Part 2, The GT and GTX Classes.
It’s been a while since we’ve had to worry about covering more than two classes at Daytona – 2004, in fact, was the last time we had anything other than a DP or GT racing in the Rolex 24 – but the half-dozen GTX cars currently expected to show up in Florida should make an interesting addition to the 36 GT class cars on the provisional entry; and aside from its novelty, what is noteworthy about the GTX class is that this is the only one of the three classes with a clear-cut favourite.
Just two models of car are represented in the class – the Mazda6 GX and the Porsche Cayman – with the #16 Napleton Racing Cayman emerging as the strongest package at the recent Roar Before the Rolex 24 (RBTR24) test.
Consistently quickest throughout the three days, the #16 boasts a former overall winner of the 24 among its strength in the form of David Donohue. The former-Action Express and Brumos veteran is joined by Dr Jim Norman (like Jim Lowe, another racing surgeon), Nelson Canache and Shane Lewis, who arrives at the speedway lugging his SP3 class winner’s trophy from the Dubai 24 and will be keen to add a second piece of silverware to the display cabinet.
BGB Motorsports also enjoyed a solid test earlier this month with the #38 Cayman in the hands of Lee Davis, Ryan Eversley, Eric Foss and Jeff Mosing.
This car ended the test a third of a second off the pace of the Napleton Porsche, but we won’t find out until later this week what the real gap between the two cars is. The #22 Bullet Racing Cayman didn’t participate in the Roar, but sees 2012 Bathurst 12 Hours winner Darryl O’Young joining forces with a trio from Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge team BimmerWorld Racing – James Clay, Daniel Rogers and Seth Thomas – who will be switching allegiance from Munich to Stuttgart for the weekend. This trio of Caymans may well produce some great racing.
The likely performance of the Mazda6, on the other hand, remains a mystery. The RBTR24 arrived too soon in the car’s development for any meaningful running to take place and the best lap from the #70 SpeedSource car – the only Mazda6 present – was a terrifying nine seconds slower than the BGB Porsche.
However, work has continued apace and that gap is certain to shrink considerably when practice gets underway on Thursday. SpeedSource are used to winning and will be looking to mark the new car’s debut with a success – why else invite Marino Franchitti and James Hinchcliffe to join Sylvain Tremblay and Jonathan Bomarito? We might just get a surprise this weekend.
The final two cars in the class are also Mazda6s with one apiece from Yellow Dragon Motorsports (a certain Yojiro Terada amongst the driver lineup) and Freedom Autosport.
So that’s GTX; what about the GT class?
There is more variety of makes and models in the ‘traditional’ class, of course, but once again Porsche is the predominant brand with exactly half of the 36 car provisional entry comprising 911 GT3 Cups. As ever, the factory will be supporting the teams with a liberal sprinkling of works drivers; just Wolf Henzler and Timo Bernhard of the ten-strong 2013 roster having the weekend off.
Porsche cars were 1-2-3 at the end of the 50th edition of the Rolex 24, with Magnus Racing taking a hard-fought and narrow win over the #67 TRG car thanks to the efforts of John Potter, Andy Lally, Richard Lietz and Rene Rast. Of this quartet only Rast is absent for this year’s race – the multiple Porsche Supercup champion switching sides to race with Audi this year – and he is replaced by the equally rapid Frenchman Nicolas Armindo. A mixed season followed for the popular #44 Porsche, with only one more win coming, and they will be going all out to start 2013 in the best possible way. The big question to be asked of course is, what will the team poster look like this week?
The second Magnus entry, #45, with its crew of rather more mature racers – Mark Boden, Al Carter, Charles Espenlaub, Hugh Plumb and Charles Putman – looks on paper to have little chance of bothering the commentators too often, but there’s a lot of racing experience in there and 11th fastest at the Roar (just four-tenths off the pace of the #44) might suggest otherwise.
TRG boss Kevin Buckler was far from a happy chappy after last year’s race, insisting that the officials had made an error in the lapcharts and that his car had actually won. No amendment was made to the result, but Buckler will no doubt be determined to mark the tenth anniversary of his team’s famous overall win with another emphatic class victory.
Jörg Bergmeister was part of that winning team in 2003 and returns to the DIS as part of the #66 TRG squad, alongside Dominik Farnbacher, Ben Keating and Kuno Wittmer.
As rapid as this car will undoubtedly be, their immediate opposition is likely to come from the #67, which this year sees Tracy Krohn and Nic Jönsson moving back across from the DP ranks to join Daytona 24 winner Manu Collard and Le Mans 24 winner Romain Dumas; as potent a pro-am lineup as you’re likely to find.
The third TRG crew has a Dutch flavour with Ivo Breukers and Ronald van de Laar teaming up with Brad Lewis and Jim Michaelian. This car is unlikely to feature at the top end of the timing screens.
There’s a split programme for Alex Job Racing with one Porsche and one Audi (more on that later), but the #23 Porsche stands out as highly likely to be vying for the top step come 3:30 on Sunday afternoon. It’s hard to argue against a lineup comprising Jeroen Bleekemolen, Damien Faulkner, Marco Holzer and 2012 ALMS GTC champion Cooper MacNeil.
But amongst those who will be putting up a valid argument is the MOMO/NGT crew, which sees Sean Edwards and Patrick Pilet join Henrique Cisneros and young Polish Supercup racer Kuba Giermaziak in the #30 911 GT3. This car was largely anonymous at the Roar, but is highly unlikely to be in the race itself.
Porsche’s newest factory driver Nick Tandy joins Christian Engelhart, Michael Kristensen and Lance Willsey in the #32 Konrad Motorsport/Orbit Porsche.
Franz Konrad knows a thing or two about winning in Porsches and the car was second fastest in the RBTR24, with the three younger drivers all lapping rapidly. 50 year old Willsey will certainly have to be on top form to keep the car up there during his stints.
And then we come to Brumos! Who else knows the Daytona 24 better than the Jacksonville team?
Leh Keen, Andrew Davis, Marc Lieb and the unretired Hurley Haywood were just a lap adrift of the #44 Porsche last year as the #59 took third in class; and with Haywood now re-retired, the addition of Bryan Sellers isn’t going to hamper their chances in any way. But while the driver lineup is more than up to the task, the car itself suffered a surprise engine failure during the Roar – fingers crossed that this was just a fluke failure, as you don’t come back from one of those during a race.
Despite the already long list of potential winners, it wasn’t any of the above cars that set the fastest time at the RBTR24; that honour falling to Pat Long, who set a blistering lap to put the #73 Park Place Motorsports Porsche at the top of the combined results.
His 1:48.569 was half a second clear of the rest of the field, but it probably just means that this is the likely real pace of the frontrunners during race week. Spencer Pumpelly will provide strong back-up for the factory driver, but Daniel Graeff, Jason Hart and Patrick Lindsay are unlikely to have the pace to match the frontrunners. But as we know, it isn’t all about outright pace.
The second Park Place Porsche of Chuck Cole, Grant Phipps, Mike Vess and Alex Whitman was a long way down the results at the Roar and things are unlikely to be much different during the race.
The #17 Burtin Racing Porsche sees the usual mixture of experience and speed as Martin Ragginger and ADAC GT Masters racers Robert Renauer and Mario Farnbacher join veteran racers Jack Baldwin and Claudio Burtin.
The very distinctive car ended the test about a second and a half off the pace, but with the two young newcomers up to pace this could well be a dark horse for a decent top ten finish.
We are still awaiting the final driver lineups for the two Mühlner Motorsports America Porsches, with currently Mark Thomas the sole occupant of #18 and Chilean duo Eliseo Salazar and Eduardo Costabal awaiting their two other teammates in #19. As such it is difficult to comment further on this team’s prospects. Baku-based Canadian Thomas’ immediate concern is getting to Florida from Azerbaijan via a snow-bound Heathrow airport.
The presence of Rubens Barrichello and Tony Kanaan is sure to mean that Dener Motorsport receives oodles of media attention, but the real pace of the team’s two all-Brazilian driver lineups is hard to gauge after a quiet Roar [can you roar quietly? – Ed] and again we’ll have to wait until later in the week to see what they can offer.
TruSpeed Motorsports’ entry will quite possibly find itself up against the likes of Mühlner and Dener during the race in the mid-echelon of the field. Kelly Collins, Phil Fogg, Tom Haacker and Jim Walsh will guide the #80 round the DIS and will not have expectations of winning a watch on Sunday.
The final Porsche on the entry is far from being an also-ran and could well be headed for a significant result.
The #62 Snow Racing/Wright Motorsport 911 not only sees the race’s only female driver, Melanie Snow, but also her 17 year old son Madison. Despite his youth, Snow the younger has already taken several race wins in Porsches, while his mother has tasted success in the ALMS. They will have major backup in the car in the form of Sascha Maassen, Marco Seefried and Porsche junior Klaus Bachler. Definitely one to watch.
Up against all these Porsches is a formidable array of other marques, with Ferrari, Audi and BMW leading the charge.
Emil Assentato and Jeff Segal claimed their second Rolex Sports Car Series title last season at the wheel of the #69 AIM Autosport Ferrari 458 after three wins and five other podium-finishes through the season. Moreover, their success contributed to Ferrari taking the manufacturer title in the 458 Grand-Am’s first season of competition.
For the 2013 Rolex 24, however, the two champions will be driving in separate cars as the Prancing Horse looks for its first winner’s trophy since Gianpiero Moretti’s Ferrari 333SP took the overall win in 1998. Segal moves across to the #61 R. Ferri/AIM 458, where he is joined by Max Papis, Toni Vilander and Giancarlo Fisichella, instantly promoting this car to the ranks of the favourites.
Assentato, meanwhile, has very able support in #69 in the form of Guy Cosmo, Anthony Lazzaro and Nick Longhi; and while perhaps not quite as star-studded as the #61, there is no lack of talent with this entry either.
Scuderia Corse also field two 458s, and could well spring a surprise or two.
The #63 car features a potent trio in the form of Alessandro Balzan, Marco Frezza and Alessandro Pier Guidi. All three have had success in international GT racing and are sure to be quick this coming week; and just for good measure, Ferrari factory driver Olivier Beretta has been brought in to add support.
The #64, meanwhile, sees another all-Brazilian driver lineup, as Chico Longo, Rafa Matos, Xandinho Negrão and Daniel Serra team up in the car run in association with Brazilian team Via Italia Racing.
Neither Scuderia Corse Ferrari set the world alight at the Roar, but both have the potential to do very well.
AF-Waltrip lodged an entry for a second 458 for the race just last week, but we are still awaiting confirmation of the final driver lineup. At present, team co-owners Michael Waltrip and Rob Kauffman along with regular driver Rui Aguas and NASCAR star Clint Bowyer, are listed in both the #55 and #56 Ferraris, but we can surely expect the yet-to-be-named racers to be of a high calibre.
The only single-car Ferrari entry comes from Extreme Speed Motorsports; Scott Sharp going in search of a GT winner’s trophy to add to his overall win from 1996 in the company of Johannes van Overbeek, Ed Brown and Mike Hedlund.
The team ended 2012 with a win at the Petit Le Mans, and would very much like to begin 2013 with a win in another classic US enduro.
Five Audis are still listed as being among the 36 GT end=tries, but it is looking increasingly likely that just four will appear on the final entry, with the #74 being the odd one out.
Like the Ferrari 458, the Grand-Am version of the R8 LMS made its debut at the 2012 Rolex 24, but has yet to emulate the success of its Italian rival. Things could change this year, however, as the factory brings out the big guns in support of its efforts; a win at Daytona being a glaring omission on the Ingolstadt firm’s lengthy honours list.
Audi Sport Customer Racing joins forces with three teams this year, greatly increasing the chance of success for the marque.
The first of these is Rum Bum Racing, which has concentrated on the Continental series in recent seasons. Matt Plumb almost clinched that title with the team in 2012 and now finds himself joined in the #13 Audi by three very rapid and experienced Germans – Frank Biela, Christopher Haase and Markus Winkelhock – who each boast impressive racing CVs.
The second is AJT, which is fielding the #24 R8 alongside the #23 Porsche. Here we find three Audi factory men – Filipe Albuquerque, Oliver Jarvis and Edoardo Mortara – joining rapid South African racer Dion von Moltke in what could well be a hot favourite.
Would you bet against either of these teams?
Or how about the third joint-venture R8, fielded in conjunction with Audi’s first customer in Grand-Am, APR Motorsport.
The #52 sees APR regular Ian Baas supported by another Teutonic trio – Marc Basseng, Rene Rast and Frank Stippler – and a top finish would be ample reward for APR’s efforts in a challenging first season.
The #51 Audi is a stand-alone APR effort, and is staffed by a quintet of US and Canadian drivers; Matt Bell, David Empringham, John Farano, Alex Figge and Dave Lacey no doubt relishing the opportunity to benchmark themselves against their European colleagues.
The Rolex 24 hasn’t been kind to Turner Motorsport in its three previous outings, but 2013 sees the Massachusetts team back with two BMW M3s at the DIS and once again with serious backing from the factory.
The #93 sees Wild Bill Auberlen teaming up with the two works drivers, as well as Gunter Schaldach and team regular Michael Marsal. Both the multiple WTCC champion and the rapid Belgian are debuting at the Rolex, but will have used the RBTR24 to get acquainted with the banking and will be amongst the quickest drivers out there this week. Auberlen, meanwhile, just seems to get quicker as he gets older and will again anchor the effort.
Martin and Auberlen are on double duty in the #94 as well, where they join Paul Dalla Lana, Billy Johnson and Boris Said. Dalla Lana ended up fourth in the Rolex Series standings after wins at Mid-Ohio and Watkins Glen, and is regarded as a top privateer in the BMW ranks. Boris Said is another veteran who has lost none of his speed and skill, while Johnson is a very promising and rapid youngster who has already enjoyed success with Turner.
If the team can keep the mechanical gremlins at bay this weekend, the colours blue and yellow just might figure prominently in this race.
But never mind all these fancy foreign cars and drivers; will it be American muscle that rules the roost on Sunday afternoon?
Admittedly, Robin Liddell and Jan Magnussen are technically non-American, but they have stood on various podia across the States often enough to probably know all the words to the Star-Spangled Banner and do draw a wage from Detroit.
There’s just the one Camaro GT.R from Stevenson Motorsports this year, but with the Dane and the Scot teaming up with regular pilot John Edwards and Corvette factory racer Tommy Milner, the #57 represents a very strong package. The car always has pace and took three wins during the 2012 season, leaving Liddell runner-up in the standings, but a second win at the Rolex is what the Scot craves and perhaps the team concentrating on just the one car will lead to an avoidance of the mechanical issues that have dogged the Camaro at Daytona in recent years?
Eric Curran and Boris Said demonstrated regularly throughout 2012 that the#31 Marsh Racing Corvette is another contender, but for whatever reason that didn’t translate into top results. Rather confusingly, Said’s name also appears on the entry list for this car, but it would appear that Turner will be getting his services this weekend. As things stand, Curran is joined in the car by Lawson Aschenbach and Brandon Davis, but it’s difficult to look beyond a mid-pack result for the red and white car.
And it’s a similar situation for the #87 Vehicle Technologies Dodge Viper, which currently lists Tony Ave, Jan Heylen and Doug Peterson [isn’t he in the #27 DP – Ed?] as its driver lineup. This car has seldom featured prominently in the race and is unfortunately unlikely to do so this year.
Alas, that is also the case for the sole Mazda RX-8 (surely the final outing for the venerable but successful model at the Rolex 24) which is entered by Racers Edge Motorsports. Rudy Camarillo, Martin Fuentes, Carlos Peralta and Ricardo Perez De Lara will undoubtedly give it their all this weekend, but a reliable run to the flag is the best they can realistically hope for.
And so there we have it – a field of GT and GTX cars which quite possibly exceeds in quality last year’s entry, which is certainly saying something. As with the DP class, picking a winner is nigh on impossible and the choice will likely come down to personal preference and prejudice, rather than a rational analysis of the facts. Make sure you’re watching when those engines start on Saturday!
MH
