Westbrook in for Dixon

Like the other top-line programs, the Chip Ganassi Ford GT program practiced pit stops on Saturday morning ahead of the race.  Ganassi’s depth of motorsport programs allows access to other talent – such as Indycar champion Scott Dixon.  If the helmet doesn’t do it, the Target gloves are a clear sign of Dixon’s day job in the open-wheel Indycar program.

In the shot, Dixon shows his hustle getting out of the car to make way for Richard Westbrook.  Practice like you play and you’ll play like you practice.

Camera Settings – 1/1000 shutter speed, f/5, ISO 100, 420mm.

Joey Hand in the Ford GT

This photo is interesting for what is not happening rather than what is happening.  It was taken at the end of Saturday morning practice before the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta when the teams have run their laps and are doing pit stop practice.  The #66 Ford GTLM team has run their laps, but has not yet begun their pit stop practice.  The crew looks relaxed, chatting at the rear of the car.  There is no swarm of tire changers or pit equipment surrounding the car.  The driver – Joey Hand in this case – usually the focus of all attention – is all by himself and seems to be completely forgotten.  Once the checkered flag flew on the session, the scene undoubtedly changed but it is another example of a few moments of relative calm amid the racing storm.

Camera Settings – 1/1000 shutter speed, f/4, ISO 100, 420mm.

Ford GT Night Practice

Night practice or racing is always a treat.  The darkness brings the cars to life in different ways.  The Thursday evening practice prior to the Petit LeMans will never be about outright pace, but rather getting cars, crews and drivers some time to acclimate and prepare for the last two hours or so of the race.

Spotting cars is extremely difficult at night, so crews customize to make it easier.  While all cars use a backlit number panel and the running position display, most add other features as well.  The two Ford GT cars cleverly made use of the inside of the buttresses at the rear of the car to splash light across the door panels and light up the fuel filler portal.  The #67 car used a blue accent and the #66 car used a red accent.

This shot was taken at the exit of Turn 7 from the outside of the track looking back towards the infield –  almost the furthest point on the track from pit lane and one of the darkest spots at the track.  Richard Westbrook was at the controls.

Camera Settings – 1/100 shutter speed, f/4, ISO 2500, 420mm.  Shooting at night in full darkness can be a challenge.  Light is at a premium which makes any shots (like panning shots) done at slower shutter speeds very difficult.  The adjustment for a slower shutter speed in this case was a higher ISO which increased the light sensitivity of the camera sensor and a wider aperture which increased the opening of the shutter to gather more light.

Rolex 24 GTLM Class – A Deeper Look

Endurance races have multiple layers and there are a multitude of plots and sub-plots, unseen stories and angles and facts that get filled in later.  The Rolex 24 at Daytona had plenty of storylines that grabbed the headlines, but the days and weeks after the race provided an opportunity to have a closer look.  The GTLM class had only 11 entries and some of the closest racing of the event.  With that, some observations and nuggets through the GTLM field at the Rolex 24:

• Nick Tandy was the star in his #911 Porsche. He not only logged the most green laps of any GTLM driver (241 – 4^th most of any driver in the race overall), but the fastest driver in either of the Porsches based on average lap time.  Did we mention that Tandy set pole time in GTLM in wet conditions?  How about that Tandy’s pole lap time was the fastest of all – including the prototypes?  Clearly changing conditions had something to do with that, but the GTLM cars and their Michelin rubber clearly favored the Porsche.  Tandy’s endurance and pace was a “what could have been,” as the car suffered a driveshaft failure with just over 5 hours to go and went back to the garage for repairs.  The repairs cost about an hour and 36 laps. 
• The #912 in the hands of Fred Makowiecki qualified in second and the car ran a trouble-free race to finish third in GTLM and ninth overall. Earl Bamber lost second with 22 minutes to go as a charging Antonio Garcia in the #3 Corvette nudged by.  New Zealander Bamber went from Daytona to Bathurst and finished first in Class-B in a Porsche 911.  Fastest times were close, but Bamber was the fastest in the #912 and just a shade off of Tandy’s times in the #911.
• Notably, the Porsche pair ran together for most of the race. The entire GTLM class seemed content to run consistent laps, stay on the lead lap, and avoid trouble until the end.  The Porsches, however, appeared to run a dedicated strategy of pacing each other and protecting each other’s flanks.
• BMW will likely look back at the Rolex 24 as a reasonable debut, but with a need to find more speed out of the car (and potentially some Adjustment of Performance help as well). The BMWs were respectable in the turns, but lagged where horsepower was needed as evidenced by top speed numbers at the bottom of the class.  The whole class is tight and there were times where the BMWs were close, but the BMWs never consistently challenged for the top positions during the race.  The BMW M6 is a very different car than the Z4 used in 2015.  It will be interesting to see if the handling qualities give the BMW an advantage at Sebring.
• The #100 Anniversary car was returned to the BMW garage on the back of a flatbed at 3:15am after a suspected right front disc failure put Lucas Luhr into the outside wall at the end of the front stretch and beyond turn one.  The damage was severe and the car was retired.  Luhr was the fastest driver in the car and was uninjured.
• A needed splash of fuel in the closing minutes put the #25 Heritage BMW into fifth place in class after running between fourth and fifth of the last few hours. An early puncture suffered near the bus stop dropped the car down two laps, but Bill Auberlen expertly brought the car back to the pits after a long and slow lap with no damage.   The margins between the drivers for average fastest lap were amazingly minimal – 9/100 covered all four drivers in terms of average lap times.  Farfus and Spengler tied for the most laps among the #25 drivers – each ran 169 green laps.
• The new Ferrari 488 was represented by three cars – #62 Risi, #68 Scuderia Corsa, and #72 SMP Racing. The car was brand new.  Risi ran some shakedown laps at Fiorano in Italy before shipping the car to Miami and having it delivered directly to Daytona on Tuesday before the race.  The Thursday morning practice session were the first laps turned on US soil.  The wet practice and qualifying sessions meant that the team had very little dry running to work on setups before the race start.  Risi clearly missed valuable testing time at the Roar where it would have resolved issues like basic setups and driver comfort among the multiple drivers.  The car ran flawlessly and stayed close to the top but had contact with other cars on the track.  Olivier Beretta served a drive through penalty at the 13 hour mark for avoidable contact with the #3 Corvette.  Later contact with a Ford damaged the diffuser which ultimately led to a stop to remove it completely.  Repairs took place in the garage under green which cost four laps but the team had no spare. The Ferrari ran without a rear diffuser at all for the last six hours of the race which hampered its pace further.  Risi’s post-race press release proudly noted that the crew had no penalties and only one driver-caused penalty during the race.  A 6^th place in class must be a frustrating result after a very strong race with no mechanical issues for the new car and the only problem caused by contact with another competitor.  Watch for Risi at Sebring.
• Likewise, the #68 Scuderia Corsa team had a strong debut for its 488 after a clean run on the pits and on the track. After four hours of running, the team incurred a 3m 30 second penalty for multiple violations (including running a red light at the end of pit lane).  The penalty cost three laps, but the team regained the laps and finished fourth in class.  Primat served another penalty during the night under green for speeding on pit lane as well.  The 488 appears to balance the infield and high speed bits of the track to assemble its lap times.  Alessandro Pier Guidi was the leader of the Scuderia Corsa team.  Not only did he average the fastest time among the drivers, he ran the most laps (tied for fifth most of all drivers in all classes with 232 green laps).
• The #72 SMP Racing Ferrari had an unfortunate qualifying session, ending up sliding through a wet turn one and making contact with the tires at the outside of turn one. Some racers tape, a new rear fascia and some rear wing work solved the problem and the car made it out for Friday practice and the race with good pace.  After staying in touch with the leaders for most of the race and running at the front at times, the car was retired just before the 19^th hour mark with engine troubles and some left front body damage.  James Calado and Gimmi Bruini were the stars of the driving line-up and will make excellent teammates for the 2016 WEC season.  It must be said, however, that the SMP Ferrari and the two Ford GT cars need to coordinate on getting more distinctive liveries as they all have too much similar red, white and blue to easily distinguish at a glance.
• Speaking of the Ford GT program, the glare of the spotlight must have been hot on Rolex weekend. The team had so much advance publicity and expectations between the new entry, the Ford presence, the GT heritage, the backing of Chip Ganassi Racing, the driver line up, etc.  Somehow in all the testing miles, the electronics in the gear linkage never surfaced as an issue, but hampered both entries.  The team worked to get both cars back in the event and run as many miles and laps as possible.  Silver linings?  Both cars make speed on the straights.  Ryan Briscoe in the #67 set the fastest average top speed times of any GTLM car at over 185mph.   Next fastest?  Joey Hand in the #66 at a touch over 184mph.  Mucke and Muller were close behind.  As you might expect from a professional driver line-up, all the drivers averaged very close lap times to each other.  Despite the early problems and repair delays, both cars ran a lot of laps.  The #67 logged 429 green laps and the #66 logged 534 green laps.  If the Fords can resolve their reliability and trade some of their top speed for grip in the corners, they will be a threat for wins.  Sebring will be a major test.  
• What more can be said about the Corvette effort? The closest winning margin in Daytona history of 0.034 seconds after the Corvette team let both of their cars run for the win?  The stuff that legends are made of.  Oliver Gavin in the #4 just edged Antonio Garcia in the #3.  However, the win looked out of reach with a puncture at speed earlier in the race coming out of NASDCAR Turn 4 and then incurred a penalty on the pit stop.  The team recovered, charged to the front, and then suffered a stop plus a 60 second hold penalty for Marcel Fassler with only 3 hours to go after running the red light at the end of pit lane.  Not only did Gavin post the fastest average lap times in the #4, he ran the most green laps of the three drivers in the car (214).
• Jan Magnussen noted that the #3 had a fueling problem which resulted in an extra stop – and possibly cost the race. The car had earlier drama with 11 hours to go when Olivier Beretta in the Ferrari spun the #3 Corvette in the infield on a restart.  IMSA penalized Beretta, but the spin put the Corvette near the back of the GTLM field.  Garcia was the hot shoe in the #3 with the fastest average lap time and the most laps in the car.  He was too fast on pit lane with just under 7 hours to go, earning a drive through penalty for speeding on pit lane.
• Like the Porsches, the Corvettes also ran in tandem when possible during the race. Looking back through the notes during the race, it is remarkable how little went wrong for the Corvette team.  They should be very proud of their 1-2 accomplishment.
• How hard were the Corvettes pushing at the end? They posted their fastest laps of the race on laps 702 for the #4 and 707 for the #3.  The winners covered a total of 722 laps, so that means the fastest Corvette laps were within 20 laps of the finish.

• Two Corvette drivers had quiet, consistent, quick and clean races – the two Audi factory drivers. Marcel Fassler and Mike Rockenfeller are no strangers to endurance racing or standing on the podium.  LeMans and Sebring winner Fassler had never driven at Daytona before, but had run with Corvette in 2009.  However, Daytona was not his first 24 hour win in a Corvette – he won the 2007 24 Hours of Spa overall in a Corvette as well.  Rockenfeller won Daytona overall in 2010 in a Porsche powered Daytona prototype and had run for several years in Corvette DPs, but 2016 was his first ride in a Corvette GT car.  Both have amassed a very impressive career and will run with Corvette at the Sebring 12 Hours as well.  Full credit and kudos to Audi for permitting them to run.

How close was it at the end?  A fraction of a second for the win and three cars on the lead lap with two more a lap adrift.  All the teams appeared to try to keep a consistent pace, let attribution winnow the field, and save the hard racing until the end.  Sebring will offer less room to log clean laps and wait for the end.

Observations on the Rolex 24

Doing some preparation for the Rolex 24 at Daytona and ended up with a bit of an overview/preview.  The more one looks, the more interesting angles there are to the race.  While prototypes may be the fastest and most likely to compete for top honors, the story for the 2016 Rolex 24 Hours is the GT cars.  Opinions on that score may vary, but it still is a compelling race even if your view differs.  2016 is the last year for the Daytona Prototype formula as we know it and the Prototype Challenge class is usually more of an intramural affair.  The driver line-ups in the big prototype cars are impressive but much of the chatter revolves around what 2017 will bring in that class.

Why is GT the story?  New cars in both GTLM and GTD, teams changing cars, and drivers changing teams and cars.  We’ll get to GTLM in a moment, but this is the first race with the full GT3 specification available to customer teams in IMSA.

GTD

There are 22 GTD cars on the preliminary entry list.  Sadly, the AMG GT3 and the McLaren GT3 offerings are not in the field but Porsche, Audi, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Dodge Viper, BMW and Aston Martin provide the variety.

Times looked reasonably tight at the Roar with most cars within a second of each other.  Clearly that is only testing and Daytona is a unique track, but the GT3 platform and prior balancing experience helps to keep things tight.  Perhaps most interestingly, however, the sector times from the Roar appear to show that different cars make their speed at different parts of the track – even among similar manufacturers.  For example, the #48 Paul Miller Lamborghini was very fast in the infield and slowest on top speed but the #11 O’Gara Motorsport Lamborghini showed almost the opposite.

IMSA was watching as well and issued an Adjustment of Performance bulletin on January 21, 2016 with tweaks for every car in the GTD field.  The Aston Martins got the most help with the new Audi R8 LMS and the Lamborghini Huracan losing performance in the form of weight and restrictor.

It still is a bit of a shock to look around at all the change in GTD.  Five Lamborghinis?  Magnus in an Audi?  Stevenson appearing with no Camaro, but rather two Audis?  Bell and Sweedler moving to an O’Gara Lamborghini from Scuderia Corsa and then Neilsen moving from the TRG Aston Martin to take one of those vacant Ferrari seats?  Kuno Wittmer moving from the TRG Aston Martin to the GTLM BMW? Pumpelly released from Park Place Porsche and landing with Change Racing in a Lamborghini?  World Challenge Cadillac ace Andy Pilgrim released and landing alongside Patrick Long, Nicky Catsburg and Tim Pappas in a Porsche?  What about seeing ex-Falken GTLM Porsche drivers Sellers and Henzler in GTD with Sellers in the Paul Miller Lamborghini and Henzler in the Team Seattle Porsche?  Arguably, the defending GTD winning Viper team has the most stability in terms of car, driver and team.  Alex Job would also be a strong bet with his deep experience and talented driver squad and a brand new 991GT3R.

Dark horse?  Hard to call the Frikadelli Porsche a dark horse with so much experience at the Nurburgring and talent in the driver’s seat, but this will be their first race away from home.  Daytona is much different – arguably much less perilous than the Nurburgring in terms of traffic, weather, bumpiness of the track.  They did very well at the Roar so keep an eye on the Queen of the Ring and her team.

GTD is likely to be slightly slower in 2016 than 2015 due to the greater downforce and drag on the cars.  Fastest race lap in 2015 was about 1:47 compared to a fastest Roar time of about a second slower, but the field may be tighter in 2016.  We’ll also have to wait and see what impact the Adjustment of Performance will have.

GTLM

The big off-season story in IMSA is clearly the appearance of the Ford GT program with Ganassi Racing.  The two car team will be part of an 11 car GTLM field.  That means there will be 33 GT cars on the grid of the total 54 entries – about 60% of the field.  It is a good time to be a GT racing fan.

The driving line-up in the Ganassi entries is stellar – perhaps rivaled only by the line-up in Ganassi’s prototype cars, but that’s a separate story.  Porsche brings two revised 911RSR cars back along with BMW with two brand new M6 cars (in place of the now-retired Z4 platform) and Corvette with two cars.  Scuderia Corsa, who ran two Ferrari 458 entries in GTD in 2015, splits their effort for 2016 with one car in GTD and another in GTLM.  Scuderia Corsa joins SMP Racing and Risi Competizione with the brand new 488 GTE platform for the car’s first outing.  The car is so new that Risi shook its car down at the factory before shipping it to Miami to have it delivered directly to the track in the days prior to the race.

2015 saw some epic battles in GTLM, so what did the Roar tell us about 2016?  Who knows?  Nobody has any faith that any of the times were representative of anything.  (For example, the two Porsches were together at the bottom of the chart with the two new BMWs closer to the top.) With that said, however, times were all within a second and, like the GTD cars, different cars appeared to make time in different parts of the track.  The Fords had a few incidents at the Roar which caused damage and cost time, so the Ganassi team will be hoping that the test got the accidents out of their system.

The Adjustment of Performance Bulletin on January 21 also contained from presents for the GTLM class with changes to boost ratios, fuel capacity and refueling flow restrictors.  Nobody has any incentive to show any more cards any earlier than is necessary.

Corvette and BMW finished one-two in 2015 on the same lap – no reason to think that 2016 won’t be just as close.  The BMW is a new platform, so reliability is the big question for that team.  The winning Corvette is back with Magnussen and quiet fast guy Garcia.  Factory Audi driver Mike Rockenfeller joins in place of Ryan Briscoe who moved to the Ford GT program.

One potentially interesting angle worth watching during the race is the gaps between GTLM and Prototype Challenge.  While the GTLM cars are likely to be three to four seconds a lap faster than the fastest GTD cars, the gap could be minimal to the slower PC cars – particularly when the full factory hotshoes are in the GTLM cars and the amateur drivers are piloting the PC cars.  It wouldn’t be surprising to see GTLM cars making some aggressive moves to avoid getting held up.  The GTLM cars appear faster in a straight line, but the PC cars are more nimble in the twisty bits.

Prototype

In some ways, the Prototype class looks like the most stable class, but there are a variety of sub-plots to watch.  Michael Shank wants badly to taste success with his P2 car, particularly has he prepares to make a run at the 2016 24 Hours of LeMans.  His P2 has been fast, but sometimes fragile.  Amateur John Pew has continued to get faster, but he’s still in a class going up against full professionals.  Teammates AJ Allmendinger, Oz Negri, and Olivier Pla (now released from factory Nissan duty) will likely keep this entry at the sharp end of the field.

ESM will have its own P2 in the field.  ESM and Shank were at the top of the charts at the Roar, but the bulk of the prototype class was only separated by about a second.  The Ligier P2s were rewarded with additional weight via an Adjustment of Performance while the SMP team got a modest weight break.

In other news, the Ganassi team has two strong cars with fairly strong driver lineups.  Austrian and recently retired WEC driver and F1 veteran Alex Wurz makes his Daytona debut along with factory Porsche driver and new Ford GT WEC driver Andy Priaulx.  Young Lance Stroll completes the line up as the weak point – less experienced than the others by far (as perhaps evidenced by his crash on cold tires during the Roar).   The other Ganassi car is the defending race winner – the Indy/NASCAR entry with Scott Dixon, Tony Kanaan, Jamie McMurray and Kyle Larson.  Enough said.  Two strong bullets in the Ganassi gun.

Mazda may be one of the more interesting stories in prototype after dropping the diesel engine in favor of a two liter inline four cylinder turbocharged gasoline engine.  The team maximized the potential of its prior diesel, but making a racing engine out of a production diesel engine was a tall ask.  Over 4000 miles of testing and a very strong showing at the Roar suggests this team may have some promise in the race.  Mazda has a lot of history at Daytona and 2106 is the 25^th anniversary of its famous overall win at LeMans.  If the new Mazda engine can stay reliable in its debut, the young quick drivers like newcomer Spencer Pigot and his all American fellow drivers can be a threat.

Scott Pruett moves down pitlane to join the Action Express team in search of yet another Rolex 24 victory.   Action Express has had a lot of success over the past several years and the team of Christian Fittipaldi, Filipe Albequerque and Joao Barbosa will likely run a steady and brisk pace with the goal of staying close at the end and then going racing.  This car finished second in 2015 and would like to move up a step on the podium.

The VisitFlorida team is all different with Ryan Hunter-Reay joining Ryan Dalziel and Marc Goosens in the Corvette DP.  The team finished third in 2015 with a completely different set of drivers.  (Rockenfeller will be running with the Corvette squad and Richard Westbrook joined the Ford GT program, both in GTLM.  Michael Valiante appears not to have landed a seat – at least not yet.)

Taylor Racing sees no changes, but perhaps spent some time in the off-season focusing on the driver time calculator after running into problems late in the 2015 Daytona 24 hour race costing the team a podium finish.

The plucky Delta Wing appears to have found some funding and assembled an interesting driver squad.  The car showed well at the Roar, the fastest in the infield sections of all cars.  Mechanical gremlins in the gearbox have sidelined the car in previous endurance events, so reliability will the biggest challenge.

Russian SMP Racing brings their BR01 chassis which is another interesting story, but more about them further below.

Prototype Challenge

The headline for PC is the same as usual – fast enough to mix things up, but not fast or reliable enough to challenge for the overall.  In 2015, the top PC cars finished 8^th and 10^th overall.  CORE looks to improve, bringing back most of its driver lineup and looking to experienced engineer Jeff Braun to help steer the ship.

Times within the class are likely to be variable and the margins between cars and lap times wider than other classes.  Remember also that the GTLM cars may be mixing it up amongst the PC cars with the PC cars stronger in the infield.

The two Starworks entries from Peter Baron, the CORE entry, and the PR1/Mathiasen defending class winner have the depth and experience to be the strongest.  CORE in particular has several years of consistent strength.  Others may have spurts of speed and could make things interesting but the pace at the Roar suggests that they’ll have a difficult task.

What else to watch?

European Teams on the Entry Again

In the 1980s and 1990s, European teams would often head to the US for the Daytona 24 and Sebring 12 hours.  They bulked up the fields, added some additional flavor, and brought interesting cars.  There was a lot more overlap in those days with the 24 Hours of LeMans.  Without revisiting all of the gory history of Grand-Am and American LeMans Series, the European presence at Daytona has been sparse for the last decade plus.

The presence of teams and people like Franz Konrad will be a welcome sight.  Franz is no stranger to Daytona and is bringing two GTD Lamborghini entries.  While it seems a little odd to see the Konrad colors on anything other than a Porsche, he does have modest history with other marques including a brief dalliance with a Lola prototype and Saleen S7-R.  (If memory serves, the Lola had a spectacular engine failure at the Rolex 24 in 1999 and retired early to the garage.)

As noted earlier, the German Frikadelli team is making its first visit beyond the Ring.  The fastest meatball in the world started a Twitter account during the roar and quickly amassed several hundred followers.  The team is such a sensation on home soil, they may relish the chance to race slightly outside the spotlight.  Sabine Schmitz is certainly well known to Ring fans and Klaus Abbelen (a butcher, business man who has the meatball connection), but the rest of the drivers include Frank Stippler, Patrick Huisman and Sven Müller.  Huisman and Stippler are well known but young Sven is a driver to watch.  He is a Porsche factory Junior driver and has run German Carrera Cup, Supercup and WEC races.  Another reason to keep an eye on Frikadelli as a potential threat.     With perhaps the most interesting combination on the entry, Russian SMP Racing will be running a BR01 Nissan powered P2 prototype in the top class and a Ferrari 488 GTE in the GTLM class.   This will be the IMSA debut for the BR Engineering prototype, but the team has run at Daytona previously.  In 2014, they finished fourth in a Ferrari 458 run in cooperation with the ESM team.  The 488 program will be run with partner AF Corsa who has plenty of experience with the GTLM class and Ferrari GT cars in general.  The driver line-up may not be familiar to US fans, but Andrea Bertolini and Viktor Shaytar won the GTE-Am class at the 2015 24 Hours of LeMans (and Shaytar won the championship in class).  They’ll be joined by Gimmi Bruni who has three LeMans GT class wins to his credit since 2008 and is generally synonymous with Ferrari GT racing over the past 8 or 9 years.  Brit James Calado rounds out the driving strength, bringing years of single seat and AF Corsa Ferrari GT racing experience along with him.   If you’re looking for a GTLM darkhorse, the SMP Ferrari 488 entry may fit the bill.

The team may run at Sebring as well, but has not yet announced their intentions.  The prototype will be obsolete after 2016 with regulation changes, so hopefully the team can get the most mileage and racing activity out of the chassis while it can.

Weather

Long term forecasts are fickle, but there aren’t a lot of indicators of anything other than an average January Florida weekend.  Mid-60s F during the day, high 40s F overnight, and no major rain to be seen.  Given the IMSA weather experience in 2015 at places like Watkins Glen and Road Atlanta, average would be just fine.

Outstanding Driver Combinations

There is an impressive list of drivers from multiple disciplines and multiple places and some really impressive combinations of drivers in cars.  There are experienced veterans and fresh novices.  There are sportscar specialists and those that make their living in other forms of motorsport or even outside motorsport in the case of some of the amateur drivers. 

Some drivers have already seen action in 2016 at the Dubai 24 and a handful will head from Daytona straight for Australia to run the Bathurst 12 hour.

Lots of Reasons to Watch

A total of 54 cars with two-thirds in the GT classes.  Some very close times within classes and intriguing overlap between classes.  A chance to see how changes of drivers, cars and teams work out.  Potential spoilers in the form of teams like Mazda who have been patient and hungry and are ready to play at the front of the field.  Stellar drivers with remarkable backgrounds.  New hardware like the Ford GT and BMW making their race debut.  Factory efforts like Porsche looking to erase the memory of a difficult 2015 race.  Cars with strength at different parts of the track could make for interesting battles as the advantage ebbs and flows.

As usual, full coverage from the Radio LeMans team via IMSA Radio.  Many teams and drivers on Twitter and other social media combined with outlets like Dailysportscar.com make it easier to keep up with events.  Doubtless many more reasons to watch, but those ought to be enough for any motor racing fan.  Enjoy!

Photo credits: IMSA, BMW, Porsche, Mike Hull, ViperExchange, Shank Racing, Mikhail Aleshin, CORE, Wayne Taylor Racing, Action Express Racing, Risi Competizione, Konrad Racing

IMSA GT Silly Season

The news and changes have been flowing, including some surprises.

Christina Nielsen is moving to Scuderia Corsa to drive a Ferrari 488 in the IMSA GTD category.   She is moving from The Racers Group and the Aston Martin.  She finished just behind the Scuderia Corsa car in the 2016 GTD championship.

The 2016 IMSA GTD championship winning drivers for Scuderia Corsa, Townsend Bell and Bill Sweedler are moving to O’Gara Motorsports to drive a brand new Lamborghini Huracan GT3 in the IMSA GTD class.  The team hasn’t yet taken delivery of the car, but they’ve been busy winning the 2015 2015 Lamborghini Super Trofeo championship.  A single Lamborghini Huracan has been shared by multiple customer teams and drivers, steadily putting on mile after mile.

Somehow Dion von Moltke still doesn’t have a ride for 2016.  He tied for third in the GTD standings with the Paul Miller Audi.  The Paul Miller team is joining the move to the Lamborghini Huracan platform for 2016.   For a driver line-up, Brian Sellers, Madison Snow and Bryce Miller will drive the Paul Miller Lamborghini.   Miller joins for the endurance races.  The pairing of Sellers and Snow is a very potent combination.

Meanwhile, the Porsche ranks are starting to become more clear.  Cars for Alex Job and Black Swan are coming.  Park Place Porsche is also reportedly going to run in 2016 with a brand new 911RSR, but driver Patrick Lindsey will not be continuing with the team.  Could there be more?

As if the IMSA GT class isn’t busy enough, the Pirelli World Challenge is busy on its own.  Somehow, Andy Pilgrim Andy Pilgrim has been dropped by Cadillac in PwC.  Could he find his way to an IMSA ride?  Gainsco/Bob Stallings, historically associated with the IMSA series, will be entering a McLaren 650 in the PWC series with Jon Fogarty at the wheel.  Sadly, McLaren is not an authorized manufacturer partner with IMSA, so the car is ineligible to run in 2016 IMSA events.

How about another Viper in the form of Lone Star Racing?  The team ran at COTA and expects to run the 2016 season with Dan Knox and Marc Goosens.  The ViperExchange 2016 details were released in October, so there should be at least two Vipers on the grid in 2016.

In the meantime, Risi expects to take delivery of its brand new Ferrari 488 in December.  Perhaps not a surprise at this point, but still worth a note that timing may be tight to get the car and get it prepared for the Roar prior to the Rolex 24.

Audi will be represented by several customer teams, including Magnus Racing with John Potter and some guy named Andy Lally.  Stevenson Racing is not only making the move to the Audi R8 platform, but took home the shared Audi test vehicle after the Daytona test.  Don’t think there has been a public announcement, but rumor suggests Flying Lizard will be running a new Audi (or two?) as well.

Oh yes.  In the category of open secrets, the full time drivers for the Ganassi Ford GT IMSA season were announced.

Is there more?  Undoubtedly.  Lots of work for teams as they start to take delivery of new cars and get them prepared for the Roar and the Rolex 24. It still would have been more fun at Daytona with Aston Martin and Mercedes.  Stay tuned…

Audi IMSA news and Ford GT development

Yet another day of IMSA GT news.  Stevenson Motorsports confirmed their move to a two car 2016 IMSA GTD entry with customer Audi R8.  That’s a major move for a Continental Tires support series team to move up to the big show and move from GM to Audi.  At the same time, Magnus Racing announced its move from Porsche to a customer Audi R8 program.  Magnus also confirmed that some guy named Andy Lally – noted possum killer– will continue to drive for them.

As Audi Sport’s Brad Kettler says to Marshall Pruett in Racer Magazine: “Wait until teams get a hold of this bullet.”

Marshall Pruett also reports on the continuing development of the Ford GT platform by the Ganassi Racing team.  As vintage Dave Letterman would say, for those of you scoring at home or even for those of you who are alone, Ganassi is scheduled to have two cars at the upcoming IMSA test in Daytona.

Did you see the new Audi R8 that was on display and won at the 24 Hours of Nurburgring?