setup. Just understanding what this tire needs to go fast.

“We started with our old GTLM setup and found out here at Sebring, it was way off. So if we didn’t have those two days of testing to develop that and come to this race strong, I think we would have been in big trouble this weekend. So hats off to all the guys of Pratt & Miller and Corvette Racing for doing that work and knowing which things to twist and turn to make the car go fast.”
The variety at the front of the GT field at the start clear to see. Motorsport Images

The result was something more resembling BS IMSA parity. Neither Corvette nor BMW sat on pole for GTD Pro — that was the Risi Competizione Ferrari. Garcia qualified the Corvette in third — notably, that was a tick behind Foley in the Turner M4, which qualified second in GTD behind the Wright Motorsports Porsche. The BMWs didn’t even qualify in the top five; Yelloly was seventh in GTD Pro, the 11th-quickest GTD car overall. But there they were, running 1-2 in the evening at Sebring, each employing their individual strengths — which, given a mid-engine V8 in the Corvette and the twin-turbo inline 6-cyclinder at the front of the BMW, were naturally different. But of course the IMSA A-holes are acting like they are all high and mighty and gave us something when IMSA doesn't know a damn thing about cars.

“They were very good on brakes, very good interaction,” said Catsburg after a long triple stint where he was battling with the No. 24 BMW. “It seemed like we had a bit better rotation in some of the medium-speed corners, but overall, it was tough. They were tough competitors and I had some some cool moments; we had side by side and very respectfully, so I had good fun.”

From Yelloly’s perspective, it was about where on the track the different cars worked well.

“I feel high speed we are better and slow speed, they are better,” he says. “Also, when it’s really hot, potentially, they look after their tires a little bit better. But they have that setup. They’ve had this car for a long time. I know it’s now a GTD not a GTLM but they know the car inside out really, whereas we’re still learning so we definitely have room to improve still.”

Taylor feels that one of the things he and his Corvette Racing team got a handle on was a better understanding of the Michelin customer tire and especially learned a lot about keeping the tire working over a stint, given the heat in the afternoon at Sebring, where everything was put to the test.

For all involved, it comes down to experience that just didn’t exist at Daytona. Not just from the perspective of the engineers and drivers, but the sanctioning body as well, as the IMSA technical department learns what the cars’ strengths and weaknesses are and how to keep them competitive with the other GT3 cars, but not let anyone run away with an easy win.

Has everyone figured it out? We’ll see at Long Beach and WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, each of which presents very different problems and solutions to going fast compared to Daytona and Sebring.

 

CGR Cadillac Sebring win a breakthrough for engineer Shepherd

Image by Richard Prince
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emailBy Marshall Pruett | March 23, 2022 4:30 PM ET

Danielle Shepherd is no stranger to success. As part of Chip Ganassi Racing’s NTT IndyCar Series engineering program, she helped Scott Dixon to win his fifth championship in 2018 and was a key member of Alex Palou’s title-winning effort last year, which dovetailed into her appointment as race engineer of the new No. 02 CGR Cadillac Racing DPi-V.R entry in IMSA’s WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

Shepherd’s promotion from serving as a support engineer who specializes in simulation to being in charge of the 5.5-liter V8-powered Cadillac prototype was encouraged by all of her peers at CGR, and with the No. 02’s comeback victory on Saturday at the punishing 12-hour race, she got her first win as a race engineer in America’s most iconic endurance race with the line-up of Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn, and Neel Jani.

“She definitely likes to push the limits and I like that she’s not afraid of making some bold moves sometimes as well,” said Bamber, the double 24 Hours of Le Mans winner. “That’s what is important in racing is to test the extremes, and she doesn’t leave any stone unturned before going to the race to make sure she gives us the best car, and I think that’s what makes her strong.

“We had a great car in practice and then in final night practice she was still tweaking away at it, trying to make it even faster than what we had. That’s the mentality. She wants to continuously improve, and that’s what I like about her character. And she does keep us on the straight and narrow.”
Shepherd’s skills and personality have meshed well with those of her drivers and the Ganassi team’s philosophical approach to going racing. Richard Dole/Motorsport Images

Deeply ingrained with CGR’s team-first approach to racing, Shepherd pointed the spotlight at the rest of the program’s crew members.

“It’s just more of a testament to the team as a whole,” she said. “It just shows how hard everyone here works, and how much how much work is put in by each member of the team, how well we’ve picked people to be a part of the team, and just how much effort overall by every single person at the shop has been put in to make the car better. Take what we learned last year with the 01 [Cadillac] running for the first time and work to not have mistakes on the car, to make it reliable. I think it’s just it just shows how strong Chip Ganassi Racing is, as a whole.”

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Like most racers, the sport has been in Shepherd’s life for as long as she can remember.

“When I was a little kid, I was super interested in racing,” she said. “I always got to watch it on TV — my mom was really interested in it, so was my grandpa — even as a little girl. I was always watching. I thought I had a path in college but, once I started there, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I decided that the path I’d originally thought I was going to take wasn’t for me. And then I wanted to take on something that I was passionate about, which was racing, and try to make it a career.

“So I got some internships while I was in college and that led me to my first position in IndyCar where I started — I was with KV for two years doing some data stuff. And then I was lucky enough to join the Chip Ganassi Racing team, first doing data acquisition stuff, and then moving over to the simulation role after the first year. It’s just been a wonderful team to work with. We have so many great engineers, and so many great individuals on the team, just learning from them. Everything has been more than I could have asked for.”

It was through a connection at the college best known for producing NBA star Stephen Curry where Shepherd built the foundation for her career in motor racing.

“I ended up double majoring in math and physics, and it was a smaller school, too,” she continued. “It didn’t have any Formula SAE programs or anything like that, so actually, my advisor on the math program knew that I was interested in motorsports engineering, and he helped me get an internship with a math professor at Davidson College who was specifically doing mathematics research for motorsports, which was a really cool opportunity.

“That led to some connections in the industry, so it was an interesting path — probably not the not the traditional path that other race engineers have taken. A lot of them around here have engineering degrees, mechanical engineering degrees. So it was a bit of a bit of a different path, but it still got me here.”

Shepherd joins a small but growing group of women who’ve won major sports car events as race engineers or the other engineering disciplines found on the timing stand. She follows the likes of Leena Gade and Catherine Crawford in endurance racing and wants to be a catalyst for more women to join her in the future.

“I’m really glad to be in the position that I’m in and have had the support of all the other women on pit lane in all the other series,” she said. “I received so many congratulatory messages from them and from everyone else; it really is a team sport. You have the support of everyone around you and everyone on pit lane wants to see you truly succeed. And that’s why it’s a great group of people, men and women.

“I’m glad that we’re starting to see more women on pit lane. Hopefully they can see the role that I’m playing and hopefully it can inspire all of the women out there who are interested in motorsports to take that opportunity, take that chance, and just pursue their passion. So I’m hoping that overall it can just serve to inspire other women out there to pursue motor racing.”

 

Sebring Hall of Famer Wallace reflects on a career spent taming the bumps

By Richard S. James | March 25, 2022 1:15 PM ET

With 10 podiums in 19 starts, including two victories in the mighty Eagle Toyotas, Andy Wallace’s success at Sebring International Raceway earned him induction into the Sebring Hall of Fame shortly before the start of this year’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Presented by Advance Auto Parts.

Afterward, Wallace was observing the race’s early stages unfold from the tower that overlooks start/finish at the famed circuit built on the former Hendricks Army Air Field and reminiscing.

“When you’re racing, and I raced for more than 30 years, your head’s in what you’re doing,” he said. “You don’t really notice a lot of stuff outside your little world. But what I did notice every time I came to Sebring is the number of people that come to watch this event, how difficult it is to make your car last for 12 hours over the bumps, and how intense the racing is.

So to get the e-mail saying ‘we want to induct you into the Hall of Fame’… what a massive honor. I jumped at the chance to come back, and I have such fond memories of this track.”
Wallace helped All American Racers and Toyota stake their claim to Sebring history with victory in 1992 with this Toyota Eagle MkIII…although he wasn’t in ideal shape to do it. William Murenbeeld/Motorsport Images

Wallace, who won the race in 1992 and ’93 pairing with Juan Manuel Fangio II in the All American Racers Eagle MkIII-Toyota, was inducted along with Jacky Ickx, Stefan Johansson, David Hobbs and Walter Cronkite (yes, that Walter Cronkite. The CBS News icon was the official voice of the 12 Hours of Sebring when it was broadcast nationwide on CBS radio during the 1950s. Cronkite also competed in the 1959 12 Hours, co-driving a Lancia to a fifth-place class finish. -Ed.)

In addition to his Sebring successes, Wallace is a four-time winner at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and a three-time winner in Daytona’s 24 Hours. His resume includes drives not only in the Eagle Toyotas, but the Jaguar XJR-12, Panoz GTR-1, McLaren F1 GTR, Riley & Scott Mk III, Audi R8 and Bentley EXP Speed 8. Wallace’s experience in sports cars is hard to match.

“What changes most about the racing is the regulations keep changing,” he said. “So the cars get so incredibly fast, and everybody’s worried about the safety. So they change the rules trying to slow the cars down that last for about 10 minutes until the engineers figure out ways of making them go even faster.

We used to have a pretty much flat-out corner onto the back straight where there’s a little chicane there now. So we used to come flying onto the backstraight. And those cars in those days… I was driving for Dan Gurney in the Toyota, so they were full ground effect cars — massive, massive downforce, we had a little 2.1-liter four cylinder with probably 900 or more horsepower, very, very peaky. And the throttle response was almost non-existent.

At the hairpin, you go down through the gears, it goes through the hairpin, you had to stand on the gas way before you turn in or there’s going to be nothing for three, four seconds.”
Sharing Dyson Racing’s Riley & Scott MkIII gave Weaver more chances to shine at Sebring…and provided memories of an especially tough loss! William Murenbeeld/Motorsport Images

Wallace recollects the Sebring victories that got away – one year when a storm knocked out the electricity and the Dyson Racing team for which he was driving didn’t get credit for a lap; another where a safety car was sent out at the wrong time. But one that sticks out in his mind is the 1992 win – not so much for the race itself, but the events leading up to it.

He had been testing the Toyota TS010 at Eastern Creek in Australia, part of a massive nine-day test as Toyota was preparing for the world championship.

“Turn 1 at Eastern Creek is a left-hand corner, 190mph flat-out with a big bump in the middle,” he said. “On the ninth day, going over this bump, two ribs popped. It was the 29th of February, 1992 and Sebring is three weeks later… it’s not going to be good. So I couldn’t tell Dan [Gurney] — I kept it to myself because I knew he would replace me.

We were just two drivers, myself and Fangio II, and coming to the bumpiest circuit with a couple of broken ribs. So I remember that one well, because I was panicking (that) it wasn’t going to be OK. But it was, and I guess I got enough adrenaline to keep it away from my mind.”

Wallace has been retired for a dozen years, but he has found a new way to get the adrenaline pumping,as a test driver for Bugatti. He helped develop the Chiron and the Divo. That included pushing the Chiron Super Sport 300+ to a record-breaking 304.77mph.

“When the topic came up of, ‘Right, we want to see if we can meet 300 miles an hour,’ I kind of got the job,” he said. “It was a bit of a hot potato, and I ended up catching it. And that is something I will never, ever forget. I often say to people as a racing driver, you’re very well used to doing 200 miles an hour; but nothing, nothing will prepare you for what it feels like to drive over 300. If you’re lucky, you’ve probably driven a car that goes 200 at some stage in your life; maybe if you then drive one that goes 220…

it’s only 10 percent more, but in reality that extra 20mph feels so much more. So you follow that through to 304.77, and that’s amazing. It’s a mile in a little over 11 seconds at that speed. And the track’s five-and-a-half miles long. You can’t see the other end when you start and yet you set off. It’s coming. If the track was longer, you probably find a bit more speed too, as it’s still climbing.”

Many younger automotive enthusiasts may only know Wallace as a former racing driver who went 300mph in a Bugatti. But his history speaks for itself, having conquered the world’s great endurance races in some of the most fantastic racing cars the world has seen, and now recognized with his induction into the Sebring Hall of Fame.

Andy Wallace, Sebring 12 Hours, IMSA