If the fact that Honda Racing Corporation reunited with Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian to run its two-car Acura ARX-06 program wasn’t enough of a surprise, here comes the driver announcement. Presented by RACER’s Trackside Report is …
If the fact that Honda Racing Corporation reunited with Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian to run its two-car Acura ARX-06 program wasn’t enough of a surprise, here comes the driver announcement.
Presented by
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Colin Braun was 17 years old when he partnered with sports car legend Jorg Bergmeister to lead Krohn Racing to its Grand-Am Rolex Series Daytona Prototype championship. Bergmeister was credited with the title due to Braun being unable to drive at …
Colin Braun was 17 years old when he partnered with sports car legend Jorg Bergmeister to lead Krohn Racing to its Grand-Am Rolex Series Daytona Prototype championship.
Bergmeister was credited with the title due to Braun being unable to drive at two events due to his age, but the 2006 season was an important one for him as it put his talent on the map, and in the middle of the picture was their race engineer, Steve Newey (no relation to Formula 1 designer Adrian Newey).
Colin Braun (left) and Jorg Bergmeister in 2006. Jeff Braun photo
The American engineer – a veteran of CART IndyCar Series racing – and the young American driver had great chemistry, and while they soon went their own ways, they’ve been reunited some 18 years later at Dale Coyne Racing where Braun was hired to race the No. 51 Honda at the two opening races and Newey was hired last week to engineer the car for the season.
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“It’s been a hot minute since me and Steve worked together,” Braun told RACER. “I haven’t been to St. Pete in a long time; I drove a front-wheel-drive Kia here last time, slightly different than the Dale Coyne Racing car. Steve and I have kept up with each other. It’s been fun both getting our arms wrapped back around for him, the IndyCar side, and getting me up to speed. It’s nice having someone you have that rapport with.”
Newey has a lifetime of race engineering experience to draw from, but very little with the Dallara DW12 chassis, and with no time to do preseason testing with the team, he and Braun are starting the first IndyCar race of 2024 with a massive deficit in knowledge about the car in its newest specification.
As expected, the No. 51 has been slowest in both sessions, but Braun and Newey have made big inroads on the deficit. Friday’s best of a 1m03.7562s tour around the 1.8-mile street circuit was lowered to a 1m02.3571s — an overnight improvement of 1.3991s — which was only 0.6329s shy of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Pietro Fittipaldi.
Despite the progress being made, the No. 51 is expected to stay towards the back of the field at St. Petersburg. The most important development for the team is the laps Braun can turn and the reconnection with Newey that produces more speed with every tour.
“Colin is a great guy and when the [Grand-Am] team owner told me I was engineering a 17-year-old kid, I wasn’t very happy,” Newey said. “But it turned out pretty good. Obviously his career has come a long way. He’s a rare talent.
“It’s a daunting racetrack here with all these walls, obviously, so we’re not going too aggressive to start out. We’ve just got to make the car a little bit more solid; the rear ends moving around a little bit too much for him. So if we can solve problem, we’ll be fine.”
Dale Coyne Racing No. 18 Honda: Jack Harvey/Nolan Siegel (24th in 2023 championship/rookie) No. 51 Honda: Colin Braun/Others (rookie) THINGS TO KNOW: Major rebuild in progress An early offseason that was loaded with optimism for recruiting a top …
Dale Coyne Racing
No. 18 Honda: Jack Harvey/Nolan Siegel (24th in 2023 championship/rookie)
No. 51 Honda: Colin Braun/Others (rookie)
THINGS TO KNOW:
Major rebuild in progress
An early offseason that was loaded with optimism for recruiting a top Formula 2 talent and those who would come with an influx of funding has not panned out for the spirited team from Illinois.
Efforts to find drivers to pilot both cars has been a painstakingly long and setback-filled process, and to that end, three days before cars are on track for the season opener, the Coyne team finally confirmed its lineup for St. Petersburg.
In 2024, the team’s composition will look far more like an IMSA program with 2-3 drivers rotating through both entries, and that’s not what we’re accustomed to seeing with Coyne. Jack Harvey is in for most of the races in the No. 18 Honda, but not all, as rising American Indy NXT talent Nolan Siegel is plugged in for four races, including the Indianapolis 500, in preparation for going full-time next year.
Nolan Siegel will have four chances to make a rookie impression in IndyCar this year with DCR, including the Indy 500. Chris Jones/Penske Entertainment
Colin Braun is finally getting his shot in IndyCar with the No. 51 Honda, but for how many races? He’s in for St. Petersburg and The Thermal Club, but who’ll get the nod at Long Beach, Barber, and so on? Braun isn’t bringing funding to the party, and while his schedule isn’t completely open due to IMSA LMP2 and SRO GT3 obligations, he could drive for Coyne at most events if there’s a need.
The revolving door within Coyne’s engineering group is another area that’s made it hard for the team to make year-to-year progress. Ross Bunnell led the team’s engineering efforts in 2022 and looked after David Malukas in the No. 18 Honda, but he was hired away by Chip Ganassi Racing to become Scott Dixon’s race engineer last season. His replacement was engineering assistant, Alex Athanasiadis, who was promoted to full race engineer, and he and Malukas did well together.
And then Athanasiadis recently left to work for Roger Penske as a race engineer on the Porsche Penske Motorsport FIA WEC team, so another engineering reboot was required. Don Bricker, who has run Coyne’s second car, the No. 51 Honda, as its race engineer, has been moved over to the No. 18, and like its drivers, it took until the final days of the offseason for the team to hire an engineer to run its second car. Racing veteran Steve Newey is headed to St. Pete to engineer Braun and he brings plenty of knowledge from CART, the ALMS, and managed Bryan Herta’s IndyCar team during the early years of the DW12 formula.
Thanks to the engineering turnover, Coyne has not been able to invest in the kinds of offseason R&D projects it’s accustomed to carrying out, and that means it will start well behind the other nine teams in that regard. Where the race to win in 2024 began for most teams in the days after the Sept. 10 season finale in Monterey, Coyne’s operation is having to start that process now, on the cusp of the new championship run.
It’s everything they didn’t want to happen, but it’s their reality.
The Mitch effect
Despite all of the aforementioned obstacles to clear, Coyne hired the right person to rebuild the team in Mitch Davis, who led the outfit to its first win many years ago and has vast experience running IndyCar and IMSA teams.
Davis steps in for Terry Brown, who managed the team in recent years but has embraced semi-retirement while consulting for Coyne. In Davis, the team has a focused leader who folks tend to gravitate towards, and while it’s been a rough offseason in so many ways, he’s pushed for Coyne to hire Braun and attracted some good new crew members to complement the loyal veterans.
Davis is the right guy to take the baton from Brown, and although we won’t see it in the beginning of the championship, I do expect him to round the program into shape and make it better in many ways. There’s also no doubt that Davis has a hellacious amount of work ahead to get Coyne up to speed.
A callback jor Jack
Harvey’s formative years in IndyCar were spent with the part-time, single-car Meyer Shank Racing team where he delivered his best performances. It’s here where the 30-year-old from England could hold significant value within the underprepared Coyne program as it attempts to settle itself and take on its rivals in the bottom half of the field.
Harvey was asked to do more than just drive when he was with MSR, and if Coyne welcomes his input on the engineering, strategy, and operational sides, it could help to accelerate their progress. Doing more with less was common for Harvey in those early days, and if he can tap into his approach that helped MSR to shine, it’s possible for similar things to happen with his new team.
The gamer
For Braun, the 35-year-old’s introduction to IndyCar racing is a proverbial baptism by fire. But he’s a gamer, among the most experienced drivers within the IndyCar paddock, and has spent most of his teens and adult life jumping from one radically different car to another. And that’s why he’s accepted the offer to race for Coyne with a single day of experience in these cars. Sure, it’s a daunting situation, but this is the right guy for such a crazy proposition.
The Texan has raced everywhere — the high banks at Talladega to Le Mans to the Nurburgring to Road America — and because of his non-stop career, there’s a well-refined comfort that lives within Braun when it comes to taking on wild things like lining up to race against IndyCar’s best after one day spent at Sebring in a DW12.
Braun was faster than Harvey at that test, which isn’t a dig at his teammate. It just confirmed for the umpteenth time that Braun can be thrown into anything and impress in an instant.
Where Coyne goes with the No. 51 in April and beyond is a point of interest. Ketherine Legge, a favorite of Honda who drove for Coyne in Champ Car in 2007, is said to have the No. 51 for the Indy 500 and other ovals, but the identity of who’ll steer the car for most of the unassigned races is a mystery.
Even so…
When a driver and their race engineer are meeting for the first time in the paddock at the opening round, expectations must be lowered to match the situation they’re in. Drawing from all we’ve covered so far, the Coyne team should be slowest in every session and again in this weekend’s race.
Even so, be open to the possibility of Braun or Harvey delivering beyond the confines of their circumstances.
Will the sports car champion hurl the No. 51 into the Fast 12 on Saturday? Not unless miracles are involved. But if he’s anything other than last, Coyne and Company will deserve all the beer and balloons that can fit in their paddock space. The same goes for Harvey, who has the experience to run higher than last, but can only go as fast as his underdeveloped car will allow.
From the 10 teams that make up the field of 27 cars, this is the one — and the only one — that has a giant caveat placed over every aspect of its season. From management to engineering to drivers, it’s a fresh start and it’s a late start. Be kind when they struggle and cheer when they don’t.
Coyne will likely be among his team’s biggest sponsors this season, and that alone deserves respect. Hope for a better 2025 starts now.
Dale Coyne Racing will use NTT IndyCar Series veteran Jack Harvey and IMSA champion Colin Braun to conduct the final pre-season test of the year in his Nos. 18 and 51 entries. The two-day test, which runs across Monday and Tuesday at Sebring …
Dale Coyne Racing will use NTT IndyCar Series veteran Jack Harvey and IMSA champion Colin Braun to conduct the final pre-season test of the year in his Nos. 18 and 51 entries.
The two-day test, which runs across Monday and Tuesday at Sebring International Raceway’s short course, has the entire field onsite to shakedown and tune their 2024-specification Dallara DW12s before the March 8-10 season opener two hours northwest in St. Petersburg.
For Harvey, his use at Sebring is a continuation of the testing he conducted for DCR in the No. 18 Honda at the Homestead-Miami roval in January. For the 35-year-old Braun, it marks his first appearance in an Indy car after turning pro at the age of 16 in 2005 at the Rolex 24 At Daytona.
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A three-time IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship title winner and three-time winner of the Rolex 24, Braun caught the attention of IndyCar team owners during the most recent IMSA season where he partnered with Tom Blomqvist in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 hybrid GTP car.
Braun’s speed and consistency alongside Blomqvist, the 2022 IMSA DPi champion who was signed by MSR to drive this season in IndyCar, often equaled or exceeded his teammate and led to at least one other IndyCar team taking a look at the Texan.
RACER expects Harvey to be confirmed for St. Petersburg and other races in the No. 18. The outcome of Braun’s IndyCar testing debut on Tuesday will likely dictate whether he will get the nod to race the No. 51 at round one. With full-time commitments in multiple sports car series, Braun’s availability to compete for DCR would be subject to his availability after St. Petersburg. As of Friday, the team had its engineering staff set for Harvey’s No. 18 but was unable to confirm who would engineer the No. 51, which could be the reason behind running Harvey on day one and Braun on day two instead of testing both cars at the same time.
Among the other drivers who are anticipated to be part of DCR’s rotating cast in 2024, RACER understands open-wheel veteran Katherine Legge and Indy NXT title challenger Nolan Siegel are in play. Former A.J. Foyt Racing driver Benjamin Pedersen has also been mentioned as a possibility for DCR to use.
Two invitations to enter the 2024 running of the Le Mans 24 Hours were handed out Sunday after a thrilling climax to the 2023/2024 Asian Le Mans Series season in Abu Dhabi. For Portuguese-flagged, British-run team Algarve Pro Racing, it was a …
Two invitations to enter the 2024 running of the Le Mans 24 Hours were handed out Sunday after a thrilling climax to the 2023/2024 Asian Le Mans Series season in Abu Dhabi.
For Portuguese-flagged, British-run team Algarve Pro Racing, it was a historic weekend with the team’s No. 4 Crowdstrike Racing by APR ORECA, driven by former IMSA GTP driver Colin Braun, Peugeot Sport Hypercar reserve driver Malthe Jakobsen and George Kurtz, sealing the LMP2 titles in dramatic fashion. A bold strategy call led to a surprise victory in race one on Saturday before a seventh-place finish in Sunday evening’s finale finished the job.
As a result, the team has been awarded an invitation to enter the Le Mans 24 Hours in the LMP2 class, adding to its invite earned through winning the 2023 European Le Mans Series LMP2 Championship last year.
Notably, Kurtz has a personal invitation of his own to race at Le Mans after winning IMSA’s Jim Trueman award in 2023, also with Crowdstrike APR.
Elsewhere, Lithuanian Porsche customer team Pure Rxcing’s fairytale 12 months continued when its 911 GT3 R 992 of Alex Malykhin, Klaus Bachler and Joel Sturm took the hotly-contested GT title. This invitation to enter the 24 Hours adds to its invite earned by winning the World Challenge Europe Bronze Cup title and its full-season WEC entry with Manthey in LMGT3 which grants a space on the grid automatically. This means the team could have as many as three cars on the entry for its debut at the event.
It remains to be seen whether or not the Manthey-supported team will utilize its Asian Le Mans invite at La Sarthe. Primarily, the allure of competing in the Asian Le Mans Series was, according to team owner Edgar Kochanovskij, “to practice, stay in shape and work with Manthey” over the winter.
“The philosophy of the team is to pure, true racing,” Kochanovskij said when asked by RACER what its plans were should it win another invitation.
“If I can find a driver lineup that I am happy to put my name on, then yes [we would use the invitation], but I don’t think it will [be very easy] to find talented, passionate, hard-working and motivated Bronze drivers to fill the entry.”
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Swiss team COOL Racing sealed the LMP3 title in the final race, but there is no invitation for the LMP3 class title winner this season. Instead, the team will receive priority when entering the 2024 Le Mans Cup Road To Le Mans support races held during the Le Mans race week for LMP3 and GT3 cars.
The two invitations handed out Sunday add to the nine already awarded before the start of the Asian Le Mans Series season last December. (All entries are subject to final decisions from the ACO Selection Committee.)
This year’s Asian Le Mans Series season had a grid maxed out at 42 cars, plus the return to Sepang for the first time since the pandemic proved to be a hit with the teams, and the title battles in all three classes went down to the wire.
Before the series decamped at the Yas Marina circuit, the Jordanian-flagged, TF Sport-run 99 Racing ORECA LMP2 squad, which featured former F1 driver Nikita Mazepin in its driver line-up, looked firmly in control.
Mazepin, along with Ahmad Al Harthy and WTRAndretti GTP driver Louis Deletraz won two of the three races at Sepang and Dubai heading into the final meeting. They held a 20-point lead in the standings.
The team’s title hopes fell to pieces this weekend after a smorgasbord of misfortune and drama handed Crowdstrike Racing a lifeline, which it grasped with both hands.
In race one, after starting on pole with a changed driver lineup due to an illness for Mazepin, Al Harthy was turned into a spin on lap one, dropping him to dead last. The car then retired in the third hour after a bizarre incident under safety car conditions.
Al Harthy rear-ended the GT title-winning Pure Rxcing Porsche while both cars were avoiding a car in the queue that suddenly braked hard. He was, somewhat controversially, penalized for his role in the incident. The damage to the No. 99, meanwhile, was severe — the car needing a full rebuild around a new tub from AF Corse overnight ahead of Sunday’s four-hour race.
The efforts of the mechanics would be in vain as the car struggled for pace with a shifting issue throughout the race, lost time due to an emergency service stop under the safety car and was forced to serve a stop-go penalty for the race one incident. Ultimately, they came home only 11th overall, handing the title to Crowdstrike Racing by APR.
Fresh off winning the GT World Challenge America Pro-Am title together, George Kurtz and Colin Braun will continue their partnership next year in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship LMP2 class, driving the CrowdStrike Racing by APR ORECA …
Fresh off winning the GT World Challenge America Pro-Am title together, George Kurtz and Colin Braun will continue their partnership next year in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship LMP2 class, driving the CrowdStrike Racing by APR ORECA LMP2 07.
Kurtz and Braun have co-driven across multiple sports car series, including the 2021 and ’22 WeatherTech Championship seasons when they shared a CORE autosport LMP3 for the endurance races with Jon Bennett. They also teamed with James Allen this year to win the LMP2 Pro-Am class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in an Algarve Pro Racing (APR) entry.
“After the success of our first season together, the expectations are high for CrowdStrike Racing by APR in the IMSA LMP2 championship,” Kurtz said. “It will be good to enter the new season with the experience and knowledge of having worked with the (APR) team in IMSA and at Le Mans. I’m excited about Colin joining the team. His experience with prototypes and our history and success together make him a natural fit. I can’t wait to get the season started at Daytona.”
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Braun spent the 2023 WeatherTech Championship season in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing by Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06 with full-time co-driver Tom Blomqvist. The MSR Acura visited victory circle three times in 2023 and the duo finished third in the championship. With the cessation of MSR’s activities in sports car racing for the time being, Braun was a free agent.
“I can’t wait to get going with CrowdStrike Racing by APR in 2024 and make a run at the LMP2 championship alongside George,” Braun said. “The dedication and professionalism of CrowdStrike Racing is unmatched and I’m honored to share a seat with George, who did such a fantastic job in 2023. It sure looks like LMP2 is going to be stacked with tough competitors, but we are ready for the challenge. IMSA racing is really special, and I look forward to another season.”
Crowdstrike Racing by APR will look to build on its 2023 efforts that netted second in the LMP2 standings for Kurtz. Motorsport Images Images
Kurtz finished second in the WeatherTech Championship LMP2 standings this season with co-driver Ben Hanley, taking LMP2 wins at the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen and the Motul Petit Le Mans, in addition to winning the Jim Trueman Bronze Cup and the accompanying automatic invitation to the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans. The CrowdStrike team has set the primary goal of winning the season championship and earning a second consecutive Jim Trueman Bronze Cup for Kurtz.
Stewart Cox, APR team principal, said the team learned from where it fell short of the 2023 LMP2 championship, which will make it better in 2024. Kurtz, Hanley and the No. 04 ORECA did capture the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup title for the class and the team is aiming to repeat that achievement in ’24 as well.
“We’re pleased with how CrowdStrike Racing by APR’s 2023 campaign went, but we’re already pushing on with the intention for next season being to win the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship LMP2 titles,” Cox said. “We missed out on this year’s by only a few points and we know exactly why, so we will come back with a slightly amended approach that all the math and data says will put us in the best possible position to win the overall championship, and also defend the Michelin Endurance Cup.”
The 2024 WeatherTech Championship season opens with the Rolex 24 At Daytona on Jan. 27-28.
Two full-course cautions in the final hour allowed Colin Braun in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 to go 76 minutes and 52 laps from the team’s final pit stop to claim victory for he and Tom Blomqvist in the Chevrolet Grand Prix at …
Two full-course cautions in the final hour allowed Colin Braun in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 to go 76 minutes and 52 laps from the team’s final pit stop to claim victory for he and Tom Blomqvist in the Chevrolet Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park. It was the team’s second official win of the season, and the team became the first to repeat victory in the 2023 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season after their victory in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, for which they were subsequently docked points for manipulating tire data.
“I managed to hand the car over in the lead early on to Colin, but then it kind of went against us a bit,” said Blomqvist. “We lost (position) in the stop – which we didn’t really foresee, so we need to look at that, understand what went went on – which made our life a little bit more difficult.
“We kind of just rolled the dice and said, ‘There’s no point finishing third, we’re not really in the championship. Let’s roll the dice, hope for some yellows.’And that was really the only chance. We were going for the win. And that last yellow really saved us because it just enabled us to basically go almost flat out to the end. So yeah, awesome job by Colin,” he continued.
Blomqvist had already proven the team’s pace by putting the car on pole and leading the first stint as both Acuras pulled away from the rest of the field, Ricky Taylor in the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura pursuing him. But that pace was nearly negated by strategy and a lucky break for the No. 10. Just before the race’s second full-course-caution with 55m left, Filipe Albuquerque brought the No. 10 in for what would be its final stop; if there were no more yellows, most of the rest of the field would have to stop and the WTR crew would be sitting pretty.
“It was a roller coaster in terms of strategy going on,” Albuquerque stated. “So we were lucky, initially, to go to the pits and then right after a yellow came. I didn’t know if this was good or not for us. If everyone pitted, then we were kind of virtually P1. Then the No. 60 car just took a massive risk, which paid out to go to the end. My initial feeling I got from the team was they are on fumes, like they don’t have enough fuel and old tires, so they might struggle. So I just took it easy; I think it was super important to finish somewhere on top.”
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When Robby Foley in the No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 ran into the back of Aaron Telitz in the No, 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 in Moss Corner and ended up off track with broken suspension, Braun had the opportunity to get into the pits before the third full-course caution came out and the pits closed. However, he drove on past, and the ensuing long yellow allowed the No. 60 to go to the end. A hard crash for the No. 01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R, Renger van der Zande going into the tires at Turn 8 after contact with Augusto Farfus in the No. 24 BMW Team RLL M Hybrid V8, with five minutes left sealed the victory.
“I still had a bit bit of fuel save to do, but I pushed pretty hard for the first couple laps (after the final restart),” Braun explained. “I knew if I could get a bit of breathing room then I could hit some of these fuel numbers a bit easier and not have to worry so much about about the 10 coming back in some of the brakes zones where you’re lifting early to save. So once once I got a bit of a gap, I kind of settled in and started hitting that fuel number really well. I was surprised the kind of the number we could hit and the pace we could still go.”
Albuquerque and Taylor ended up second for an Acura one-two. The No. 25 BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8 of Connor De Phillippi and Nick Yelloly gambled with a different strategy early, coming in after less than 20 minutes to top off the energy, and the team came away with a third-place finish, BMW M Team RLL’s 100th podium, to create a virtual tie at the top of the points with Pipo Derani and Alexander Sims. Derani and Sims’ No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac finished seventh after an extra trip through the pits when they didn’t make it into pit lane before it was closed for a full-course caution.
Sims and Derani still lead the points with 1872. De Phillippi and Yelloly are only 10 behind, and Albuquerque and Taylor were propelled back into the championship fight, sitting at third with 1843, 34 points ahead of Mathieu Jaminet and Nick Tandy.
The surprise of the race in GTP was Mike Rockenfeller and Tijmen van der Helm finishing fourth in the No. 5 JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche 963, the highest placing Porsche. The No. 5 made its first stop earlier than most of the other GTP cars, and hit its third stop with perfect timing, just before the race’s third full-course caution.
Jake Galstad/Lumen
LMP3 turned into a battle between a driver with immense local knowledge and the team that has now won every LMP3 points race this season. Felipe Fraga, after taking over the No. 74 Riley Motorsports Ligier from polesitter Gar Robinson, was leading on the penultimate restart. But Ontario native Garret Grist in the No. 30 Jr III Racing Ligier he shared with Ari Balogh was coming hard. Grist took the lead from Fraga shortly after the restart.
However, Grist lost any advantage he had with some unlucky breaks in traffic, and with less than 10 minutes to go, Fraga attacked, going inside Grist in the final turn. Running side-by-side through the turn, Grist had no room at the exit and went off course, Fraga sailing by while Grist recovered. The incident was reviewed by officials, but no action was taken.
“It was a crazy race,” said Fraga. “Today they were a little bit faster than us, especially in the straights. At Watkins as well, we were fighting crazy hard. In the GT traffic, I basically caught (Grist), two or three seconds in two laps. I think he didn’t expect me to try in the last corner, and I did it. I tried to put him inside, he turned on me, and we had contact. I think that’s what happens when you race really hard. I’m really happy; I expected to finish second today because of our pace, but I’m happy it worked out.”
Grist disagreed with Fraga’s assessment of the situation. “It’s pretty clear what happened. At Watkins Glen I raced clean, here I raced clean. I guess we know how we can race now.”
Fraga and Robinson ended up with the victory, Grist and Balogh were second, and Wayne Boyd and Anthony Mantella were third in the No. 17 AWA Racing Duqueine. Fraga and Robinson have 1115 points, with Boyd and Mantella in second with 934. Grist is alone in third at 928 after Balogh missed the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen.
Colin Braun pulled out a late flyer to take the top spot in the first practice session for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park. Braun posted a time of 1m07.341s in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 …
Colin Braun pulled out a late flyer to take the top spot in the first practice session for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park. Braun posted a time of 1m07.341s in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 to take over the top spot that had been held by Pipo Derani in the No 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac V-Series.R.
Braun’s time was 0.78s quicker than Derani’s best of 1m08.121s. The rest of the GTP field was in the 1m08s range as Acura and Cadillac alternated in the first four positions, Filipe Albuquerque third in the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura ahead of Renger van der Zande in the No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac. Philipp Eng completed the top five in the No. 24 BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8.
Garett Grist posted the top time in LMP3 at his home track, a 1m12.270s lap in the No. 30 Jr III Racing Ligier, followed by Felipe Fraga in the No. 74 Riley Motorsports Ligier, 0.212s off Grist’s best. Matt Bell was third for AWA in the No. 13 Duqueine.
Frankie Montecalvo, who nabbed the GTD pole at CTMP last year, was quickest in the class in the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 at 1m16.558s, 0.112s quicker than Frederik Schandorff in the No. 70 Inception Racing McLaren 720S. Those two headed the GT field overall, with Antonio Garcia third among the GTs and first in GTD PRO in the No. 3 Corvette Racing C8.R. Ben Barnicoat was right behind Garcia, only 0.02s off the Corvette’s time in the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus.
Alex Riberas was third in GTD PRO in the No. 23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3. Robby Foley (No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3) and Loris Spinelli (No. 78 Forte Racing Powered by USRT Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo22) split Barnicoat and RIberas to round out the top four in GTD.
The session was interrupted by two red flags. The first was for the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes AMG stopped on course in Turn 8. The second was for George Staikos in the No. 4 Ave Motorsports LMP3 stopped on course at Turn 5.
UP NEXT: Practice 2, a 1h45m split session beginning at 8am ET.
Rain began to fall 30 minutes into the first practice session for the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen, becoming both a blessing and a curse. While it kept many teams from setting a truly representative dry time, it also allowed IMSA WeatherTech …
Rain began to fall 30 minutes into the first practice session for the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen, becoming both a blessing and a curse. While it kept many teams from setting a truly representative dry time, it also allowed IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship teams a good chance to prepare for the predicted rain on race day.
“The Acura GTP car has been really fast in the dry conditions, but we haven’t had a chance to learn it very much in the rain,” said Colin Braun, watching the weather before the session. “So that’s a bit of an unknown, I think, for us. But I’m really excited to get to drive it in the rain. I think all the tools, all the options, all the work these guys have been doing that to make it a good car in the dry will also make it a good car in the rain.”
Braun, who set the quick time in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06 during the dry part of the session, and the rest of the drivers had plenty of opportunity to figure out their cars in the rain, as the track was well and truly soaked by the end of the session, slowing lap times by some 20s.
With only half an hour of dry running in the 90-minute session, there was a big spread of times in many of the classes. Braun’s 1m33.563s was 1.229s better than Felipe Nasr, second quick in the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsports 963. Nasr, in turn, edged teammate Nick Tandy in the No. 6 PPM 963 by 0.071s. As the rain began to let off toward the end of the session, Brauns’ teammate Tom Blomqvist was consistently quickest, getting down to a 1m48s lap; Augusto Farfus (No. 24 BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8) and Pipo Derani (No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac V-Series.R) both posted 1m49s laps.
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Mikkel Jensen led LMP2 in the No. 11 TDS Racing ORECA at 1m36.066s over Ryan Dalziel in the No. 18 Era Motorsport ORECA. Garrett Grist put the No. 30 Jr III Racing on top of LMP3 with a 1m41.139s.
GTD cars topped the time sheets for the GT cars, Paul Miller Racing and Kellymoss with Riley taking the top two spots. Bryan Sellers was the quick driver in the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 at 1m46.457s, with Jaxon Evans putting the No. 91 Kellymoss with Riley Porsche 911 GT3R in second, 0.66s off Seller’s best time. Leading GTD PRO and third overall among the GT cars was Daniel Serra in the No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 296, making its first appearance since Sebring as a Michelin Endurance Cup-only entry. Serra’s 1m46.552s lap was 0.054s better than Bill Auberlen, who had the No. 95 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 second in GTD PRO, fifth among the GT cars. Andy Lally inserted the No. 44 Magnus Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 in between the top GTD PRO cars on the time sheets as third in GTD. Ross Gunn was third in GTD PRO in the No. 23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage.
Practice was interrupted by a 14-minute long read flag when Jon Falb took the No. 35 TDS Racing ORECA LMP2 off track and into the tire wall at Turn 6. Falb was unhurt, but removing the car and repairing the tire wall took some time. The session also officially ended under red flag when Luke Berkeley spun the GTD-class No. 42 NTE Sport Lamborghini Huracán GT3 exiting Turn 10 with only a few seconds left on the clock.
Dozens of track-limit violations at Turns 1 and 8 were logged during the session, leading to many deleted times and a few drive-through penalties.
Up Next: A 1h45m split practice session Saturday at 8 a.m. ET.
