WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca – Page 3

TV ratings: Darlington, Indy GP

The NASCAR Cup Series averaged a 1.43 Nielsen rating and 2.689 million household viewers for last Sunday’s race at Darlington, per numbers from ShowBuzzDaily.com. That was basically unchanged from last year’s 1.45/2.614m which also aired on cable …

The NASCAR Cup Series averaged a 1.43 Nielsen rating and 2.689 million household viewers for last Sunday’s race at Darlington, per numbers from ShowBuzzDaily.com. That was basically unchanged from last year’s 1.45/2.614m which also aired on cable network FS1.

NASCAR’s Xfinity Series was on FOX from Darlington Saturday and averaged a 0.74/1.271m, a healthy bump from last year’s 0.58/876,000 on FS1.

Saturday’s NTT IndyCar Series Indianapolis Grand Prix averaged a 0.46/715,000 on NBC, down from a 0.60/998,000 on the same time and channel last year.

IMSA’s WeatherTech SportsCar Championship was back on NBC Sunday from Laguna Seca and averaged a 0.31/482,000.

The Craftsman Truck Series race from Darlington on Friday night averaged 0.27/479,000 on FS1, down from 0.37/583,000 last year.

Monster Energy Supercross action from Salt Lake City Saturday night on USA network averaged 0.07/126,000.

In the 18-49 age demographic, the Cup race led the way with 555,000 viewers, followed by 242K for Xfinity, 120K for IndyCar, 117K for Trucks and 74K for IMSA.

IMSA Motul Course de Monterey recap with Ryan Kish

RACER.com’s Ryan Kish recaps the action-packed IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s Motul Course de Monterey powered by Hyundai N at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.

IMSA WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca Trackside Report with Ryan Kish

From the paddock at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, RACER.com’s Ryan Kish gets you up to speed on the top IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship story lines ahead of today’s Motul Course de Monterey powered by Hyundai N.

Murillo, Szymczak break through for first Pilot Challenge win

Kenny Murillo moved from third place to first in the space of a single lap 35 minutes into the WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca 120 on Saturday, and co-driver Christian Szymczak preserved that lead in the No. 72 Murillo Racing Mercedes-AMG GT GT4 until the end of the two-hour IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge race to claim the overall victory and Grand Sport (GS) class honors.

Fastest qualifier Austin McCusker led from the start in the No. 19 van der Steur Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT4 but encountered Touring Car (TCR) class traffic coming down the hill from WeatherTech Raceway’s famous Corkscrew on Lap 23. That allowed Murillo, who had passed Eric Filgueiras (No. 28 RS1 Porsche 718 GT4 RS Clubsport) for second place earlier the same lap, to make an over-under move on McCusker in Turn 11.

Murillo’s Mercedes exited the tight left-hand corner level with the Aston Martin, then he pulled ahead under acceleration up the front straight while Filgueiras followed Murillo past the compromised McCusker into second place.

Szymczak took over the No. 72 from Murillo for the final 55 minutes, reclaiming the lead with 35 minutes remaining when the No. 39 CarBahn with Peregrine Racing Porsche, running an alternate strategy with drivers Sean McAlister and Jeff Westphal, made a second planned stop during the only full-course caution of the event.

The No. 72 Mercedes was unchallenged in the closing laps, with Szymczak winning by 1.876 seconds over Stevan McAleer in the No. 28 Porsche. Daniel Morad drove a storming final stint to advance to third place in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes shared with Russell Ward. Mercedes-AMG also claimed fourth place with the No. 27 Lone Star Racing entry driven by Anton Dias Perera and Scott Andrews.

It was the first Michelin Pilot Challenge win for Murillo and Szymczak, who earned a pair of podium finishes in 2022. The duo led 29 of 41 laps of the Alan Jay Automotive Network 120 at Sebring International Raceway in March, only to be eliminated by contact in the final corner of the last lap, dropping them to 18th place in class. On Saturday at WeatherTech Raceway, they led 35 of 74 laps, including the last 23.

The victory vaulted them from sixth to first in the GS standings with a 40-point lead over Dias Perera, Andrews and the No. 27 Mercedes.

“The monkey is off our back!” exclaimed Murillo, the 26-year-old son of Murillo Racing team owner Ken Murillo. “Just really happy; the Murillo Racing crew really deserves this result. It’s been a long time coming, and hopefully we can follow these results. I’m just lost for words. My stint was exciting towards the end, and Christian did a great job to bring it home.

“What an incredible weekend,” he added. “I’ve been coming to IMSA races with my father for probably 15 years, and I’ve always dreamed of winning in IMSA. To get that monkey off our back is an incredible feeling.”

“No better place to win — this track is home to me,” added California native Szymczak. “I didn’t know we could win, honestly. But now I know.

“Those were the longest 40 or 50 minutes of my life,” he added of his climactic stint in the car. “I didn’t know this race would pan out the way it did without many yellows, and that helped our car and our platform shine. We did the best we could, and we just happened to do it right today.”

Wilkins holds off former co-driver Wickens for TCR victory

The battle for victory in Touring Car (TCR) came down to two familiar drivers and one familiar team.

Mark Wilkins held off a late challenge from his former co-driver, Robert Wickens, to claim the class victory in a battle between two Bryan Herta Autosport with Curb-Agajanian entries.

Wilkins and current co-driver Mason Filippi teamed to bring the No. 98 BHA Hyundai Elantra N TCR home in front of the No. 33 BHA Hyundai Elantra N TCR shared by Wickens and Harry Gottsacker. The victory put the No. 98 entry 60 points ahead of the No. 33 after three races.

“I’m proud of this team,” said Wilkins, who teamed with Wickens to win twice last year. “Robert was pushing me hard, and I wanted to try to keep a gap, but he kept closing in and trying to get a bit more. … It was cued up perfectly. This is special.”

After Filippi wrested the lead from Gottsacker near the end of their opening stints, Wickens pursued his former partner throughout the second half of the race, all while being chased by Ryan Eversley. Eversley held on for third place in the No. 37 LA Honda World Racing Honda Civic FL5 TCR, the car making its series debut that co-driver Mat Pombo had put on the TCR pole Friday.

For Filippi, the victory reiterated the bond between the new teammates.

“We’re super stoked that we got paired up together this year,” Filippi said. “We’ve got a bit of that mojo. We text each other every day. It just kind of follows into race weekend. We’re always ready, always prepping and competing with each other.”

The Michelin Pilot Challenge season resumes June 3 for the GS class at the Chevrolet Sports Car Classic in Detroit. Both the GS and TCR classes are in action June 24 in the Watkins Glen International 120.

RESULTS

Kurtz finds ‘last-lap magic’ to secure first IMSA pole

It takes a special performance to beat Ben Keating in a qualifying run but that’s what George Kurtz pulled off on the final lap of the qualifying session for the Motul Course de Monterey. It was Kurtz’s first pole position in IMSA and will be the …

“We had some traffic as we got out, so I knew we had more pace and we just needed the traffic to clear up a bit and got that last-lap magic and got it done,” Kurtz said. “It feels great to be here. The Crowdstrike APR guys gave me a great car.”

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Kurtz laid down his best time on his 11th and final lap of the session. With the team keeping him informed of the gap to first, Kurtz bided his time and waited for the traffic on track to dwindle down. A crucial part of that strategy was ensuring there was life in the Michelin tires once it was time to push.

“Tires have been pretty consistent with the harder compound for this track. There were a couple of laps that I aborted just to get more space because I was catching up to a few other cars. I had a little bit left in the tires. They were very consistent, and I think the harder compound probably helped that level of tire wear, balanced with the fuel level, to give us a great lap.”

Kurtz will be seeking his first IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship win since the 12 Hours of Sebring in 2021 where he won the race’s LMP3 class. He’s coming off a strong start to the GT World Challenge America season where he and co-driver Colin Braun have won two of the first four races of the season.

‘We just need to clean up our game’ – Bourdais

Sebastian Bourdais believes Cadillac is in a good position to compete with its Cadillac V-Series.R if the team can clean up some of the mistakes it has made in the first half of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season. “I think we just …

“I think we just keep doing what we’re doing, try and clean up our game,” Bourdais told RACER. “Obviously, I made a mistake at Long Beach. I’m still not entirely sure what I should’ve done differently. Like I said, try to clean up our game — we’ve had one mechanical and one driver error so far and that’s two too many this year, but it’s a long season and we’ve got a strong team and the Cadillac is really a competitive package.”

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A fire in the engine at Sebring and a brake lockup leading to a spin at the first corner at Long Beach have set the team back. The No. 01 Cadillac is 90 points behind the championship-leading No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 of Mathieu Jaminet and Nick Tandy, but Bourdais noted that the still-young season with the new GTP cars has more than the usual number of variables in play.

“The (points) gaps are still relatively small; it’s only race four, so we’ll see how things shake out,” Bourdais said. “Everybody’s still in the development period and finding speed and trying to understand what you really have and discover the car every time you’re at new racetracks. I think there are a lot of unknowns, and nobody really knows every weekend how you are going to fare, what’s the right strategy, what’s the tire degradation and this, that and the other.”

After rolling with winter’s punches, WeatherTech Raceway shows off track improvements

WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca is undergoing a much-needed makeover. However, that makeover is a tad behind schedule, exacerbated by a series of pounding winter storms that brought an excessive amount of rain to the Monterey Peninsula. But with a renewed commitment from WeatherTech, a new partnership with Hyundai, and a solid commitment from the County of Monterey for the renowned facility inside a county park, the future is looking good.

John Narigi, president and general manager of WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, promises that the new bridge over start/finish, new curbs, extra asphalt in some runoff areas, and a complete repave – all of which were scheduled to be completed before this weekend’s Motul Course de Monterey for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship – are going to be completed in the very near future. In fact, the grinders will be staging in the paddock as the race teams depart, ready to begin prepping the old asphalt on Tuesday.

“It’ll be completely done by right around June 28,” says Narigi. “We’ve done all the shoulder work and drainage work around our track, but Tuesday morning, 8 a.m., the grinders will begin grinding the track and then the track will be resurfaced, and completed by by that deadline as well. So, we’re moving right along. The county has been more than generous. This is turning out to be about a $19.8 million project. The storm held us up by two months. Originally, this was a five-month construction, start to finish. We started Nov. 1 to be completed for these events — we just had SVRA last weekend.”

That rain — all of California has received more than typical this winter — left hillsides in danger of sliding down, and in the case of one above Turn 1, bringing a permanent bathroom tumbling onto the track. So not only did the rain interrupt the scheduled construction, resources had to be diverted to shoring up hillsides. That done, and the rains subsiding as summer approached, meant the rest of the work could continue.

The structure of the new bridge is in place, but it’s not quite usable yet. A new flag stand at start/finish has been built — the previous one sat right under the old bridge. Some new curbs are in place, asphalt has been poured beyond the curbs in some corners, notably drivers’ right between Turn 5 and Turn 6, and drivers’ right at the exit of Turn 9 all the way through the apex of Turn 10. These asphalt strips are a car-width wide, leading one to wonder if “track limits” discussions are going to become a part of the races at Laguna Seca.

“The drivers will love the new curbs. The old ones — I call them cobblestones — this particular series and IndyCar did not like, so now they’re the wide ones and they’re consistent around the track,” Narigi explains. “We added a fair amount of asphalt on many of the shoulders, they’ll see between Turn 5 and 6, much more asphalt past the curbs. We resolved a lot of the drainage issues; we put in a lot more drainage. We’ve got conduit under the track we never had before for future IT needs or electrical needs. So it’s been a big project.”

As with any changes to a racetrack, especially one as historic and loved as Laguna Seca, not everyone is a fan. Jordan Taylor tweeted a couple of photos after the track walk with the caption, “Another great racetrack has lost its character. Sad…” Free Practice 1 Friday afternoon will give a better idea of how the extra width actually affects the drivers.

Several GTP drivers have, on the other hand, expressed appreciation for the fact that the rest of the track surface hadn’t changed, simply to give them one less variable this year as they figure out the new machinery. But the current surface is 14 years old, and while the track crew has kept it in decent and safe condition over the years, most drivers are looking forward to a grippier surface that’s easier on tires.

“We’ve hired a consultant to take care of making sure the mix is accurate and correct and making sure it goes down the way it’s supposed to and in the right timeframe and the right temperature. We had a two-and-a-half hour meeting on just asphalt and I could have kept them there eight hours asking questions; it was it was pretty amazing,” says Narigi, adding that the asphalt will be laid down by two trucks and two spreaders working in tandem so that the entire width of the racing surface goes down at once. That will be done around the entire track, except for the Corkscrew, where the topography requires it to be done in two parts.

“I think people are going to really be amazed with the bridge and the ramp and the track resurfacing,” Narigi told RACER. “It’s a new signature item for Laguna Seca. I like saying WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca is kind of being reborn. It’s a new place. Working under the parks department now, our team approach with county staff and the generosity and the support by the Board of Supervisors, and really the residents of Monterey County, has been pretty phenomenal. As we all know, not a lot of money has been spent here on this 65-year-old facility, and I’m just grateful that everybody’s coming together for the future of the Laguna Seca Recreational Area, and obviously for WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.”

Fan-liveried Porsche to pace IMSA field at Laguna Seca

The safety car for this weekend’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race features a fan-designed livery after the Porsche Experience Center Los Angeles hosted a social media competition to design the 718 Cayman GT4 RS. The multicolor design …

The multicolor design honors Porsche’s 75th anniversary, as every color on the safety car was or is a color available to customers of Porsche’s road cars. The livery was designed by Harman Dhillon from Fresno, roughly three hours from Laguna Seca in California’s Central Valley.

Dhillon will receive two tickets to this weekend’s IMSA race at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca and a ride in the car he designed. It will be his first time at a race weekend.

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“This will be my first time going to any real race, let alone being able to go to an IMSA race,” Dhillon said. “I’ve always liked the idea of multi-class races and seeing competitors battle it out in high-speed traffic. One of my favorite motorsport moments I like to rewatch is the battle between Jorg Bergmeister and Jan Magnussen at Laguna Seca in 2009.

“The design plays homage to the vast variety of color combinations Porsche owners can spec for their own cars… In my opinion, choosing the right color palette is one of the most important decisions to make before starting on the project,” Dhillon said. “Knowing which color combinations blend well with each other really gave me a good kickstart to the design.

“I first started with black, red, yellow, and white but that didn’t seem right to me, so I started from scratch again. This time I wanted to try blue, purple, black, and white and I was feeling the way the colors popped out against the white. Towards the end, I came back with a splash of red and it was definitely that final piece to the puzzle.”

Largest-ever year-on-year climb in ticket sales for IMSA at Laguna Seca

Advance ticket sales concluded Wednesday for this weekend’s Motul Course de Monterey Powered by Hyundai N, and secured the largest year-over-year increase in history for the series at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. General Admission ticket sales …

General Admission ticket sales increased 35 percent over 2022, which represents WeatherTech Raceway’s largest sales gain for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship series. It also is likely the largest year-over-year increase in Monterey since the inaugural year of the American Le Mans Series in 1999 before its unification with Grand Am for the 2014 season.

Further growth indicators for the event included first-time sellouts of VIP hospitality packages for the Champions Club, Legends Club, and pit row suites, while advance campground reservations were up 11 percent over 2022.

“Our mission is to enhance the customer experience end to end,” said John Narigi, president and general manager of WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. “From the ticket-buying process to onsite engagement, to when guests depart, we want their experience to be memorable with a heightened anticipation for returning guests with noted improvements each year.”

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The availability of additional family activities like go-karts and a Ferris Wheel further expand the weekend’s appeal to complement the continuous action in the race paddock and on track. “The appeal of the new GTP cars and the overall competitiveness of so many brands competing wheel-to-wheel makes this weekend a magnet for any car or motorsport enthusiast,” Narigi added.

IMSA title fights head for the hills of Monterey

“I’m looking forward to getting back to Laguna. It’s got a pretty unique track surface there, and a lovely mix of corners in a nice part of the world.” That’s how Alexander Sims words his enthusiasm for getting back to his No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac V-Series.R at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca and hurtling it down the famed Corkscrew for the first time.

For its fourth race of the season, the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship heads to its fourth different type of circuit, for its fourth different race length of the year. After a roval, a former airport circuit and a street course, the series heads to its first natural terrain road course, carved into the coastal countryside of Monterey County, California to wrap up its Western swing with a 2h40m race this weekend, the Motul Course de Monterey.

Sims’ eagerness is probably bolstered by the fact that he and Pipo Derani are in the thick of the championship fight, sitting a single point behind the championship-leading No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport duo of Mathieu Jaminet and Nick Tandy. But like all of the GTP contenders, it will be a learning experience for them, as none have any testing time on the circuit with the new GTPs.

“Looking forward to just driving the track and then trying to get our teeth stuck into understand how these GTP cars can work best around there,” he says. “It’s new for all of us. With these cars, we’re embarking on an unknown journey on each of these circuits that we go to. We do the simulator work and the engineers have a certain expectation of what it should be, in terms of a competitiveness for us; but once we’re on the ground, the circuit conditions inevitably are slightly different to what one expects, and yeah, we’ve just got to adapt and try and optimize our package as quickly as possible while still working on the fundamental development of the car.”

Sims alludes to Laguna’s “unique” track surface, which the WeatherTech Championship competitors will see for the last time this weekend — repaving is expected to begin ASAP after this weekend’s race, and new curbs are already in place. The existing surface is hard on tires, and with IMSA’s reduced allotment of Michelin tires — three sets are allowed for qualifying and race — that could make things tricky on a double stint. While in theory in a 2h40m race, if a team starts on the qualifying set, it may not be required. Many believe double stinting will be necessary, and that’s where things get tricky.

“Certainly, tire degradation will be a bit of a pain for us. And maybe I’ll be I’ll be kicking myself for saying I was looking forward to it before the weekend, if we do struggle with tire deg or something through the race,” Sims concedes. “But it’s a challenge that that I enjoy. These cars, they’re so different, honestly. With a DPi car last year with a different Michelin tire, there’s not a huge amount that’s the same that can be transferred from that learning in terms of specific engineering items. And so the fact that the track surface is the same, it is a bit of a known quantity that we’re likely to have tire deg going into it. At least it doesn’t throw another variable into the mix.”

If there’s anybody that has Laguna Seca down, it’s Ricky Taylor. He has three straight wins at the circuit, the first in 2020 with Helio Castroneves for Penske, and the last two for Wayne Taylor Racing with Filipe Albuquerque, all three in the Acura ARX-05. With Taylor and Albuquerque coming into Laguna Seca third in the championship and searching for their first victory of the season, how much they can apply from previous experience will be certainly interesting when the cars roll off for first practice Friday afternoon.

“Laguna has been really good to us,” notes Taylor. “The ARX-05 always performed well there — a very high-downforce track, can run the car low. And it very much seems like the ARX-06 is a little bit more of the same, it likes the same things. We’ve gotten to go to sort of most of the different track types. You know, we’ve seen some fast corners, we’ve seen bumpy, we’ve seen smooth, we’ve seen street courses. And so going to Laguna Seca, we know what to expect from past experience, although everything is new with the GTP cars everywhere that we go.

“If Long Beach taught us anything, it’s that we can have some good confidence in our simulation and our simulator setups. We unloaded very well there. We hardly touched the car until the race and so hopefully, that can give us some confidence in in what we can expect for Laguna.”

Of course, Jaminet and Tandy will be doing their best to retain the championship lead, and BMW certainly wants a victory. Three races have meant three different winners, from three different manufacturers – can that streak continue for one more race?

LMP2 returns to the track for the first time since its “regular season” opener at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring. Defending champ John Farano leads the point standings as he is joined by Louis Deletraz for the first race this season in the No. 8 Tower Motorsports ORECA. Farano and Deletraz won at Laguna Seca in 2022, beating Dwight Merriman and Ryan Dalziel, who are third in the points going into the race. In between are Steven Thomas and Mikkel Jensen.

Pfaff Motorsports hopes to rekindle its Laguna magic from last year to get its season back on course. Jake Galstad/Motorsport Images

The No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus duo of Ben Barnicoat and Jack Hawksworth are on a three-race podium streak in GTD PRO, culminating with a victory at Long Beach. While last year Laguna Seca certainly favored the Porsches, there’s no guarantee that Pfaff can repeat victory with Klaus Bachler and Patrick Pilet, althopugh it would certainly help dig them out of their fourth-place hole. Daytona winners Danial Juncadella and Jules Gounon are second in the points in the No. 79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG, followed by the Corvette duo of Jordan Taylor and Antonio Garcia.

GTD won’t have the same winner from 2022, that’s guaranteed. But looking down the order from last year’s race, when you get to a team that’s going to be there this weekend, it’s championship leaders Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow. With victories at Sebring and Long Beach in the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3, they’ve built up a pretty good lead in the points over Daytona winners Roman de Angelis and Marco Sorensen in the No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage — nearly 100 points. But only one point behind Heart of Racing is the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F with Aaron Telitz and Frankie Montecalvo, who are a mere seven ahead of Inception Racing’s Brendan Iribe and Frederik Schandorff.

WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca reports that advance ticket sales are up 35 percent over previous years for the race, indicating big crowds at the circuit who will also be treated to Lamborghini Super Trofeo, which opens its season this weekend, and Idemitsu Mazda MX-5 Cup, both of which will have a pair of races. Michelin Pilot Challenge will run a two-hour race on Saturday afternoon. Select sessions will be carried on IMSA radio, and qualifying will be live on IMSA.tv as well as Peacock. The 2h40m Motul Course de Monterey will be broadcast live on NBC beginning at 3pm ET on Sunday.