By: Marshall Pruett | 12 minutes ago For the want of four minutes and a liter of fuel.All of endurance racing’s cruel and kind possibilities played out in the winding chapter that was IMSA’s GT Le Mans class at Daytona. Ford Chip Ganassi Racing No. 67 GT had been knocked around for large portions of the Rolex 24, but thanks to great driving and crafty race strategy, lost laps were recovered and the possibility of a win came into focus.Running on fumes, Richard Westbrook pitted for an emergency splash of gas at 12:34 p.m.; by 12:38, the red flag waved, sealing the team’s fate as its closest contenders continued to circulate.Falling from first to fourth, the beneficiary of Ford’s misfortune was BMW Team RLL, whose No. 25 M8 GTE went through all manner of adversity before those fateful four minutes transformed a runner-up result into a grand victory for the factory team.BMW’s win would have felt like a gift in one of IMSA’s sprint races. But in the context of a 24-hour race, where calamities of varying degrees tend to visit most of the cars in the field, it felt like part of the show. Had IMSA thrown the red flag a few minutes earlier…if the Ford was able to stretch its tank a few more miles…it could have been Westbrook, Ryan Briscoe, and Scott Dixon celebrating in Victory Lane.For BMW Team RLL’s Augusto Farfus, Connor De Phillippi, Colton Herta, and Philipp Eng, there were no woulds or coulds in the conversation. Having been on the wrong end of a similar ill-timed pit stop just prior to a red flag, Farfus felt a sense of relief after fortune smiled over his team.“Well I had a similar experience back in Petit Le Mans when there was similar weather condition, I think it was maybe three or four years ago, and I was in the lead, halfway through the race, and then they put a red flag out and I pitted, I think, maybe two or three laps before and then they put the red flag and then we lost the race there,” he said.“So today the luck was on our side. I have to say the team was extremely on it [with] the strategy. We knew all the possible scenarios so we are prepared for our four hours stint for myself, which was the maximum driving time, so I jumped in the car … was three hours probably 59 minutes and I was ready to go today. So I have to say, hats off to all the BMW guys. They are everything because we are extremely on top of the game and I think that gave us the advantage.”

By: Marshall Pruett January 25, 2019 5:48 AM RACER’s Marshall Pruett and Ford Chip Ganassi Racing’s Sebastien Bourdais discuss qualifying, Balance of Performance, and other topics of interest ahead of the Rolex 24 At Da

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=KOwMW_D7mlsytona,
Max Papis stops by unannounced to share a few thoughts and laughs.

WTF1

By: Marshall Pruett | January 23, 2019 5:30 PM
Take a stroll through IMSA’s Rolex 24 At Daytona paddock with RACER’s Marshall Pruett on Wednesday where new liveries and more were revealed.

Lanky Turtle

By: Chris Medland | 5 hours ago A bizarre ending to the LMP2 class saw the No. 18 DragonSpeed ORECA take victory — despite the fact that Sebastian Saavedra’s crash directly impacted the race being stopped early.With conditions deteriorating, Saavedra was leading in class when he crashed at Turn 1 and significantly damaged the front of the No. 18. But as the race was red flagged before two further laps could be completed, the 18 was still the leading car when the race was called.The No. 81 car had started as the lead DragonSpeed, while Roberto Gonzalez picked up bodywork damage just 20 minutes into the race in the No. 18 car.Despite that incident, the two DragonSpeed cars took control during the night. The No. 18 enjoyed plenty of spells in the lead until Ryan Cullen again hit trouble, losing time after a pit stop and then having to immediately return after picking up damage to both ends of the car.The incident left the second car four laps down on the No. 81 with nine hours of the race to run, but it looked set to be a formation 1-2 for the DragonSpeed cars given their clear advantage over the only other two LMP2s in the class — the No. 38 Performance Tech Motorsports entry and the No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen car.Then disaster struck the leader in the final three hours.Henrik Hedman was behind the wheel of the No. 81 and enjoying a comfortable lead when he lost the right rear wheel at the Bus Stop and had to stop on track, resulting in Saavedra taking over the class lead while Performance Tech moved into second place, four laps down.With heavy rain falling just two hours from the end, Saavedra then went straight into the wall at Turn 1 and suffered heavy damage to the front. The incident brought out the caution, and just six minutes later the race was red-flagged. With Saavedra having been able to get moving again, it ensured the 18 was classified as LMP2 winner.“After I jumped into the car I saw the conditions were pretty detrimental,” Saavedra said. “It was already getting to the stage where we should not be running out there. When I did put it in the wall, everything came into my mind, thinking ‘Yes we do have four laps to second, but this could be it.’“Every single lap there was a new factor to play in your survival. When that happened, of course your first thing is thinking that you’ve let down this amazing group of people and this amazing crew that have pushed through 48 hours. I think people don’t understand that it’s not a 24-hour race for our mechanics, it’s much harder than that. So it was a little bit heartbreaking.“When I saw the engine turn on and I was able to point it at such an angle that not much damage was done, we were able to come back. I did not expect it to go red and I think that was our saving moment, but we were ready to go out there and continue doing what we were doing.“It was the nose [that was damaged] so I must thank the ORECA team because that car’s a tank! It was pasted with glue by the end of the race, we had gone through four different noses throughout the event. It was a very harsh event.”

By: Marshall Pruett 5 hours ago Fernando Alonso offered a terse one-word answer of ‘No’ to a reporter during the early stages of the Rolex 24 At Daytona. Asked about the Balance of Performance settings applied to the Cadillac DPi-V.R model by IMSA, the Spaniard said his Wayne Taylor Racing entry, along with the other Cadillacs in the field, surrendered vital top speed to their rivals each lap on the long sprints between Daytona’s corners.The disadvantage would have been a crippling liability for WTR and its main Cadillac protagonists at Action Express Racing if the race stayed dry for 24 hours, but with the arrival of rain, the tables quickly turned in their favor.Acura Team Penske’s ARX-05 DPis, quick during the cool overnight hours, were no match for WTR’s drivers — Jordan Taylor and Fernando Alonso, in particular — once the skies opened. From there on, it was an internecine battle for overall victory between the Cadillac camps, and from his perspective inside the winning WTR entry, Taylor credited a bold downforce choice — to do the unexpected — with the No. 10 DPi-V.R.“When we saw the forecast we were kind of excited for the wet, knowing after qualifying that our pace wasn’t really there for the dry conditions,” he said. “Especially leaving the Bus Stop is where we lacked pace and that’s pretty much where you can pass on this track.“So, we knew it was going to be a long race if that was the case, but our goal was to make it to sunrise when the rain came and stay on the lead lap until that point. And we were still as low-downforce as possible in the wet, where you saw Acura change to a high-downforce nose. Action Express did the same thing and we were able to pass Action on the straights. So I think we played our cards right in the rain, and playing the long game rather than trying to have the fastest car in the dry.”