Porsche Motorsport
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.—Near-summer temperatures greeted a record crowd at the Daytona International Speedway in Florida final weekend. At the tip of every January, the monitor hosts the Rolex 24, an around-the-clock endurance race that is now as high-profile because it has ever been throughout the occasion’s 62-year historical past.
Between the packed crowd and the 59-car grid, there’s proof that sports activities automobile racing is in good condition. Some of that is perhaps attributable to Drive to Survive‘s rising tide lifting a bunch of non-F1 boats, however there’s extra to the story than simply a resurgent curiosity in motorsport. The dramatic-looking GTP prototypes have a lot to do with it—highly effective hybrid racing vehicles from Acura, BMW, Cadillac, and Porsche are bringing within the followers and, in some instances, some fairly well-known drivers with F1 or IndyCar wins on their resumes.
But IMSA and the Rolex 24 is about extra than simply the highest class of vehicles; along with the GTP hybrids, the sector additionally comprised the very aggressive pro-am LMP2 prototype class and a pair of lessons (one for skilled groups, one other for pro-ams) for production-based machines constructed to a world algorithm, referred to as GT3. (To be barely complicated, in IMSA, these lessons are referred to as GTD-Pro and GTD. More on sports activities automobile racing being needlessly complicated later.)
Jonathan Gitlin
There was even a Hollywood megastar in attendance, because the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced, Joseph Kosinski-directed racing film starring Brad Pitt was at the monitor filming scenes for the beginning of that film.
GTP finds its groove
Last yr’s Rolex 24 was the debut of the brand new GTP vehicles, and so they did not have a completely trouble-free race. These vehicles are a few of the most intricate sports activities prototypes to show a wheel resulting from hybrid techniques, and throughout the 2023 race, two of the entrants required prolonged stops to exchange their hybrid batteries. Those teething troubles are a factor of the previous, and during the last 12 months, the vehicles have discovered an terrible lot extra pace, with many of the 10-car class breaking Daytona’s lap record throughout qualifying.
Most of that new pace has come from the groups’ familiarity with the vehicles after a season of racing but additionally from a yr of software program improvement. Only Porsche’s 963 has had any mechanical upgrades throughout the low season. “You… is not going to discover something on the skin shell of the automobile,” defined Urs Kuratle, Porsche Motorsport’s director of manufacturing facility racing. “So the aerodynamics, all [those] issues, they give the impression of being the identical… Sometimes it is a materials change, the place a becoming was once out of aluminum and resulting from reliability causes we alter to metal or issues like this. There are minor particulars like this.”
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This yr, the Wayne Taylor Racing crew had not one however two ARX-06s. I anticipated the vehicles to be front-runners, however a late BoP change added one other 40 kg.
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The Cadillacs are fan favorites due to their loud, naturally aspirated V8s. I feel the automobile appears higher than the opposite GTP vehicles, too.
Jonathan Gitlin -
Porsche’s 963 is the one GTP automobile that has had any modifications since final yr, however they’re all below the bodywork.
Jonathan Gitlin -
Porsche is the one producer to begin promoting buyer GTP vehicles thus far. The one on the left is the Proton Competition Mustang Sampling automobile; the one on the proper belongs to JDC-Miller MotorSports.
Jonathan Gitlin
GTP vehicles aren’t as quick and even as highly effective as an F1 single-seater, however the driver workload from contained in the cockpit could also be even greater. At final yr’s season-ending Petit Le Mans, former F1 champion Jenson Button—then making a visitor look within the privateer-run JDC Miller Motorsport Porsche 963—got here away with a newfound respect for what number of completely different techniques could possibly be tweaked from the steering wheel.