Indianapolis Motor Speedway – Page 3

‘Refreshing’ run to second in Gallagher GP still stings for Rahal

Graham Rahal has spoken of his frustration over missing out on victory in IndyCar’s Gallagher Grand Prix on the Indy road course, after looking the class of the field throughout the race. He led 36 laps of the 85, but his dominance was greater than …

Graham Rahal has spoken of his frustration over missing out on victory in IndyCar’s Gallagher Grand Prix on the Indy road course, after looking the class of the field throughout the race.

He led 36 laps of the 85, but his dominance was greater than that statistic shows, since many of the laps he didn’t spend leading he was behind only those on an alternative strategy.

However, one of those was Scott Dixon, who went for just two scheduled stops after being spun to the back of the field on the opening lap, giving him a chance to top off with fuel, get off the Firestone primaries and run only the red sidewalled alternates for the remainder of the race, on what was very clearly a “red” day at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. When the other fast drivers made their third stops, Dixon moved back up to the head of the field with a 7s lead, and while Rahal hunted him down, he didn’t have the wherewithal to zap past the six-time champion and finished 0.5s adrift.

“I thought we did all right today,” said Rahal, who a day earlier had scored his fourth career pole position, his first in over six years. “I was worried a little last night that we didn’t have three sets of reds to use. We had a blister on the left front [on the] qualifying set. Not really sure why. It wasn’t a flat spot or anything. Unfortunately it made it so that set wasn’t usable for us today.

“I knew that the two middle stints on black, I was going to have to drive the wheels off of it just to maintain my gap. We were able to do that and actually pull a little bit more of a gap. [Dixon]…all the stints had reds, just blacks to reds. I was chasing down the best ever to do this; it’s not an easy thing.

“We got that last stint, and I knew we were going to have to make a lot of time. Catching him about 0.7s a lap. Traffic came into play. It is what it is.

“At the end of the day we have nothing to be ashamed of. I thought we laid it all on the line, did a great job as an organization this weekend. To get a podium in a year like this obviously feels good. To get a win would have been better, but that’s the way this goes.

“I thought, from what I could see gap-wise, we did the best job on blacks, by far, of anybody today. I knew when Alex [Rossi] or Christian [Lundgaard] were behind me on blacks, they weren’t anywhere near our pace. I was able to hold Christian off on reds. The guys did a great job of giving me a car I could attack with today.”

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Rahal observed that the eight-lap yellow to clear up the first lap fracas was key to Dixon’s triumph, since it meant the reduced pace – and the fact that the No. 9 crew could top him off with fuel and change his black tires for reds – meant that he could run a two-stop race.

“Aside from an eight-lap yellow that didn’t need to be eight laps, that may have had an effect on today. The reality is that’s the way that these things go,” said Rahal. “I asked the guys, ‘I don’t know why we’re not going green. This doesn’t make any sense.’ I knew when [Dixon] pitted, I was like, ‘Son of a…’ You give the guy an inch, he’s going to get a mile. He’s the best at saving fuel, going fast, doing the things he does. I did that exact strategy two years ago so I know it works.

“It was nice, though, in general, just to have a smooth day. Never really felt totally under pressure. Felt that when guys did close on me, that I could respond and pull the gap when I needed to. Never had a single brake lock today. Just a very kind of straightforward day, which was very refreshing for the year that we’ve had.”

Rahal admitted that he knew as soon as he got on Dixon’s tail that passing the Ganassi car would not be the work of a moment.

“Right away I could see he wasn’t sliding around a lot,” said Rahal, who is still seeking his first win since Detroit in 2017. “He used the tires a little. Dixie is not going to just make a mistake. I knew it was going to have to be a flawless run. Frankly, I almost had it, meaning I needed about one more car length to be closer out of Turn 13 to be able to get by. But I pulled off of [push-to-pass boost] because I wasn’t really gaining. I was kind of just holding steady.

“Because of his race pattern being so much more fuel saving, he had a lot more overtake at one stage. We were catching him at the end. He was starting to use overtake. At one point he had 60s more than me. I think at the end we ended up equal. He was using it to stay ahead of me.”

Rahal later confessed: “I certainly wanted one bad today. Frankly…to come up short, it definitely, definitely stings. He made the strategy work. He’s [incredibly] good at that.”

Dixon edges Rahal in a modern day IMS ‘spin and win’

Scott Dixon scored his 54th IndyCar victory after being knocked into a spin on the opening lap following a Turn 7 pile-up. The six-time champion made a late stop under yellow and then made only two more scheduled stops, masterfully saving fuel and charging. After everyone else’s final stops, he held a 7s margin over polesitter Graham Rahal, and although the Rahal Letterman Lanigan driver closed the gap down to 0.5s, he couldn’t find a way around the No. 9 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda. It marked the 19th consecutive year in which Dixon has scored at least one win, and it came in his 319th consecutive start.

CGR teammate Alex Palou finished only seventh but has extended his championship lead to 101 points, after Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden got caught up in the first lap fracas and finished 25th, two laps down.

Yellow flag comes out after this 4-car incident.

📺: USA & Peacock#INDYCAR // #GallagherGP pic.twitter.com/ErTqETTiIw

— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) August 12, 2023

The Rahal Letterman Lanigan Hondas on the front row started the race on the Firestone alternates as did Alexander Rossi of Arrow McLaren, but the McLaren team had split strategies, for alongside Rossi was teammate Pato O’Ward on the primaries, as were Devlin DeFrancesco and Romain Grosjean in fifth and sixth in Andretti Autosport Hondas.

Rahal made a strong start and Lundgaard did not, immediately challenged by O’Ward. But it was DeFrancesco who made the best start of all down the outside, hung with Rahal into Turn 1 and had the inside for Turn 2 and they took the lead.

Along the back straight, the midfield was four-wide, and under braking for Turn 7, a collision between Ganassi teammates Marcus Armstrong and Palou was exacerbated by the very fast-starting Dixon getting collected by Grosjean who had lost positions almost from the drop of the green. The six-time champion spun but got restarted and pitted under yellow, as did Grosjean. Armstrong spun around and while most avoided him, Newgarden, who had started 25th after losing six spots to an engine change, found the stricken No. 11 car right in his path and mounted his right-front and stuck there. By the time the AMR Safety Team had got him down on all four wheels, the two-time champion had lost a lap, and he then had to limp to the pits for a new nosecone.

The race restarted at the end of lap seven with DeFrancesco pursued by Rahal, O’Ward, Lundgaard, Rossi, and Felix Rosenqvist, up from ninth. Rossi outbraked Lundgaard for fourth into Turn 1 to move onto O’Ward’s tail, taking advantage of his red-sidewalled Firestones. Behind Rosenqvist (who was on primaries) was Scott McLaughlin, Kyle Kirkwood, Palou and Jack Harvey.

Next time by, Rahal passed DeFrancesco into Turn 1, and then Rossi – who had predictably passed O’Ward – demoted DeFrancesco. Just a little further back, Palou passed Kirkwood along the back straight to snatch eighth, while both O’Ward and Lundgaard got around DeFrancesco on lap 11. The following lap the young Canadian had also fallen victim to Rosenqvist and McLaughlin, but teammate Kirkwood had gone in the opposite direction, re-passing Palou after the Spaniard was knocked sideways as he failed to pass DeFrancesco. The runaway points leader retaliated next time by and then passed DeFrancesco successfully.

Lundgaard used his alternates to get past O’Ward and move into third, now 2.5s behind Rossi who was still within one second of Rahal.

Kirkwood pitted from eighth and Will Power pitted from 15th on lap 14, both collecting fresh alternates, and the following lap Rosenqvist did the same. O’Ward, coming from primaries, was more than happy to stop and get off his primaries and take on a set of new alternates.

McLaughlin, who had been promoted by O’Ward and Rosenqvist making their first stops, pitted from fourth on lap 20, while Rossi – who had been 1.2s behind Rahal – flicked into pitlane on lap 21 to pick up fresh primaries. That left Rahal and Lundgaard up in an RLL 1-2, just 3s apart, with Palou 3.6s back, pursued by Ericsson and Ed Carpenter Racing’s Ryan Hunter-Reay. They, Linus Lundqvist and Sting Ray Robb were now the only drivers to have not stopped.

RHR stopped on lap 23, and then leader Rahal got out of the danger zone by collecting new primaries, and Palou and Ericsson followed suit. Rahal just got out ahead of Rossi and, despite warm tires, the McLaren driver couldn’t get in position to challenge. In fact, the more likely change was for second, as Lundgaard set a strong in-lap and was well serviced by the No. 45 RLL crew on lap 26, so that he emerged right on Rossi’s tail. In fact, the Arrow McLaren driver on primaries was a sitting duck, and Lundgaard on fresh alternates dived up the inside of Rossi into Turn 1 next time by to claim second and started working on his 2.5s deficit to primary-tired Rahal.

THIS. BATTLE.
@lundgaardoff ⚔️ @AlexanderRossi

📺: USA & Peacock
#INDYCAR // #GallagherGP pic.twitter.com/yiwpXTtuxK

— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) August 12, 2023

Once those who had pitted under the very early yellow made their second stops – Grosjean (lap 29) and Dixon (lap 32) – the RLL battle was for the lead. Interestingly, despite a supposed tire advantage, Lundgaard was not gaining much on his teammate, and at this point they still remained 2s apart. On lap 33 of the scheduled 85, Rossi ran 4s behind Lundgaard, 1.3s ahead of O’Ward, with Palou a similar distance behind him. McLaughlin was sixth, 3s ahead of Rosenqvist, while Kirkwood, Ericsson and Power ran in convoy, completing the top 10.

That lasted only until the end of lap 36 when Power made his second stop and took on his third set of alternates. Nearer the front, O’Ward passed Rossi for third, while Lundgaard was now moving in on Rahal, the gap down to 1s by lap 38, and then O’Ward and Rossi pitted for a second time, both of them taking used alternates.

Palou and McLaughlin pitted on lap 42, and Palou emerged just behind Rossi, while Ericsson went three laps longer, his stop promoting O’Ward to fourth, between the out-of-sequence Dixon and Grosjean. At the front, Rahal had done fine job in traffic to get his advantage over Lundgaard out to 1.4s before finally pitting at the end of lap 48, just before he had to try and tackle Santino Ferrucci’s AJ Foyt Racing Chevrolet. He emerged in third behind Dixon but more significantly, 5s clear of O’Ward.

Lap 51 saw Lundgaard pull in for a disastrous stop, the Toronto winner stationary for 11s due to a refueling difficulty. Not only did it mean the Dane didn’t have a hope of beating Rahal on the overcut, he also lost out to O’Ward.

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So with 30 laps to go, Dixon, who was hoping to make it to the checker on just one more stop – like those pursuing him – led by 6.6s over Rahal who had 5.4s on O’Ward, with Lundgaard 0.6s behind, chased by Rossi, Palou, McLaughlin, Power and Kirkwood. That being the case, Dixon was looking ominously strong. The lap one spin and early stop was now looking the perfect strategy, thanks to the six-time champ’s brilliant fuel-saving. With all those ahead needing to stop, and a pitstop taking around 37-38s, Dixon’s 31s deficit to Rahal looked just fine…

Sure enough. Rossi, McLaughlin and Power pitted at the end of lap 61, O’Ward and Lundgaard stopped on lap 62 – in fact, all of those ahead of Dixon pitted, and so he sat up front, 7s ahead of Rahal who had 4.3s on an O’Ward, Lundgaard, Rossi train. The latter was 5s clear of Palou, who had 4.5s over the McLaughlin vs. Power battle for seventh. Kirkwood and Rosenqvist were ninth and 10th. The latter was the only driver in the top 10 running on primaries and thus was vulnerable to VeeKay and Ericsson who passed him on lap 67. In fact, he had more issues, and suddenly he lost pace and limped to the pits. On lap 68, Power passed McLaughlin for seventh and pulled away, starting to chip away Palou’s advantage.

Up front, Rahal was charging hard, and closed the gap to Dixon down to 4s with 15 laps to go, while pulling his margin over to O’Ward to 5.7s. With 10 laps to go, Rahal’s deficit was down to 3s, and two laps later it was 2.5s, and next time by Dixon was struggling to lap Hunter-Reay with the No. 15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan car only 1.9s in arrears. Rahal was then held up by the Carpenter car and the gap stalled at 1.6s. Once he was through, Rahal immediately closed in on the leading Ganassi car and at the end of lap 82 he was only 0.5s behind, as Dixon struggled to get around DeFrancesco. Fifteen seconds back, Power passed Palou for sixth.

Down the front straight, at the start of the penultimate lap, Rahal was barely 0.25s behind and Dixon was having to protect his line, but Rahal got wide in the Turn 12-14 sequence. He charged back after it but it wasn’t enough. Dixon was flawless.

O’Ward completed the podium, 8s from victory, but 1.2s clear of Lundgaard and Rossi. Power’s charge from 16th to sixth was overshadowed by Dixon’s spin and win, but was impressive nonetheless, while Palou’s seventh compared with Newgarden’s 25th, two laps down, means the Ganassi ace now holds a 101-point championship lead…but now over Dixon, who is four points ahead of the Penske ace.

RESULTS

IndyCar silly season update from Gallagher GP at IMS

RACER’s Marshall Pruett takes us through the latest silly season developments with Alex Palou. Or click HERE to watch on YouTube. Presented by: RACER’s IndyCar Trackside Report at the Gallagher Grand Prix is presented by Skip Barber Racing School. …

RACER’s Marshall Pruett takes us through the latest silly season developments with Alex Palou.

Or click HERE to watch on YouTube.

Presented by:

RACER’s IndyCar Trackside Report at the Gallagher Grand Prix is presented by Skip Barber Racing School. With multiple locations in the US, Skip Barber Racing School has developed more winning racers than any other school. Their alumni have taken the podium in all facets of motorsports including NASCAR, INDYCAR, SCCA, World Challenge and IMSA. Click to learn more.

Wallace just wants to have fun as he chases a playoff berth

In the thick of fighting for a spot in the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, Bubba Wallace is shifting his focus to having fun. Doing so, however, correlates to trying to secure his first postseason berth. Wallace enters the Indianapolis road course – his …

“Not locked in. Not safe,” Wallace said Saturday. “I was watching the race last night (from 2022) and I’m like, ‘I finished third in the second stage?’ Alright, [heck] of a strategy. My engineer was like, ‘And you ran second for a long time!’ I’m like, ‘Ha!’

“We’ll be fine. My main objective for these next two weeks, especially, is just to go out and have fun. It’s all going to go out the window lap one when I’m 2s off the pace, but I just want to get back to having fun. It goes away when you get to the Cup level, unfortunately.”

Wallace finished fifth on the Indianapolis road course last season. It was his first top-10 result on a road course in his Cup Series career and made his average finish through the first two Indianapolis races ninth.

The 23XI Racing driver is not yet in a position to mathematically clinch a playoff spot on points, which is something Kevin Harvick and Brad Keselowski can do this weekend if there is a repeat winner, or a winner who is not eligible for the playoffs. If that were to happen, it would leave two spots up for grabs over the final two regular-season races.

“When you don’t give a [crap] about things, that makes things fun,” Wallace said. “When you start thinking and overthinking, that dials you right out and that’s not fun. I’m a [really] good person at overthinking things, especially when it comes to road course racing, and taking the fun right out of it, so you just have to go out and get back to the basics.

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“I’ve hit sim a lot this week just trying to figure out where Tyler [Reddick] was fast, and I told him in our meeting Tuesday, ‘Hey man, to get the No. 23 locked in, you just go out and win these next two weeks. You’re the best road course racer — just go out and win and you’ll be fine.’ I put a little bit of extra pressure on him.”

In his previous five full seasons as a Cup Series competitor, Wallace never had a realistic chance at making the postseason like he does this year. He was always too far back in the championship standings to be able to point himself in, leaving him in must-win situations and usually counting on trying to pull it off at Daytona.

“We’ve been about three crashes, 10 loose wheels too late at this point,” he quipped. “Especially last year.”

Ironically, Wallace has never been a fan of having to race for points. This year, though, he’s been proud of how his No. 23 team has used strategy to capitalize on points to make the most of their situation.

“That’s been the biggest game changer,” Wallace said. “We started the year off not really a factor in the first two stages and rallying to get a top-five finish. Well, now we’re the opposite. We’re getting stage points, but we’re nowhere to be talked about in the final stage. That’s been frustrating the last couple of weeks, and we’ve got to figure out why we’re falling off the horse at the end when the pay window opens.”

Just like his mental approach, Wallace says sealing the deal is going to change this weekend in Indianapolis, too.

“I feel good about it.”

McElrea wins intense Indy NXT battle on IMS road course

Hunter McElrea scored his first win of the 2023 Indy NXT season on the Indy road course, but only after limping to the finish with worn tires while staving off his teammate James Roe. From pole position, McElrea led all 35 laps but, having burned …

Hunter McElrea scored his first win of the 2023 Indy NXT season on the Indy road course, but only after limping to the finish with worn tires while staving off his teammate James Roe.

From pole position, McElrea led all 35 laps but, having burned off his rear tires too early, came under intense pressure in the closing 10 laps from Andretti Autosport teammate Louis Foster. The latter was up from fourth on the grid having gotten around the HMD Motorsports cars of Kyffin Simson and Roe.

On lap 28, McElrea slid wide at Turn 10, and with the expanse of curb now available at the apex, Foster saw the chance to put his car down the inside. McElrea turned in while Foster lost grip over the curb and no longer had the braking ability to stop hard enough to avoid contact. His left-front made contact with McElrea’s right-rear, and that was enough to knock the Briton’s steering alignment way out, giving him excessive positive camber. He would struggle around one more complete lap, but his pace was so reduced, his handling so bad, that he pitted and alighted from the car.

McElrea’s car was not apparently damaged by the impact, but his rear tires were now toast, and both Roe and Reece Gold of HMD ate into the Aussie’s lead, so that McElrea commenced the final lap with barely a 0.5s lead. Having hogged the inside line into Turn 1, forcing Roe to consider the long way – and lock his front tires – McElrea had just enough momentum out of Turn 6 onto the back straight to remain clear of his pursuer.

The eventual winning margin was 0.4370s with Roe scoring his first podium. Gold came home a further 1.2s adrift.

The three leaders (and Foster) were in a different ZIP code than their pursuers — Jacob Abel taking fourth for Abel Motorsport a quarter of a minute down, with Simpson clocking fifth, his mirrors filled by points leader Christian Rasmussen, as well as Danial Frost.

RESULTS

NASCAR modifies Indy restart procedure

NASCAR has made two procedural changes for the Indianapolis road course, hoping the third year will be the charm when it comes to cleaner competition through Turn 1. The restart zone has been moved to before the final corner (between Turns 13 and …

NASCAR has made two procedural changes for the Indianapolis road course, hoping the third year will be the charm when it comes to cleaner competition through Turn 1.

The restart zone has been moved to before the final corner (between Turns 13 and 14) where the field comes onto the frontstretch. It is the same change NASCAR had made with the restart zone on the Chicago street course last month. By backing up the restart zone, NASCAR hopes the field will be more spread out by the time they reach Turn 1, trying to stop the urge for divebombing into the tight right-hander.

“We have one data point by relocating the restart zone and we go back to Chicago; I thought our drivers and athletes did a great job there,” Elton Sawyer, NASCAR senior vice president of competition, told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “Obviously, we dealt with weather there as well, so we were single-file restarts and the start of the race was single file there due to the fact that we had wet conditions. The goal would be clean up carnage in Turn 1. So, by backing it up, giving the guys the opportunity to get going, maybe the first two or three rows, they’ve earned the opportunity to have a little bit of an advantage that we want to give them that.

“We will start the weekend, as we do every weekend, with double-file restarts and if things happen that we feel like we need to call an audible and go to single file, we have the ability to do that. But our race fans for overtime have come to really enjoy double-file restarts; we don’t want to take that away unless there’s a real need to do that. So, the goal is to hopefully eliminate some of the carnage in Turn 1.”

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Once the field goes through the restart zone, cars will be able to change lanes. Drivers will not have wait until crossing the start/finish line as is mandated during restarts on an oval.

NASCAR will not change the restart zone at Watkins Glen next weekend. Sawyer said it’s not necessary because of how the track is laid out. However, NASCAR will consider whether it’s something that’s needed at the Charlotte Roval in October.

The Chastain line won’t work for Turn 1 this time around. Matt Thacker/Motorsport Images

Another change is how NASCAR will be police Turn 1. Ross Chastain chose to avoid making a turn into the corner last year and drove straight through the runoff area in Turn 1. Doing so allowed him to avoid the chaos unfolding in front of him and gain positions.

If a driver blows off Turn 1 this weekend, NASCAR requires that the driver perform a stop-and-go before rejoining the race. The same rule will apply for other parts of the course.

“You’re off line, short cut the course, then there’s an opportunity where on the motorcycle course in-between oval Turn 1 and 2 where you can reset — and reset being that you have to do a stop-and-go,” Sawyer said. “The drive-through would come if you don’t perform that and you continue to run, then we’ll make you do a drive-through. But the first part to reset is just a stop-and-go in each of those positions.”

Additionally, NASCAR will use the choose rule this weekend for the first time on the Indianapolis road course. It will be located before Turn 7.

Detroit return, Indy enduro lead IMSA calendar changes for 2024

IMSA’s WeatherTech SportsCar Championship schedule for 2024 will include the return of one popular former series staple and the expansion of another from a sprint into an endurance race, alongside the familiar blend of venues that fans and drivers …

GTP and GTD PRO will return to the Detroit Grand Prix for that event’s second year at its new downtown home, while the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s stop on the calendar will become a six-hour endurance race, bringing the Michelin Endurance Cup to five events. Lime Rock Park’s GT-only event has been dropped, while LMP2 will become the headliner at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park in order to reduce the burden on GTP teams with the addition of Detroit.

“Undoubtedly one of the key elements that has attracted our corporate partners and 18 automotive manufacturers is the annual schedule of events that IMSA is able to deliver,” said IMSA President John Doonan. “The venues and events we visit on an annual basis are world renowned and beloved by race fans and competitors everywhere. We are proud to unveil our 2024 calendar which once again delivers IMSA racing to vitally important markets throughout North America.”

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The season begins as usual, with the longest endurance races, the Rolex 24 At Daytona, Jan. 25-28 — preceded the previous weekend by the Roar before the 24 test sessions — and the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring (March 13-16) before the schedule turns to a a trio of sprint races. Like Detroit, when the WeatherTech Championship joins the NTT IndyCar Series at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach April 19-20, it will be a two-class event, this time GTD joining GTP for a 100-minute race. Long Beach entries have always been limited by paddock space, and including a larger GTD PRO category, as was done this season, would be prohibitive.

WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca on May 10-12 will be absent LMP2 as usual, and is followed May 31-June 1 by the Detroit GP, like Long Beach a 100-minute race. The Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen takes its usual late June weekend of June 27-30, with CTMP coming two weeks later. Road America will be the only four-class sprint race of the season for its 2h40m races, once again the first weekend in August. Virginia International Raceway will host the lone GT-only WeatherTech Championship race in 2024 with a 2h40m contest set for Sunday, Aug. 25.

Canadian Tire Motorsport Park’s IMSA event will be headlined by LMP2 next season. Michael Levitt/Motorsport Images

The new addition to the Michelin Endurance Cup in 2024 is an expansion of the race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway to six hours on the weekend of Sept. 20-22. The endurance race at IMS has been widely expected since last summer’s announcement of the WeatherTech Championship’s return to the Speedway. Next month’s 2h40m race there will be the series’ first at IMS since 2014.

The season concludes with the 10-hour Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta on Oct. 9-12, giving the series a pair of endurance races to close out the year.

As was the case this season, the schedule includes a few clashes with the FIA World Endurance Championship, which features a lot of crossover of drivers and teams. The first conflict comes between Long Beach and WEC at Imola, with the others being Laguna Seca and Spa, and CTMP and Brazil. The Detroit GP is the same weekend as the Nurburgring 24 Hours touring car/GT race, and only a week before the 24 Hours of Le Mans test weekend.

IMSA also announced the schedules for the Michelin Pilot Challenge and VP Racing SportsCar Challenge series. With the exception of the street races, the MPC follows the WeatherTech Championship. In addition, MPC will headline a return to Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course with a four-hour race, one of two along with Daytona, to bring the schedule to 10 races. VP Challenge will also be at Mid-Ohio as part of its six-weekend, 12-race schedule. The series for LMP3 and GT4 cars will also be at Daytona during the Roar weekend, join IndyCar on the streets of St. Petersburg (March 8-10), then race with WeatherTech Championship at CTMP, VIR and Road Atlanta.

BMW Team RLL leads ‘deceptively quick’ final day of IMSA test at IMS

Heading into IMSA’s two-day sanctioned test at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in preparation for the upcoming TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks, discussion centered on whether the hot July test conditions would correlate to the mid-September race …

Turns out that while the historical average high temperature for Sept. 17 is just under 78 degrees, Saturday’s high of 86 degrees at IMS precisely matches the average high temp from the last six years on what will be race day. The broiling conditions (Friday’s high of 91 degrees felt like triple digits with the humidity) endured this week by the 33 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge teams that participated in the test could end up being surprisingly relevant.

The summer heat was certainly a treat for Indianapolis-based BMW M Team RLL, which saw its cars atop the timing screen at the end of Saturday’s action. Connor De Phillippi ran a series of laps in the 1m14s bracket in the No. 25 BMW M Hybrid V8, culminating in a 1m14.655s lap (117.612mph) in the final half hour of the afternoon session.

Jesse Krohn, who co-drives the No. 24 BMW in IMSA’s Michelin Endurance Cup rounds, was second fastest at 1m14.758s (117.450mph) around the 14-turn, 2.439-mile IMS road course.

“It was a productive two days and I’m really proud of the team,” said De Phillippi, who, with co-driver Nick Yelloly, ranks second in the Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) season point standings, just 10 points behind the lead No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac Racing Cadillac V-Series.R duo of Alexander Sims and Pipo Derani.

“We’re trying to learn something every run, trying a lot of different software stuff and trying to improve areas of the car that I believe we can get more consistent lap times out of if we get better,” De Phillippi added. “The entire field is super tight and you’re fighting for half a tenth here, half a tenth there.”

With an eye toward the fact that the season-ending Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta is likely to be critical to deciding the championship, BMW M Team RLL was pleased to have the opportunity to get endurance drivers Krohn and Colton Herta seat time in the Nos. 24 and 25 BMWs.

“We have a bit of long run pace to find,” De Phillippi noted. “We need to try to understand that and make the car more drivable over the full stint. Now we have a direction and we can push down that path. That’s been a positive from the two days.

“Just nice to be in the mix and be competitive. Hopefully, it stays the same when we come back here in September.”

The unexpectedly quick lap times in the summer heat surprised and delighted Cadillac Racing’s Sebastien Bourdais.

The co-driver of the No. 01 Cadillac V-Series.R along with Renger van der Zande turned the fastest lap in the first of Saturday’s sessions at 1m15.025s (117.032mph). Bourdais was then third on the afternoon speed charts, improving to 1m14.809s (117.370mph).

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With the GTP field closely bunched (the top five lapped within 0.181s in the morning and 0.360s in the afternoon), Bourdais was impressed that the Michelin tires kept producing quicker lap times the harder he pushed – all while showing minimal degradation.

“You think the tires have come in, and you keep going and there’s still more and more grip,” he said. “It’s very tight, and it seems like everybody is kind of driving to the potential of the tire.

“Everybody is pushing like crazy,” Bourdais added. “To get those lap times, you have to push really hard. The time doesn’t come easy; you have to really dig and use the brakes super hard. But the more you push the tires, the more it gives you. I don’t think anybody is taking it easy!”

Bourdais predicted qualifying for the race could be “deceptively quick.”

“It’s the first time we’ve had this much grip in these cars,” he said. “You have to hustle it. I don’t know what it looks like on the outside, but it’s pretty fun from the inside.”

Mikkel Jensen (No. 11 TDS Racing ORECA LMP2 07) was quickest in the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class at 1m16.532s; Wayne Boyd (No. 17 AWA Duqueine D08, 1m20.624s) led in Le Mans Prototype 3 (LMP3). Misha Goikhberg (No. 78 Forte Racing Powered by USRT Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2) topped the seven GT class entries participating in the test at 1m24.192s.

Among the 11 Michelin Pilot Challenge contenders testing at IMS, Eric Filgueiras paced the Grand Sport (GS) class in the No. 28 RS1 Porsche 718 GT4 RS Clubsport with a lap of 1m30.680s (96.828mph) in the third of four test periods, while Harry Gottsacker (No. 33 Bryan Herta Autosport with Curb Agajanian Hyundai Elantra N TCR) was fastest in Touring Car (TCR) at 1m32.388s (95.038mph) in the final session.

IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship and Michelin Pilot Challenge competitors have little time to regroup before heading to Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, site of the IMSA SportsCar Weekend, August 3-6. The IMSA SportsCar Weekend race for the WeatherTech Championship and Road America 120 for the Michelin Pilot Challenge both take place Sunday, Aug. 6.

SESSION THREE RESULTS

SESSION FOUR RESULTS

NASCAR tire test set for Indy oval

Greg Stucker of Goodyear confirmed this week the company will hold a tire test on the oval at Indianapolis Motor Speedway next month. It will be a two-day test held Monday and Tuesday, Aug. 14 and 15. That is after the NASCAR weekend concludes for …

Greg Stucker of Goodyear confirmed this week the company will hold a tire test on the oval at Indianapolis Motor Speedway next month.

It will be a two-day test held Monday and Tuesday, Aug. 14 and 15. That is after the NASCAR weekend concludes for the Xfinity Series and Cup Series on the road course.

“We just feel like there’s enough discussion around potentially going back to the oval in the future, let’s go ahead and take the opportunity to get on that racetrack in the old configuration with the Next Gen car,” Stucker told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “We haven’t run the Next Gen car on the oval, we’ve only run the road course.

“I hate to bring it up, but the last time we took a new car to Indianapolis, it didn’t fair too terribly well from a tire perspective. So, we want to stay ahead of that — we want to get a first look at it so that if that decision is made at some point in the future to go back to the oval, then at least we have a good starting point with this car so then we can go from there.”

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NASCAR switched from competing on the oval to the road course in 2020 with the Xfinity Series followed by the Cup Series in 2021. The Cup Series visited Indianapolis for the first time in 1994 on the oval.

“We always feel like we need to go back a couple of times at Indy and test and get prepared for an oval race if that’s going to be the decision,” Stucker continued. “We feel like it’s a good opportunity to go ahead and run, gather some data, see where it stands. We haven’t run that oval for a while, so we’ll see how that surface has aged over the course of a few years since we’ve run there. (It) just seems like a good time to put a mark in the sand and decide what we would need to do if, in fact, we do decide to take that step.”

Next year is the 30th anniversary of the inaugural Brickyard 400 (Aug. 6, 1994). Jeff Gordon won that event, the first of five victories for Gordon at the speedway.

Penske still hopeful of adding WEC to IMS race portfolio

Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Roger Penske says he is still hopeful that the FIA World Endurance Championship will visit the Brickyard in future seasons after plans to host a race at the world-famous venue in 2024 fell through. In 2024, as part …

In 2024, as part of an expanded eight-race calendar, the FIA WEC will return to Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas for the first time since 2020. This move follows the decision to drop the 1000-mile race at Sebring, as part of a doubleheader with the IMSA, from the schedule.

The decision to choose a different U.S. venue was made in part because there was no longer an appetite to run the WEC race on Friday at Sebring ahead of the IMSA 12-hour race. The new deal with Qatar to host the series’ pre-season Prologue and season opener at the Lusail International Circuit in March meant it also no longer worked from a logistical standpoint.

Speaking to select media last weekend at Monza, Penske, whose team also operates Porsche’s factory efforts in the top class of both the FIA WEC and IMSA, said there were discussions with the WEC about hosting a race at Indianapolis in September 2024. However, the WEC’s travel schedule in the second half of the season meant it simply wouldn’t be viable for the slot proposed.

“We had good discussions. We were hoping we could run one (a WEC event) in 2024. We would very much like a WEC race there,” Penske said. “We were going to do it in September (2024), which is when they are going to COTA. We were going to do it on the same weekend IMSA was coming and run an event like the doubleheader was at Sebring. But we couldn’t because of TV and the travel for them was going to be impossible.

“It was financial and there was no flexibility for IMSA to change its dates.”

Penske also reiterated that beyond 2024 he would welcome a doubleheader with IMSA at Indianapolis.

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From 2024 onwards the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race at Indy is expected to become a fifth round for the Michelin Endurance Cup, making it a perfect opportunity to showcase the expanded WeatherTech Series endurance field and the FIA WEC’s grid on the same bill.

“It would be great to have them on the same weekend. We are open to hosting both series, especially as the rules get closer and closer,” Penske said. “I’d love to see that (a doubleheader) at Indianapolis — we want to use the track for big events and international events, which is what the WEC would bring.”