BMW Team RLL Technical Director John Hennek and driver Connor De Phillippi join RACER’s Ryan Myrehn to discuss preparations for a brand-new venue for the GTP class as well as the intricacies of street course setups. Presented by: RACER’s Trackside …
BMW Team RLL Technical Director John Hennek and driver Connor De Phillippi join RACER’s Ryan Myrehn to discuss preparations for a brand-new venue for the GTP class as well as the intricacies of street course setups.
Honda’s string of reliability woes with its NTT IndyCar Series engines in 2024 has hit two of its drivers at an unexpectedly early phase of the season. With the series’ engine lease and usage rules calling for each entry to receive four motors for …
Honda’s string of reliability woes with its NTT IndyCar Series engines in 2024 has hit two of its drivers at an unexpectedly early phase of the season.
With the series’ engine lease and usage rules calling for each entry to receive four motors for up to 10,000 miles of competition each season, the need to go to a fifth engine (or more) is treated as a breach of IndyCar’s regulations. Going beyond the four motors is considered an “unapproved engine change” and comes with a six-position grid penalty for the driver and, once the fifth motor is installed, that entry is no longer eligible to score points for its engine supplier in the manufacturers’ championship.
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In 2022, IndyCar’s first penalty for exceeding the four engines came towards the end of July. In 2023, it took place in early August. The announcement of fifth-motor penalties for Kyffin Simpson with the No. 4 Chip Ganassi Racing and Graham Rahal in No. 15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing on May 31 are the earliest in memory.
To date, five points-paying IndyCar races have been held in 2024, with the non-championship event at The Thermal Club counting as the sixth. Twelve races remain on the calendar.
With the Indianapolis 500 in the rearview mirror, we return to the season-long focus that matters most to NTT IndyCar Series drivers as Sunday’s Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix launches a 12-race run to settle the championship. At the top, nothing has …
With the Indianapolis 500 in the rearview mirror, we return to the season-long focus that matters most to NTT IndyCar Series drivers as Sunday’s Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix launches a 12-race run to settle the championship.
At the top, nothing has changed after Indy with Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou continuing to hold P1 in the standings with 183 points. Team Penske’s Will Power went into the 500 in second, but with his crash and poor finish and Scott Dixon’s strong run, the Ganassi driver moved to P2 (-20 points to Palou) and Power fell to third (-26).
Pato O’Ward’s runner-up finish for Arrow McLaren at Indy was helpful in the championship as it moved him forward three positions into P4 (-49), and with his crash, O’Ward’s former teammate Colton Herta from Andretti Global slipped to P5 but is tied on points (-49).
Sixth-place Scott McLaughlin from Penske is one of only two drivers along with Palou to enter and leave the 500 in the same position (-52), and the biggest mover of all is Indy winner Josef Newgarden who vaulted to spots from P17 to P7 (-61). Another strong 500 outing for McLaren’s Alexander Rossi came with an improvement from P10 to P8 (-63), and counter to Newgarden, Meyer Shank Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist lost the most positions among title contenders after starting Indy in P5 and finishing it in P9 (-67) after his engine failed.
Andretti’s Kyle Kirkwood, the team’s best at the 500, jumped backwards from P8 to P10 (-68).
Altogether, it’s a Ganassi P1-2, a Penske P3-6-7, a McLaren P4-8, an Andretti P5-10, and MSR in P9 leading into Sunday’s 12:45pm ET green flag for 100 laps on the USA Network.
“You just have to take it as it comes and what we’ve been doing really well this year is just taking things slowly and not overstepping our boundaries,” Herta told RACER of Andretti’s reinvigorated championship bid. “Obviously, the goal is to win and I think we have a good chance at that this weekend here in Detroit. I had a really good car last year we tend to have really cars on the street circuits, so hopefully we put together a good qualifying get a good result for us and go from there.”
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Herta has rediscovered his form in 2024 after running 10th in the last two championships. Prior to his crash last weekend, every finish for Herta in the No. 26 Honda had been between second and eighth, which is why he’s holding fifth in the standings at the moment. Along with his growth and development as a driver, he sees the benefits continuing to play out after Andretti downsized its IndyCar operation from four cars to three in an effort to find more speed and efficiency.
“I’ve really only seen positives from it, having a lot more opportunity with the engineering side to take a little bit more of a breather and not have so much on their plate, being able to look at different reports that maybe we didn’t have before on the driving side,” Herta added. “I know it helps them a lot, for sure, with the main engineers and system engineers just to have an extra helping hand on race weekends, and back in the shop, especially on weekends like this when you’re coming off of a month-long Indy 500 and Indy GP. There’s no time to really prepare for this race so having that extra support really helps them get done with the 500 and get some work done early in the week going into this event.”
Herta is also happy to see how the relationship with Meyer Shank Racing, which uses race engineers, chassis setup information, and dampers supplied by Andretti Technologies, has flourished with the arrival of Rosenqvist to lead MSR. In what has been a one-way relationship for most of its arrangement, MSR and Rosenqvist have been helping Andretti to improve its overall game with the feedback and findings produced by the Swede in the No. 60 Honda.
“It helps a lot and that’s what we want to get out of it,” Herta said. “We want to have fast guys to help if we’re going the wrong way on setup, to come back to what they’re doing or see what’s working. Just to be able to understand what we might be doing wrong or what we can do better with Felix is definitely a value this year. It has been great to have him — as I’d guess you’d call him — a teammate. We’re all working together here.”
The names at the top of the time sheet for the first practice session of the Chevrolet Detroit Sports Car Classic changed quickly and often as the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship drivers acclimated to the 1.654-mile, nine-turn street circuit …
The names at the top of the time sheet for the first practice session of the Chevrolet Detroit Sports Car Classic changed quickly and often as the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship drivers acclimated to the 1.654-mile, nine-turn street circuit they saw for the first time at speed. All four manufacturers were represented in the top five, led by Nick Tandy in the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963.
With the WeatherTech Championship cars the first on course for the weekend, the session was red flagged for 15 minutes while a manhole cover on the back straight was attended to.
Tandy’s 1m06.899s lap (89.01mph) was 0.58s better than the rest of the field, led by Nick Yelloly in the No 25 BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8. Ricky Taylor in the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 was third at 1m07.705s.
BMW M Team RLL’s Phlipp Eng trailed Taylor by 0.06s for fourth quickest in the session, while Renger van der Zande was the best of the Cadillac runners in the No. 01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R in fifth.
Alexander Sims fired the first shot for Chevrolet in the Motown battle, posting a best time of 1m10.509 (84.45mph) to lead GTD PRO in the No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Z06 GT3.R. Joey Hand, though — the only driver in the field with previous experience on the circuit — was not far off driving the No. 65 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang GT3 with a 1m10.846s lap to split the Two Corvettes at the top, Tommy Milner third in the No. 4 Corvette 0.043s off Hand’s best.
Albert Costa Balboa was fourth in the No. 35 Ferrari 296 GT3 as Conquest Racing makes its GTD PRO debut, followed by AO Racing’s Seb Priaulx in the No. 77 Porsche 911 GT3 R.
The second practice session for the WeatherTech Championship begins at 11:30am ET.
The idea of a new racetrack is both exciting and daunting. Especially when the schedule is tight – three-and-a-half hours of testing before qualifying in the case of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s first visit to the 1.654-mile, …
The idea of a new racetrack is both exciting and daunting. Especially when the schedule is tight — three-and-a-half hours of testing before qualifying in the case of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s first visit to the 1.654-mile, nine-turn downtown street circuit — there’s not a lot of time to get acclimated, to set up the car, and find the right references for a consistent, fast lap.
Plus, the circuit will change markedly. The IMSA GTP and GTD PRO cars are the first on the circuit for the weekend at 8am on Friday. Come qualifying, not only have the IMSA teams put a lot of Michelin rubber on the circuit, but the NTT IndyCar Series and Indy NXT series will have had sessions as well and the grip will be dramatically different.
“It’s a unique weekend coming up in Detroit,” notes Alex Riberas, driver of the No. 23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo in GTD PRO with Ross Gunn. “The Motor City is going to provide a unique circumstance, which is that nobody has really driven on that circuit before so it’s hard to know what to expect in terms of what the track is going to be like, what the car is going to feel like and that is super exciting. That uncertainty is going to provide a lot of opportunities.”
To maximize their limited time, drivers are looking for any source of information that might prove useful. Video from last year’s IndyCar and Michelin Pilot Challenge races, especially onboards, will have been consumed voraciously. Drivers and engineers that can gather information from teams and drivers that have raced the circuit will certainly do so. Some have even checked out the streets in a rental car. And much of the information has already been fed into simulators for drivers to get some pre-weekend feel.
In the case of Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports, relevant data from the Chevrolet IndyCar Series teams was applied to the driver-in-the-loop simulator. Those teams that have had access to such data will certainly roll off the truck better prepared than others.
Joey Hand may be the best prepared of the drivers, as he raced the circuit in a McCumbee McAleer Racing Ford Mustang GT4 last year. While a different beast from his No. 65 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang GT3, a firsthand look at the circuit never hurts.
“I think I have a little bit of advantage compared to probably most everybody. At least I know what I’m getting into,” Hand says. “I know for sure that it’s the tightest track we’re going to run — it’s no Long Beach. Long Beach is probably the widest, fastest street course that I’ve driven. And Detroit is the tightest street course I’ve ever driven. I mean, in the neighborhood of Trois-Rivieres. And then it has this massive, massive straightaway.
The GTP cars have already taken to the streets this year at Long Beach, but Detroit is expected to be a whole different animal. Motorsport Images
“For sure, one of the things we’re going to think about there is bump compliance. Compliancy was a thing that we had to work through with the GT4 car, because the back section around the buildings by the river, there’s these massive, kind of like, whoops-style bumps.”
Different cars, sure, but first-hand knowledge certainly translates. But what about a team that has both an IndyCar Series and WeatherTech Championship GTP component, such as the Chip Ganassi arm of Cadillac Racing, Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti, BMW M Team RLL, or Porsche Penske Motorsport? An IndyCar and a GTP car are both purpose-built carbon monocoque race cars with lots of power, but that’s kind of where the similarities end.
“There’s some general overview that goes across the engineering as far as general questions, or maybe things we struggle with,” explains PPM’s competition director Travis Law. “But for the most part, it’s very specific to your car and and the rules that apply. So we basically have to learn for ourselves and take the best approach that we think we can.”
All the preparation that a team or driver can do before hand certainly helps. But, really, it’s feet and tires on the ground that’s really going to feed the information banks.
“I’m a big street course fan, so it’s always exciting to see a new one,” says Dane Cameron, driver of the No. 7 PPM 963 with Felipe Nasr, the GTP points leaders coming into Detroit. “Belle Isle was one of my favorites. I had a lot of success there. Obviously, that was a difficult race to pull off, and it was a big deal to move into the city center. So I watched the IndyCar race last year, watched a little bit of onboard, we’ll do some sim work. And then, obviously, the track walk when you arrive there is hugely important. That’s kind of first time you really put your eyes on it and really see the details and start to see the surface and bumps and curves. That really starts to connect the picture of, ‘OK, what can I use? What can I not use? What do I need to look out for?’
“In general a street course evolves so much, you can kind of just go and learn with it, so to speak.You arrive, you have to be conservative because there’s no grip — that kind of ties in with you finding your way exploring — and as you start to understand you get more comfortable with the layout in those first 5, 10 laps. The track is evolving quite a lot as well and just progresses over the weekend.”
It’s less than 33 hours from the time the green flies for the first practice session at 8am on Friday until the checker falls on the 1h40m race at 4:50pm on Saturday. That’s not much time to process a lot of information, and the teams that do it well — luck permitting — will be on the podium at the end.
It’s been a while since a classic Ford vs. Chevy battle on the streets of Motown. Sure, such rivalries may be played out daily on Woodward Ave., but in a proper race, it’s been since the Ford GTs and Chevrolet Corvettes in the IMSA WeatherTech …
It’s been a while since a classic Ford vs. Chevy battle on the streets of Motown. Sure, such rivalries may be played out daily on Woodward Ave., but in a proper race, it’s been since the Ford GTs and Chevrolet Corvettes in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTLM category faced off on Belle Isle. Before that it was Mustang vs. Camaro in Trans Am, and then back to the CART IndyCar days, with Ilmor Chevrolet and Ford Cosworth powerplants in the back of Reynards and Lolas fighting for Detroit glory.
With both companies headquartered in metropolitan Detroit, the rivalry takes center stage in this year when each have introduced new GT3 cars, the Mustang GT3 and the Corvette Z06 GT3.R. It’s going to be company pride on the line with many employees of both on hand to witness the battle.
The Ford Multimatic Motorsports drivers, along with Mustang GT3 Rs, toured several Ford campuses on Wednesday. And Dirk Mueller was very much looking forward to seeing the Ford GT with which he, Joey Hand and Sebastien Bourdais won the 24 Hours of Le Mans at The Henry Ford museum before getting down to business.
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“The pressure’s right there just because we want to be winning and be on pole and winning races coming to Detroit,” Mueller said. “Honestly, I just got goosebumps thinking about it. I get to be together with everybody. We are heading to the Henry Ford Museum. and I are going to see my winning Le Mans car, which is sitting there. We have a full day planned, being with the Ford family, being in the plant. So it’s it’s a huge day coming up, which I’m already really looking forward to seeing the employees and you have a little interaction there. And then you want to extra-perform.”
“You go into Detroit, and it’s a big deal for everybody,” added Hand. “I know we have a lot of Ford people there and Ford family, I’m sure.”
The pressure is on the Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports drivers as well. First, the weekend is called the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix Presented by Lear. Second, the 1.654-mile, nine-turn street circuit goes around the Renaissance Center, the site of General Motors’ headquarters. Plus, car builder Pratt Miller is nearby. Like the Mustang GT3, the Corvette Z06 GT3.R has yet to notch its first win in IMSA competition, although it has scored victories in Fanatec GT World Challenge America with DXDT. Nicky Catsburg and Tommy Milner scored the Corvette’s first podium at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in the last outing.
“Obviously we want to do well there, for sure,” said Antonio Garcia, driver of the No. 3 Z06 GT3.R with Alexander Sims. “The target is to win there. We are running around the RenCen, so for us it’s very, very important if we can win around there.”
The Corvette squad has been leaning on its Chevrolet IndyCar Series brethren, who have a already run a race on the new downtown street circuit, although it’s slightly revised for this year. The data has gone into the driver-in-the-loop simulator, so they might have an edge. In the Ford camp, though, Hand ran the Michelin Pilot Challenge race on the circuit last year in a Mustang GT4, so he has first-hand knowledge. Either way, both teams are eager to get their first wins with the new cars, and Detroit would be the ideal place to do it.
“I think it would be great,” said Catsburg. “Honestly, that would be the perfect location to do so. I believe that many of our team members will invite family also, so it would be a great confirmation of the hard work that they’ve done over the last month and obviously a bit of a change for all of us.”
The 100-minute race, the fifth round of the WeatherTech Championship, is scheduled for a green flag at 3:10pm ET on Saturday.
Six years, 11 months, and 23 days. That’s the gap between Tristan Vautier’s last NTT IndyCar Series start for Dale Coyne Racing and his next, which will take place on Sunday at the Detroit Grand Prix in the No. 51 Honda. The talented Frenchman, …
Six years, 11 months, and 23 days. That’s the gap between Tristan Vautier’s last NTT IndyCar Series start for Dale Coyne Racing and his next, which will take place on Sunday at the Detroit Grand Prix in the No. 51 Honda.
The talented Frenchman, winner of the 2012 Indy Lights championship, spent his rookie season in 2013 with the team known today as Arrow McLaren, and lacking a budget to continue, turned to sports cars before making a return to IndyCar in the second half of 2015 with Coyne where he produced a career-best finish of fourth at Detroit.
With his injured friend and countryman Sebastien Bourdais sidelined after suffering a major crash in qualifying at the 2017 Indianapolis 500, Vautier was among the drivers drafted in by Coyne to keep Bourdais’ car in action while he recovered. After placing 16th at Texas Motor Speedway that June, Vautier will get another opportunity to show his skills nearly seven years to the day of his last IndyCar outing.
“That’s the funny thing; there hasn’t been anything since 2017, but we’ve always kept a good relationship with Dale,” Vautier told RACER. “Dale has his famous saying, ‘You never know,’ and this opportunity to race again in IndyCar with him is exactly like his saying.”
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A little-known fact about the relationship between Coyne and Vautier is the trust the Illinois-based team owner has in his former — and now current — driver. Although there hasn’t been a need to make use of it since Texas in 2017, Coyne has carried Vautier’s seat in his IndyCar transporters over the last six years and 11 months just in case he needed an emergency stand-in to pilot one of his cars.
Vautier’s seat has completed tens of thousands of miles trekking across the country since 2017, and finally, it will be taken down from the rafters and fitted once again to a Dale Coyne Racing entry.
“Dale has always kept my seat so it’s ready for me if he calls, so it’s great to get to use it!” Vautier said with a laugh.
Vautier’s best IndyCar result came at Detroit – albeit on a different track and in a different era. Michael Levitt/Motorsport Images
The 34-year-old has been out of open-wheel racing for a good while, but that shouldn’t be mistaken for anything other than a lack of opportunities. Vautier’s been among the most popular solutions for European and American sports car teams for more than a decade, racing in IMSA’s top prototype class — which included an overall win at the 12 Hours of Sebring in 2021 — and at Le Mans.
He spent the 2023 season racing in the European Le Mans Series in the LMP2 category and has stayed ready for a call like the one he received from Coyne. Finding his way back to a full-time IndyCar role is a longshot, but attracting the interest of an IMSA GTP team owner for 2025 would be helpful.
“I think if you were trying to write a script with the way my career has gone, you couldn’t really do it,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of opportunities like this that put me back on the map, so that is what I’m hoping for. I’m not scared of doing this with no preparation, but to be fully honest and humble, I certainly don’t underestimate the challenge.
“This will be the longest since I’ve been in an IndyCar, and with the most changes to the car; I’ve never used the aeroscreen. I don’t know the track. But again, I am gonna go there, I’m hungry, and I’m going to do my best and see where it leads me. What do I have to lose, right? It’s super exciting for me and I like these opportunities.”
Vautier’s surprise IndyCar return is set for Detroit, but he won’t be able to continue the following weekend at Road America in the No. 51 Honda as he’s been hired by Chip Ganassi Racing as its reserve driver for Cadillac Racing at the 24 Hours of Le Mans which holds its official test day — for which some drivers have waivers while racing elsewhere on Sunday, June 9 — where Vautier will need to be present with the team in France.
It’s certainly been a good couple of weeks to be a Penske driver. First Mathieu Jaminet and Nick Tandy took the second win of the season for Porsche Penske Motorsports in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna …
It’s certainly been a good couple of weeks to be a Penske driver. First Mathieu Jaminet and Nick Tandy took the second win of the season for Porsche Penske Motorsports in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. That victory was also the 100th for Penske in sports car racing and the 600th for Porsche in IMSA competition. The following Sunday, Team Penske locked out the front row for the 108th running of the Indianapolis 500, and Joey Logano won the NASCAR All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway. Then Josef Newgarden, who drove with PPM for its 2024 Rolex 24 At Daytona win, scored his second consecutive Indy 500 victory.
With all those other wins, adding triumphs for PPM Porsche 963s in the Rolex 24 and the World Endurance Championship season opener at Qatar, it’s shaping up to be a very good year for the sports car teams. Focus for now is on the 1h40m race on the streets of Detroit, but it will shift immediately to the biggest prize in sports car endurance racing, the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Should the team claim victory in the famed French race, it would be Porsche’s 20th overall win.
Before his Indy 500 heroics Josef Newgarden was part of Porsche Penske Motorsports’ first triumph of 2024 for the organization, sharing the winning Porsche 963 GTP at the Rolex 24 with Matt Campbell, Felipe Nasr and Dane Cameron. Michael Levitt/Motorsport Images
Bolstering its opportunities, in addition to its two regular cars for WEC, PPM is adding a third for IMSA regulars Felipe Nasr, Tandy and Jaminet. Of course, the manufacturer could get that 20th win from one of the other teams running the 963, JOTA and Proton Competition, as JOTA showed at Spa. A customer team taking a victory in WEC shows the strength of Porsche’s program at the moment.
“Last year, we all know the results … and we did a lot of hard work on both sides of the Atlantic, both teams, we worked on operation, we worked on the reliability — probably it was the biggest change from last year to this year,” explains Urs Kuratle, Porsche’s Motorsport Director of Factory Racing. “And third parties, the performance as well. So we worked on all those areas. If you participate in the Porsche family, Penske, in the championship, either IMSA or WEC, it doesn’t matter … but you’re there to win and you have to win — that was the expectation. Yes, we’ve come a long way if you want, but all the work, now it pays off. And the two teams and the customers, they’re making progress. All those things are coming together now and starting to pay off.”
Laurents Vanthoor — who races in WEC in the No. 6 963 with Andre Lotterer and Kevin Estre and joined Jaminet, Tandy and Estre in the No. 6 for a fourth-place finish at Daytona — agrees everything is moving in the right direction for the team.
“I think we are clearly on a very different path last year, which I think is normal. And I do have the confidence that this will carry on,” Vanthoor says. “I think we’ve been to a track which we knew favored us, where obviously the result was good; then we went to a track where we maybe were a little bit more worried, and nevertheless, the result was good as well. And we had a race [at Spa] where there were some troubles thrown our way, despite things going all right later on. Nevertheless, we performed and we executed. So that gives me the confidence that we’re going the right way, that we currently are making the right decisions.
“But we’re obviously not the only ones. The others will continue to work to try and catch us and there will be plenty of other competitors in Le Mans fighting for the same thing. But I’m having quite a lot of confidence going into Le Mans that we that we will be good — and also for the rest of the year.”
The same is true of the IMSA squads. Nasr and Dane Cameron lead the standings, while Tandy and Jaminet are fifth in a very tight points race. PPM Competition Director Travis Law is focused on the Detroit battle this weekend, but knows that each race builds on the next.
“It’s been a lot of success within the organization, which we really enjoy,” he says of Team Penske’s good days recently. “It’s great to see everyone’s else success — not that you need more motivation, but it’s definitely great. You want to be the next person to bring home another successful day and build on the the ones that you’ve seen. Across the PPM 963 organization, we’ve been working really hard on both sides to make sure we’re successful every weekend. We’re obviously looking forward to Le Mans and want to come back stronger than we were last year and hopefully have a similar result as Daytona.”
Expectations of excellence are shared across all the Penske teams and their crews. Michael Levitt/Motorsport Images
Cameron, back in the IMSA fold after a season competing full-time in WEC, won’t be competing at Le Mans this year. But as the sports car driver with the most history in the Penske organization, he’ll be watching and rooting for the other teams competing at Indy and Charlotte this weekend as he prepares to get a second season victory for the No. 7 963 at Detroit.
“There’s not a lot of crossover between some of these programs unless there has to be, which you’ve seen in some of the personnel over the last few weeks,” Cameron explains. “On one hand it is it is a big family and we’re supportive of all the other divisions of Team Penske. But on the other side, our world is IMSA sports car at the moment and global Porsche 963 programs, so that’s kind of our focus. There’s really not much we can we can do or interact with the rest of it. But it was a good road over the weekend — the [IndyCar team] guys have got fast cars at the Speedway, so that’s always great, that makes me happy. Things are operating really well, I think, in every program at the moment, in terms of results as of late, so we just keep doing what we’re doing.”
It’s going to be a busy June for the Porsche Penske Motorsport squad and some of its personnel as the team has Detroit immediately followed the next weekend by Le Mans test day, then the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and culminating with the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen a week after Le Mans. It will certainly be a challenge keeping the whirlwind moving on the right trajectory.
The GTD PRO entry list for the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix presented by Lear, the fifth round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, grows by two from its normal sprint race size with the addition of two GTD teams joining the fray. The …
The GTD PRO entry list for the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix presented by Lear, the fifth round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, grows by two from its normal sprint race size with the addition of two GTD teams joining the fray. The extras bring the total entry for the June 1 GTP and GTD Pro-only contest to 21.
Vasser Sullivan Racing is bringing both its Lexus RC F GT3s to Detroit, and classing the normal GTD pairing of Parker Thompson and Frankie Montecalvo as a PRO entry. Vasser Sullivan also ran two cars at Long Beach in GTD, rearranging its driver lineup to do so, and Thompson and Barnicoat took the victory there.
Conquest Racing is usually competing in GTD with Manny Franco and Albert Costa Balboa. For Detroit, it’s putting Ferrari ace Daniel Serra in Franco’s place in the No. 35 Ferrari 296 GT3 to run GTD PRO, marking one of the few, if not only, appearances of a Ferrari in GTD PRO in a sprint race this season.
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With no conflict with the World Endurance Championship for the Detroit round, Heart of Racing will be back it its regular GTD PRO lineup of Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas in the NO. 23 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo.
The rest of the GTD PRO field is as usual as they head into their only race without GTD traffic to deal with. Seb Priaulx and Laurin Heinrich lead the GTD PRO points heading into Detroit, courtesy of a victory in the AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. The AO Racing pair has 981 points to 925 for Barnicoat and Jack Hawksworth as the defending champions look for their second victory of the season. The Paul Miller Racing duo of Madison Snow and Bryan Sellers are third at 888.
GTP will have its usual complement of 10 cars, two cars each for the factory teams for Acura, BMW, Cadillac and Porsche, plus the two privateer Porsche 963s from JDC-Miller MotorSports and Proton Competition. Proton retains its Laguna Seca lineup of Bent Viscaal alongside Gianmaria Bruni.
Felipe Nasr and Dane Cameron lead the GTP standings for Porsche Penske Motorsports with 1,357 points coming into Detroit, followed by Whelen Cadillac Racing’s Pipo Derani and Jack Aitken with 1,307 and Renger van der Zande and Sebastien Bourdais at 1,269 for Cadillac Racing. Four different GTP teams have won the four races so far this season; GTD PRO has had three different winners in the three races the class has been featured.
The 1.654-mil, nine-turn temporary street circuit in downtown Detroit will be new for all the IMSA teams, although the NTT IndyCar Series with which the WeatherTech Championship shares the bill christened it last year, supported by the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge GS class. The last time the WeatherTech Championship raced in Detroit, it was on the Belle Isle circuit in 2022. Bourdais and van der Zande won that race for Cadillac in DPi, and Barnicoat and Kyle Kirkwood won GTD for Vasser Sullivan and Lexus.
Bourdais and van der Zande won at Long Beach in April, so perhaps a bit of street-circuit prowess will carry over for Detroit; but Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti’s Jordan Taylor has more victories in Detroit than any other driver. There is one driver in the GTD PRO field who has experience on this circuit, Ford Multimatic Motorsports’ Joey Hand, who ran the Michelin Pilot Challenge race last year.
Two practice sessions will be followed by qualifying on Friday, May 31. The 1h40m race is scheduled for a green flag on Saturday, June 1 at 3:10pm ET. Qualifying coverage will be on Peacock and IMSA.tv at 4:35pm ET on Friday, and the race will be broadcast live on USA Network beginning at 3pm ET, as well as Peacock. IMSA radio (IMSA.com and RadioLeMans.com) will feature commentary during each session, qualifying and race.
A few more dates on the next NTT IndyCar Series calendar have been confirmed via today’s release of IMSA’s wide array of 2024 schedules for its premiere and training series. Although most of the offerings fall in places that were expected, IndyCar …
A few more dates on the next NTT IndyCar Series calendar have been confirmed via today’s release of IMSA’s wide array of 2024 schedules for its premiere and training series.
Although most of the offerings fall in places that were expected, IndyCar fans have additional dates to formally plug into their calendars, starting with the St. Petersburg Grand Prix on March 8-10 and the Grand Prix of Long Beach on April 19-21.
IMSA’s return to Detroit across the May 31-June 2 weekend follows the 108th Indianapolis 500 on May 26, and based on nearly a decade of IndyCar’s month of May cadence, the Indianapolis Grand Prix would be likely to run two weeks prior on Friday-Saturday, May 10-11 with Indy 500 qualifying up next on May 18-19.
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A change of location for next year’s season finale was announced on Thursday with the Nashville Grand Prix moving to September 13-15, and according to the series, Laguna Seca — its soon-to-be former host of the last race — will remain on the schedule, but at a different point on the calendar.
As RACER recently revealed, the trip west to Monterey was being look at as a perfect solution to fill the extended gap between St. Petersburg and Texas, with Laguna Seca primed to become Round 2 on the schedule. However, a more recent update suggests March — when rainfall is prevalent along the California coast — is no longer under consideration for the event, which could push it to an early summer date in light of the busy IndyCar run from April through May.
