Welcome to DSC to Kevin Ehrlich
A visit to Watkins Glen is a visit to one of the cornerstones of road racing in the United States. IMSA’s Tudor United Sports Car Championship pays homage to that past with a six hour event this weekend.
The 6 Hours is also part of the endurance grouping of events that make up the Tequila Patron North American Endurance Cup. Daytona, Sebring, Watkins Glen, and Road Atlanta.
The festivities on Friday kicked off with sunny skies and windy conditions which continued throughout the day. The schedule provided for two one hour practice sessions between other multiple support races from the Continental Tire Sportscar Challenge, Cooper Tires Prototype Lites, Porsche GT3 Cup, and Lamborghini Super Trofeo series. Yes, the infield and garage areas at the Glen are quite busy.
While it may always rain at Le Mans, rain is also well known to Watkins Glen. A clear story line in the Friday paddock was the impending rain. The consensus is that rain is on its way, heavy rain is forecast for Saturday and scattered rain is expected for Sunday. If the rain is heavy enough, qualifying may be scrubbed.
A visit to the Continental Tire trailer confirmed that there are no intermediate tires available. Slicks and full wets are the only options and teams may not hand-cut slicks to improvise an intermediate tire.
The afterglow of Le Mans is very visible in varying forms. The Le Mans race-winning #64 Corvette has been cleaned up and is ready to run in the hands of Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner as the #4. The damage to the #63 car is repairable, but with time after Le Mans in short supply , the team decided to borrow the customer Larbe Competition car that failed to finish at Le Mans.
Dan Binks at Corvette explained that they were going to bring the Larbe car back to the US for repairs anyway, so they opted to fix it up and run it at Watkins Glen and Mosport as the #3 car before returning it to Larbe for their use at the next round of the WEC. At a cost in the neighborhood of $1m each, there isn’t budget to keep spare cars sitting around as just-in-case insurance policies.
Binks recounted the 2015 Le Mans experience with the pride of a parent as he talked about the effort to combine efforts to support the winning factory #64 car, assist the customer Larbe team at the track, get the cars home, conduct the necessary repairs, and deliver race-ready cars to Watkins Glen. As a nod to the loan, the Corvette team repainted and re-built the car but retained the Larbe signage on the A-pillar near the windshield. Corvette clearly sets the high standard of expecting to win, but the last few years of difficulties made this year’s triumph even more sweet.
The crew at the factory GTLM Porsche team is also incredibly happy with the Le Mans success of their prototype siblings. Overall LeMans winners Earl Bamber and Nick Tandy are probably two of the most popular people on the grounds. The crowd gathered at the Porsche tent to watch Tandy and Pilet practice driver changes in the #911 was testament to the heightened interest. Bamber and Jorg Bergmeister will pilot the #912 car this weekend, so Le Mans teammates will be battling each other for the class honors.
While Le Mans is still at the forefront of many minds, there is a task at hand. Rather than worrying about rain set-ups, the Porsche GTLM team seemed more concerned about making sure that their drivers get re-acclimated with driving a GT car after spending so much time in the 919 prototypes over the past several months. The jump from a GT to a prototype can be more difficult that the adjustment in the other direction. The Porsche team was also eager to de-brief after the technical troubles experienced at Le Mans and expressed confidence that the problem was identified and addressed and wouldn’t be a problem for their pair of 911RSR entries.
A walk further down the paddock found a very different scene in the Mazda tent. Two cars were on the entry and both are on-site, but the team is only running the #07 with its regular diesel powerplant. The longer term decision of whether to switch one or both cars to a gasoline engine remains to be see. Fans that were hoping to see a diesel versus gasoline battle with common Mazda chassis will be disappointed, but there are continued signs of progress. The Mazda’s free practice time was a second quicker than its qualifying time in the 2014 6 Hours event.
With rain on everybody’s radar, the dry Friday running operated more as a testing session than anything else for many teams. The #0 Delta Wing does little to no testing, so the team explained that Friday practice was crucial for them as testing time, both for the car and for getting drivers acclimated with the car at this track. The Delta Wing hasn’t run in anger in the rain for some time and has no wet experience with the Continental tires, so Saturday and Sunday could be a challenge for them. They can make some modest aero and rake adjustments but there are many unknowns.
Among the prototype garages, the order for the day was methodical preparation. Always room for some tuning, but some teams like Michael Shank Racing have recently tested at Watkins Glen and have a good starting point for a set up. The VisitFlorida #90 car made some brake adjustments after first practice based on feedback from pilot Richard Westbrook on a car with a chassis only a few months old.
Bruno Junquiera in the #11 RSR Racing Prototype Challenge car commented that they certainly have means to soften a car for wet running, but he was hoping for a dry race noting that “a dry race makes for a better event, it is more predictable.” Joey Hand echoed the hopes for a dry race saying that the #01 Ganassi Ford might do some wet running on Saturday to get some knowledge, but they weren’t going too far out of their way to set up for a wet race.
The #8 Starworks Prototype Challenge driver line-up of Mike Hedlund and Renger van der Zande is augmented by Alex Popow from Venezuela. The team doesn’t get much testing time with the Prototype Challenge car, so practice time is devoted to issues of set up and driver comfort. A Starworks DP was on the tentative entry list in hopes of a deal coming through to make a Glen entry possible, but it was not to be.
Both practice sessions saw the #60 Shank P2 prototype claim the fastest time with Oswaldo Negri at the controls. The Action Express #5 car was in close attendance along with the Scott Pruett/Joey Hand Ganassi Ford #01 and the Dane Cameron/Max Papis/Eric Curran Whelen Action Express #31 (Yes, Max Papis is back at the Glen in a sports car which should be a big crowd favorite.) The afternoon session saw the top four cars within a half a second of each other and the rest nearby. The top 6 on the time sheets in the afternoon were separated by about a second and a half.
The top Prototype Challenge car in both sessions was seventh fastest overall. In the morning that place was claimed by Colin Braun and the #54 CORE Autosport entry. In the afternoon the #8 Starworks car topped the charts with van der Zande setting the top time. Like their bigger prototype brothers, the top three were clustered closely together at the top of the cart. The PC field numbers only seven entries this weekend, but most are closely matched. They could make for an interesting intramural affair and may add some spice in the wet for the overall. Conor Daly is a recent addition to the #38 Performance Tech Motorsports line-up. A one-off at this point, but Daly is optimistic that he’ll be able to more sports car races as his open-wheel duties have come to an end. Surprisingly, he’s never driven in a 6 Hour race at the Glen.
Perhaps the best class race of the weekend may be in the GTLM category. There is a consistent parade of spectators walking past and taking photos of the Corvette, Porsche, Ferrari, BMW and Viper paddock spaces. All are all traditional fan favorites and some have had recent notoriety on the larger Le Mans stage. In first practice, the top seven cars were separated by less than a second with both Corvettes at the top (Antonio Garcia fastest in the #3). The afternoon saw the BMW Z4 in the hands of Lucas Luhr at the top with Garcia’s Corvette and Giancarlo Fisichella’s Ferrari chasing close behind. The Porsche #911 and #912 entries look consistently about a half a second off the point, so perhaps they would benefit from a wet race.
New addition Kumo Wittmer took the #007 Aston Martin to the top time in the morning practice for GTD on the last lap of the session. Wittmer is filling in for team regular James Davidson. The car ran out of gas in the bus stop during the morning session causing a red flag and earning it a trip back to pit lane behind a tow truck, so ending on the top of the time sheets was a nice recovery. As with GTLM, the top of GTD is tight. The Magnus Porsche led a gaggle of Porsches in the morning with Leh Keen taking the Alex Job #22 WeatherTech Porsche to the top in the afternoon ahead of Spencer Pumpelly in the #73 Park Place Motorsports Porsche just behind. Marc Goosens rounded out the top three in the afternoon in the #93 ViperExchange Dodge Viper.
In total, 33 of the 34 entrants posted a time in first practice. The only car not to set a time was the #912 Porsche, believed to be delayed by wayward parts. Earl Bamber said that the #912 entry for the weekend was a brand new chassis so perhaps there were some new car quirks to work out. The car ran in the afternoon practice about a tenth off of its sister #911. All cars ran in the afternoon practice. Other than the fueling bobble for the Aston Martin, there were no other mechanical or unpleasant meetings with a barrier or between competitors which made for a reasonably quiet Friday.
Of course, practice is just practice. Friday was all about getting some seat time for drivers and working out little issues. In the event that Saturday ends up to be a deluge, it wouldn’t be surprising to see many cars and teams be conservative with their running in anticipation for a more hospitable Sunday for the 6 Hours.
Kevin Ehrlich
