OK. It’s wet.
The morning session was red-flagged with only the No. 73 Park Place Porsche and the 19 Muehlner Porsche heading out, at least in the first part of the session.
The No. 8 Starworks PC did make a brief appearance on track and then promptly came back in. The 19 Porsche did make another lap or two, when the rain had eased a bit, but appeared to have an off as the red came back out and then a few minutes later the car returned, only to be taken right back to the paddock.
The original plan was for the No. 4 Corvette to do at least a few laps, as the team performed an engine swap on the car. The car was reported to have done a quick trip through the paddock but apparently did not go out on track.
AIM too intended to go out, but the weather was just too nasty to make it worthwhile. Besides, according to Ian Willis, “we’re 1.5 seconds off the pace. Nothing we’ll learn in this wet session will help us close the gap.”
A few other cars appeared in pit lane, but did not venture out.
Catching up from last night:
The original plan for Mazda was to only do the minimum laps in the session – no more, no less. Sylvain Tremblay said the race engines are in the cars already and the plan and knowing the weather forecast for today it simply didn’t make any sense to put the added time on the engines. One of the cars did swap out noses, alternating between lower and higher downforce configurations.
Sylvain did indicate that his Speedsource team is ready to dig into the upgrades in the off season, looking to address the cooling issues first off. That will entail, among other things changing radiators. A new head is also hoped to be able to address some of the cooling issues as well as addressing some of the power deficiencies. “It is a lot of work, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Consider the Lizards as a team looking at changes. Something has changed since Road America, where the team had expressed optimism about returning. Part of that something is the BOP, which has rendered the Audi an uncompetitive package in the last part of the season. Now the team is “looking at alternatives.” Take that as you would…
Gary Horrocks
