IMSA 2024

FLRacingFan

FLRacingFan

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Lots of driver announcements are rolling out today ahead of the series releasing the Rolex 24 entries tomorrow.

Notably, the new Pratt Miller Corvettes are retaining the old factory yellow livery with some black accents via Oshkosh.

 
FLRacingFan said:
Lots of driver announcements are rolling out today ahead of the series releasing the Rolex 24 entries tomorrow.

Notably, the new Pratt Miller Corvettes are retaining the old factory yellow livery with some black accents via Oshkosh.

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Honestly like the black, they look mean.
 
Westy is replacing Rocky at JDC-Miller. Westy was dropped from the CGR program:


Timjen and Richard will be full-time. Hanson will be a MEC driver and Ben Keating will be driving for them for the Rolex 24.

Ben Keating doing Ben Keating sh*t.
 
Kiante said:
Westy is replacing Rocky at JDC-Miller. Westy was dropped from the CGR program:


Timjen and Richard will be full-time. Hanson will be a MEC driver and Ben Keating will be driving for them for the Rolex 24.

Ben Keating doing Ben Keating sh*t.
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Keating is doing LMP2 with United as well so he must be pulling double duty at the Rolex again. 🐐
 
Provisional entry has 10 GTP / 12 LMP2 / 13 GTD Pro / 25 GTD for the Rolex.

The Porsche Penske and WTR/Andretti lineups are crazy.

 
Jorge De Guzman said:
I’m bummed no Cup drivers are trying the Rolex once again this year.
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There are a ton of TBAs as far as drivers, even though teams were supposed to have them filed by November 7. If still be surprised if there were (m)any competing though. It’s a much bigger challenge than it was 10-15 years ago, more difficult to find a seat, and would be a time commitment that would take their final two off weekends before the Clash.

I think Ford said they may add some NASCAR and Supercars drivers to their factory pool but not until 2025.
 
While the Lambo won’t be present at the Rolex, it’s at the mandatory BoP test at Daytona this week. Good to see it’s up to speed and it sure looks mean as hell.

 
Proton has secured Mustang Sampling sponsorship for their GTP entry next year, re-numbering from the 59 to the 5 (I think that means JDC will have a different number as well). Livery is absolutely incredible.

 
The full season entry list announced at Petit initially included 48 teams. Looks like we’re adding a couple more in the near future.

***An updated full season WeatherTech Championship entry list is expected to be released in the coming days. Sportscar365 understands that at least two additional entries that were confirmed on the Rolex 24 entry list have turned into full-time efforts, pushing the full season entry list to at least 50 cars.
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sportscar365.com

Daytona Thursday Notebook – Sportscar365

John Dagys' Thursday notebook from IMSA-sanctioned test at Daytona...
sportscar365.com sportscar365.com
 
Longtime Audi factory aces Christopher Mies and Fred Vervisch have been signed to Ford’s factory pool and will be the third drivers in the Pro cars at Daytona.

Ben Barker, Chris Mies, Dennis Olsen, Andy Priaulx and Frédéric Vervisch join previously announced drivers Joey Hand, Dirk Müller, Harry Tincknell and Mike Rockenfeller on the Ford Performance Mustang GT3 team in 2024.

Mies and Vervisch will drive the new race car at Daytona International Speedway today, in preparation for next month’s Rolex 24 at Daytona where they will complete the lineup for the Ford Multimatic Motorsports team, with Mies joining Tincknell and Rockenfeller in the #64 Mustang and Vervisch stepping into the #65 with Hand and Müller.
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Realistically speaking, what keeps the BoP in check with the new combinations? Say that a team were to keep the timing backed off 3-5 degrees or so during BoP to get a small weight break, then go all-in during the race and suddenly be a half or full second faster?
 
Magnethead said:
Realistically speaking, what keeps the BoP in check with the new combinations? Say that a team were to keep the timing backed off 3-5 degrees or so during BoP to get a small weight break, then go all-in during the race and suddenly be a half or full second faster?
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Daytona is usually a tough one and has its own BoP since there’s so much on-throttle time. It doesn’t take much for a car to be relatively uncompetitive there. It usually doesn’t do you any good to be quick in the infield and slower on the oval, since the oval is where you get the passing done.

At the recent test they took all of the GT3 cars and had them run a new program where they put each car through different sets of BoP parameters, held the tire life and fuel loads at a constant, and sent them off through 5-lap qualifying runs and 28-lap race runs. And they just kept running the same program with different parameters. The dyno and wind tunnel can only provide so much of their data to pore over.

In theory the data loggers should be able to help tell who’s sandbagging to an extent, but if not there’s also a right for them to issue an in-race penalty if someone is suddenly significantly overperforming expectations.
 
I’m quite disappointed with the 2024 IMSA schedules. Just seems to be lacking in general.

Should be going to Lime Rock Park every year & rotating around places like Utah (Miller Motorsports Park)/Portland/NOLA/Ozark International Raceway.

The 6 Hours of Indy isn’t bad but I wonder if doing a 3 hour IMSA race the day before the Brickyard 400 & sending Xfinity to IRP would be a better idea.
 
racingfan7 said:
I’m quite disappointed with the 2024 IMSA schedules. Just seems to be lacking in general.

Should be going to Lime Rock Park every year & rotating around places like Utah (Miller Motorsports Park)/Portland/NOLA/Ozark International Raceway.

The 6 Hours of Indy isn’t bad but I wonder if doing a 3 hour IMSA race the day before the Brickyard 400 & sending Xfinity to IRP would be a better idea.
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All statements seem to indicate Lime Rock is just a one-time absence in 2024 and intentions are to come back in 2025. Just a circumstance of a packed summer schedule and the NBC Olympic break I guess. A bit unfortunate because this would be the best year for the all-GT race there in a while. But it should be back afterwards.

The few years Grand-Am and then IMSA ran at the Brickyard “Super Weekend” was pretty meh, but that was also when sports car racing was in a much weaker spot. I think the goal is for another combined WEC/IMSA weekend at Indy in 2025, as the WEC deal at COTA is only for one year.
 
FLRacingFan said:
All statements seem to indicate Lime Rock is just a one-time absence in 2024 and intentions are to come back in 2025. Just a circumstance of a packed summer schedule and the NBC Olympic break I guess. A bit unfortunate because this would be the best year for the all-GT race there in a while. But it should be back afterwards.

The few years Grand-Am and then IMSA ran at the Brickyard “Super Weekend” was pretty meh, but that was also when sports car racing was in a much weaker spot. I think the goal is for another combined WEC/IMSA weekend at Indy in 2025, as the WEC deal at COTA is only for one year.
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The Brickyard Super Weekend was meh because the Nationwide Series race was at IMS and not IRP. JMO. 🤷‍♂️

I think the IMSA race should be on Saturday afternoon before the IRP Xfinity race & all the Cup series stuff.

Also I guess I’m the only one who finds novelty races like the Sunchaser 1000 @ Miller Motorsports Park or Barber or New Jersey to be kinda cool. lol
 
racingfan7 said:
The Brickyard Super Weekend was meh because the Nationwide Series race was at IMS and not IRP. JMO. 🤷‍♂️

I think the IMSA race should be on Saturday afternoon before the IRP Xfinity race & all the Cup series stuff.

Also I guess I’m the only one who finds novelty races like the Sunchaser 1000 @ Miller Motorsports Park or Barber or New Jersey to be kinda cool. lol
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I think the manufacturers and the Speedway both saw an opportunity to take the new era and give sports cars another marquee standalone event, which I think is great. A combined WEC/IMSA weekend in 2025 with maybe MX-5 Cup and Carrera Cup supports would be really entertaining and a real tent pole event for sports car racing globally. They’re big enough to make a major event on their own like that again.
 
FLRacingFan said:
I think the manufacturers and the Speedway both saw an opportunity to take the new era and give sports cars another marquee standalone event, which I think is great. A combined WEC/IMSA weekend in 2025 with maybe MX-5 Cup and Carrera Cup supports would be really entertaining and a real tent pole event for sports car racing globally. They’re big enough to make a major event on their own like that again.
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We had an IMSA/WEC double header for a few years but unfortunately, the WEC dropped out and added Cota instead. That was a real shame because it was a great weekend. Sebring really should be part of the WEC. In a perfect world they would come over and race in the 12 hours along with out guys.
 
Doc Austin said:
We had an IMSA/WEC double header for a few years but unfortunately, the WEC dropped out and added Cota instead. That was a real shame because it was a great weekend. Sebring really should be part of the WEC. In a perfect world they would come over and race in the 12 hours along with out guys.
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I don’t want to rehash the same stuff all over again but I do get why WEC moved on from Sebring, why creating a new dual weekend at Indy is ultimately more additive than tacking onto an existing weekend, and why a combined race is pretty much wholly unfeasible. I don’t have many complaints on the schedule front.
 
FLRacingFan said:
I don’t want to rehash the same stuff all over again but I do get why WEC moved on from Sebring, why creating a new dual weekend at Indy is ultimately more additive than tacking onto an existing weekend, and why a combined race is pretty much wholly unfeasible. I don’t have many complaints on the schedule front.
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WEC is only 10 years or so old, but they refuse to claim lineage to the old FIA sanctioned world manufacturers championship that featured the GT40s, Porsche 917 and the cars of the group C era. Until 1973, both Daytona and Sebring were part of the FIA championship. All the manufacturers championships from the beginning were the officially sanctioned FIA sanctioned world championships, so in reality they are all the same thing. I think it's a mistake not to embrace all these championships as part of the same thing. They were all the official FIA championships, so why not claim the glory days? Maybe someone else owns the commercial rights or something, but this would be like Indcar not claiming the AAA and USAC championships that preceded what we have now.

A such, there's a lot of history WEC is not claiming as their own. All they really did is take the sanction, change the name and act like i was something new. 10 years of history is nothing compared to the 70 or so years of championships that preceded WEC.

As such, Daytona and Sebring really should be part of the WEC championship, but I don't know how you could make it that way considering you could end up with a combined 60, 70 (IMSA and WEC combined) or even 80 cars.

I'm ok with the current schedule except Daytona and Sebring really belong on the WEC schedule, s well as Silverstone, and I also thought Portimão is so spectacular it belongs too. Hard to argue with Indianapolis, but I have always thought COTA was a parking lot with a little elevation change and it's not an interesting circuit at all. Losail is just plain boring and all the turns look the same.

I'm not going to complain too much considering we have a nice, fat field of prototypes. I just miss classic venues like the ones I mentioned.

The whole point (besides being sustainable) of the convergence was so we could all race together, but so far the best they have come up with has been the double header format. Our guys went over there to race them at LeMans, so to make the convergence do what it was supposed to do, we need the WEC guys coming here to race us.

I'm willing to be patient. Just two or three years ago we were ready to give up on the whole mess, so what we have is spectacular enough. I'm just greedy.
 
Doc Austin said:
As such, Daytona and Sebring really should be part of the WEC championship, but I don't know how you could make it that way considering you could end up with a combined 60, 70 (IMSA and WEC combined) or even 80 cars.

I'm ok with the current schedule except Daytona and Sebring really belong on the WEC schedule, s well as Silverstone, and I also thought Portimão is so spectacular it belongs too. Hard to argue with Indianapolis, but I have always thought COTA was a parking lot with a little elevation change and it's not an interesting circuit at all. Losail is just plain boring and all the turns look the same.

I'm not going to complain too much considering we have a nice, fat field of prototypes. I just miss classic venues like the ones I mentioned.

The whole point (besides being sustainable) of the convergence was so we could all race together, but so far the best they have come up with has been the double header format. Our guys went over there to race them at LeMans, so to make the convergence do what it was supposed to do, we need the WEC guys coming here to race us.

I'm willing to be patient. Just two or three years ago we were ready to give up on the whole mess, so what we have is spectacular enough. I'm just greedy.
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NASCAR isn’t ever going to give up Daytona and Sebring at this point anyways. They have two blue ribbon events that are the tent poles of their own championship. And WEC teams could always come over here and race in those, it’s just a matter of time and money. Convergence means you can race the same cars in multiple championships. It’s up to the teams and manufacturers to take advantage. By 2025 we'll be up to at least five makes that race in both.

Only additional thing I’d like to see at this point is Nurburgring or Silverstone rejoin the WEC calendar as the ninth race in 2025, and for the GTP class to rejoin the IMSA Mosport round after this year.
 
FLRacingFan said:
NASCAR isn’t ever going to give up Daytona and Sebring at this point anyways. They have two blue ribbon events that are the tent poles of their own championship.
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We're so close to having the dream.
FLRacingFan said:
And WEC teams could always come over here and race in those, it’s just a matter of time and money.
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I don't see many WEC teams coming over if they can't score WEC points.
FLRacingFan said:
Convergence means you can race the same cars in multiple championships.
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And yet, no one seems interested in running both except Caddy and Porsche.
It’s up to the teams and manufacturers to take advantage. By 2025 we'll be up to at least five makes that race in both.
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Please elaborate. That's the first I've heard of that.
FLRacingFan said:
Only additional thing I’d like to see at this point is Nurburgring or Silverstone rejoin the WEC calendar as the ninth race in 2025, and for the GTP class to rejoin the IMSA Mosport round after this year.
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I'de sure be ok with Silverstone, but the current ring is especially boring and Losail is imminently uninteresting. Sebring and Daytona definitely belong a lot more than Losail and COTA. I'm only going to be so critical because at least we have a good field.
 
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