As it fights for another LMP3 championship to go with the one it took in 2022, Riley Motorsports is planning it’s next move — a shift to LMP2 in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship for the team and drivers Gar Robinson and Felipe Fraga.
“I’m really excited to [be moving to LMP2],” said Robinson. “It’s a new challenge for all of us at Riley, me and Felipe. And new car, new competition. I think it’s seen on a bigger scale than LMP3 is. There are new, different tracks we get to go to, and hopefully some other opportunities. I think all in all, it will be a really good move.”
With the announcement, Riley becomes the first LMP3 team to declare its intention to move to LMP2 after IMSA stated the class wouldn’t be included in the WeatherTech Championship. LMP2 is poised for big growth in 2024, as not only are several LMP3 teams likely to move up, but some teams that had been committed to the FIA World Endurance Championship — which will move to two classes without LMP2 in 2024 — will move to IMSA as well. United Autosports was the first team to state it will shift to the WeatherTech Championship last week.
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Riley, Robinson and Fraga, along with third driver Josh Burdon, are leading the LMP3 championship thanks to victory in the only points-paying race so far this season, the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring. Next week LMP3 has its second race of the season in the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen, and Riley is undefeated there since joining the championship in 2021.
“Some of it has been a little bit of luck. I think we got pretty lucky last year with the lightning thing,” said Robinson of the team’s success there. “It’s not all one thing, it’s a combination of everybody together. It’s a strange race for everybody, I think, because it’s long enough to be an endurance race, but it’s also kind of short enough to still be considered a sprint race. We go from being at Sebring, where it’s long stints and everything’s pretty brutal on you so you’re focused on how physical everything is and it’s a proper long endurance race. And then the Glen is closer to a sprint race; the stints aren’t nearly as long and the track isn’t beating you up the entire time.”
Next year the Glen will be another challenge altogether in an LMP2 ORECA, which Riley should receive in a couple of months. The move was one Robinson had been considering anyway, but the change in class structure for the WeatherTech Championship in 2024 pushed them in that direction. While Robinson has some GT experience, he didn’t really consider GTD an option.
“I got spoiled with downforce cars a little bit,” he said. “I think it was really good route to go. We’re all really excited and we should start start getting familiar with it pretty soon.”