IMSA 2022

Bourdais picked up his fourth pole of the year today at Belle Isle. That 01 team badly needs to start converting speed to wins.

Pretty great week for Kyle Kirkwood so far. Andretti deal confirmed, P1 in IndyCar practice, and GTD pole in a Vasser-Sullivan Lexus.

3 PM ET Saturday on USA and Peacock.
 
Pretty ho-hum race until strategies collided in the last 20 minutes or so when Derani, on a two-stop, caught the fuel-saving lead trio. Great scrap for 2nd-3rd-4th between Olly Jarvis, Earl Bamber, and Derani. Ultimately the 31 got penalized for being underweight anyways, while the 01 kept up their boom-or-bust streak with a home victory.

In GTD the one-off 17 VS Lexus won on an overcut against the 27 AMR. Wild to me that Kirkwood and Ben Barnicoat technically are a “pro-am” lineup, but I don’t make the driver ratings.

On to Le Mans.

 
Along with the Peugeot, this car definitely has that battering ram look to it. Hard to tell with all the camo, but when they get it in livery it might look good.
 
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Kiante said:


Wait, I thought Cadillac was going full-on EV in the future? Or will Caddy be the racing brand for GM in the future?
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Cadillac has done more for the series than all the other manufactures put together. No one else has offered customer cars. I'de be ok with seeing a dozen of those things at the races.
 
Doc Austin said:
Cadillac has done more for the series than all the other manufactures put together. No one else has offered customer cars. I'de be ok with seeing a dozen of those things at the races.
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Caddy isn't offering customer cars next year though, I wonder if JDC-Miller will go to Porsche next season? Caddy stated the focus will be on Ganassi and Action Express next year.

You're right though, GM has done a lot to give non-factory teams a shot in DPi.
 
Incredible-looking car. These new regulations have really opened up opportunities for the OEMs to get creative - you couldn’t tell BMW and Caddy use the same chassis if you weren’t told! Very glad to see they’re still using a 5.5L V8, but it’s a brand new one being developed in-house up in Pontiac - meaning ECR will no longer be building the engines.

Some things I’m interested in - there’s barely any rear wing to it, and no (visible) mirrors. When asked about those, Laura Klauser said some parts of the regs are very much open to interpretation. But no outer mirrors?? I wonder how that plays out.
 
Kiante said:


Wait, I thought Cadillac was going full-on EV in the future? Or will Caddy be the racing brand for GM in the future?
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I think every new model they introduce now will be all-electric, but some of their current models are still new enough they can keep selling them for several years. I think they plan to be fully EV by the end of the decade, so a hybrid race car is a good bridge to that.

I think it was DSC who mentioned last week that Lexus North America were looking at running a GR010 in IMSA, but the change in plans to build a whole new Toyota Hypercar means it’s probably not feasible next year.
 
Charlie Spencer said:
Cameras?
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That’s a good supplement that I wouldn’t be surprised to see added, but I don’t know if it’s good or legal to avoid mirrors altogether. Cup cars still have in-****pit mirrors despite having a new rear view camera. I guess we’ll see when the final product comes out.
 
FLRacingFan said:
That’s a good supplement that I wouldn’t be surprised to see added, but I don’t know if it’s good or legal to avoid mirrors altogether. Cup cars still have in-****pit mirrors despite having a new rear view camera. I guess we’ll see when the final product comes out.
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Funny you can't call the driver's compartment a c*ckpit. It's a slight glitch with the elecro-nanny, but it's still funny.

Having camera for mirrors is a good idea, especially on a sportscar where they can mount them high and get a better field of view. The only problem is when they fail, but mirrors can fall or be knocked off too. Maybe the best solution is to leave the mirror rules alone, but let the teams run cameras too.
 
I know the F1 deal might be DOA, but to see Andretti in the top class along in IMSA and possibly WEC would be a great addition to the field. I'm liking how Laurent is going all in on the Alpine brand. Also, I wonder if Alpine will be branded over here in the US?



They have already had talks, I think this programme comes to life in 2024.
 
Everything is next year or the year after. How long have they been promising us a big hypercar class and we still only have five cars? I mean, I want to be optimistic but sportscar fans can hardly be blamed for being inpatient on this.
 
Kiante said:
I know the F1 deal might be DOA, but to see Andretti in the top class along in IMSA and possibly WEC would be a great addition to the field. I'm liking how Laurent is going all in on the Alpine brand. Also, I wonder if Alpine will be branded over here in the US?



They have already had talks, I think this programme comes to life in 2024.
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Maybe bring the Infiniti name back to motorsports? That or Nissan I guess. I’d like for them and IMSA to find a way to keep it Alpine though.
 
Doc Austin said:
Everything is next year or the year after. How long have they been promising us a big hypercar class and we still only have five cars? I mean, I want to be optimistic but sportscar fans can hardly be blamed for being inpatient on this.
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Well LMH was only announced in 2019 and LMDh in 2020. Then COVID happened. It takes time to get boards of directors to approve, and then develop the cars themselves. By my count both confirmed fields will be strong starting next year:

IMSA

2x Porsche (Penske)
2x BMW (RLL)
2x Acura (1x MSR, 1x WTR)
2x Cadillac (1x CGR, 1x AXR)

Not including any possibility of Cadillac running an extra car or two in endurance races, or of Porsche customer cars.

WEC

2x Toyota
2x Peugeot
2x Ferrari (AF Corse)
2x Porsche (Penske)
1x Cadillac (CGR)

Not including the possibility of Glickenhaus continuing or additional cars at Le Mans.

Then in 2024, Alpine - 2x WEC (Signatech), IMSA? Andretti? Lamborghini - WEC and IMSA, looking for one partner team in both championships like Penske and Ganassi.
 
FLRacingFan said:
Well LMH was only announced in 2019 and LMDh in 2020. Then COVID happened. It takes time to get boards of directors to approve, and then develop the cars themselves. By my count both confirmed fields will be strong starting next year:

IMSA

2x Porsche (Penske)
2x BMW (RLL)
2x Acura (1x MSR, 1x WTR)
2x Cadillac (1x CGR, 1x AXR)

Not including any possibility of Cadillac running an extra car or two in endurance races, or of Porsche customer cars.

WEC

2x Toyota
2x Peugeot
2x Ferrari (AF Corse)
2x Porsche (Penske)
1x Cadillac (CGR)

Not including the possibility of Glickenhaus continuing or additional cars at Le Mans.

Then in 2024, Alpine - 2x WEC (Signatech), IMSA? Andretti? Lamborghini - WEC and IMSA, looking for one partner team in both championships like Penske and Ganassi.
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Looks pretty good. I don't know what the Over/Under is for "how long until BMW pulls out" but I'll take the the Under.
 
I'de like to see the current cars sold to privateers and BOPed to match the LMDH or even given their own class. They are still too good to just throw away.
 
LewTheShoe said:
Looks pretty good. I don't know what the Over/Under is for "how long until BMW pulls out" but I'll take the the Under.
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I said this to @Kiante in another thread, but I’m much more confident in them sticking around in IMSA than in any sort of world championship, including WEC. They’ve been around with RLL for close to 15 years now, and this is another project funded by BMW of North America. As for any sort WEC program, there are a lot more questions about that as it relates to customer sales and any sort of factory support from the mothership.

BMW NA has interest in going to Le Mans, but in order to do that there needs to be a full-time WEC entry somehow.
 
Probably belongs on the WEC forum too, but here's the Penske Porsche. It's simplicity is beautiful.


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Kiante said:
JDC-Miller will be thr first Porsche customer team:
racer.com

JDC-Miller confirmed as first Porsche 963 customer team

John Church, John Miller, and the Minnesota-based JDC-Miller Motorsports team have become the first customer team to purchase one of Porsche’s new-for-2023 963 GTP cars to campaign in IMSA’s Weathe…
racer.com racer.com
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Great that these guys found a way to stick around, biggest move for the team in their history. Maybe someone else among DragonSpeed/Pfaff/WeatherTech can get the other customer car.

This thing sounds awesome. Electric motor start before the ICE kicks in.

 
FLRacingFan said:
Great that these guys found a way to stick around, biggest move for the team in their history. Maybe someone else among DragonSpeed/Pfaff/WeatherTech can get the other customer car.

This thing sounds awesome. Electric motor start before the ICE kicks in.

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It's fantastic, I was concerned about them. I guess Mustang Sampling will still be on the car?

Man, I hope IMSA and WEC steps up the advertising for next year. 2023 is a big year to capitalize off of these revamped GTP and LMH classes. IMSA especially, social media work is so sparse for them at times, its scary.
 
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