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IMSA Drama Rolls into Long Beach Brandon Badraoui - Getty Images
The subplots are thickening in IMSA’s WeatherTech Championship.
Headed into the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach on Saturday, will Porsche Penske Motorsport move past a scandal at Sebring’s 12-hour, where the crews and drivers of its No 6 and No. 7 Porsche 963s squabbled over team orders?
Can the drivers at Acura, BMW, and Cadillac, who had sand kicked in their face at Sebring by the runaway Porsches, find an advantage in the season’s third round—a 100-minute sprint race?
They could well be aided by IMSA’s move toward a de facto “success handicap,” which finds the Penske Porsches ballasted by 100 additional pounds after Sebring under the Balance of Performance—on a street course, no less.
Lurking in the wings will be the Aston Martin Valkyrie, which has struggled to get competitive after joining the GTP ranks two years in arrears. It weighs in at the minimum GTP weight—a whopping 154 pounds less than the factory Porsches—and its screaming V12 remains at 100 percent of the assigned rev limit of 8,400 RPM. A sprint race may be just what the THOR team needs to break through.
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Might Aston Martin fare better at Long Beach?Brandon Badraoui - Getty Images
As always, the 1.968-mile Long Beach circuit stands ready as a track where drivers can make the difference due to the proximity of the walls and brevity of the race. It’s an opportunity for established stars such as Acura’s Renger van der Zande, Tom Blomqvist, and Colin Braun, or Cadillac’s Taylor brothers, Ricky and Jordan, to reclaim some momentum from Felipe Nasr.
A winner last year in Long Beach, it was Nasr, currently IMSA’s most aggressive and dominant driver, who disobeyed team orders during his final winning stint at Sebring. Porsche Penske went from first and second on the podium into a team meeting to clear the air that was thick with bickering and accusations.
“We all pretty much talked about it, and we exposed our point of view, and we just, let’s say, came down to the basics, which are respect of each other,” said Julien Andlauer, who co-drives with Nasr in the No. 7 Porsche. “What is internal should remain internal. Some people did mistakes, I’m not gonna talk about drivers, the management, this or that. We just all talked about it, so it doesn’t happen again, let’s say.”
Although there’s been no details from the Penske camp, evidently the different tire strategies of the No. 6 and No. 7 entries were not fully taken into account before team orders were issued that were focused on getting into and out of the pits cleanly under a late caution, then saving energy.
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Porsche Penske Motorsport pit stop during the IMSA Rolex 24 at Daytona.Michael L. Levitt - Getty Images
Regardless of what happened at Sebring, the Porsche Penske team will consider team orders again if it increases the likelihood of victory, said Jonathan Diuguid, the president of Team Penske.
“Everybody has talked about it,” said Diuguid. “Everybody understands moving forward and there’s no hard feelings between anybody. There was some drama, or whatever you want to call it, at the end of the race. But the reality is that our two cars dominated the race.”
Among Porsche’s opposition, van der Zande is among those looking for some payback after Sebring. “To see (the Penske team) kind of like deciding between them who is allowed to win, that hurt the most,” said the Dutchman. “There were another, I don’t know, nine GTP cars behind who would love to win one of those races. If you’re that dominant to just say, ‘OK, after you, no it's me,’ that didn’t feel good at all.”
The Dutchman won the most recent street race in Detroit last year co-driving the Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 with Nick Yelloly. At Long Beach, he said, a driver must be aggressive, comparing the California streets to Macau and Monaco. The upside is that a driver can control his own destiny better than any other race if car control is maintained.
“If you’re not sliding a little bit with a race car, you’re not fast enough,” he said. “But if you’re sliding too much, you’re in the wall. So, how close are you, are you comfortable in getting towards the wall and getting close to the wall.”
Regardless of driving lines, under the new BoP, the Penske Porsches hybrids will carry 51 more kilos (113 pounds) than the Acuras or BMW M Hybrid V8s. They will carry 52 kilos (115 pounds) more than the Cadillacs V-Series.Rs.
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The JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche 963 at the Twelve Hours of Sebring.Jake Galstad - Getty Images
A new wrinkle to BoP and a new driver in the privateer Porsche 963 of JDC-Miller adds another wild card. Laurin Henrich, who shared the winning Porsche Penske car at Sebring with Nasr and Andlauer, will co-drive with Tijmen van der Helm. The JDC-Miller Porsche did not add the aero upgrades of the factory 963s during the off-season and is categorized separately under the original GTP homologation. IMSA has decided under its handicap system to allow the No. 5 Porsche to carry 88 pounds less than the factory 963s.
During the current GTP era at Long Beach, qualifying that determines track position and then pit stops have been decisive. The stops are anticipated to focus on fuel only and quick driver exchanges by the 11 GTP cars, which will share the track with 17 GTD entries.
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