In the aftermath of last weekend’s Rolex 24 Qualifying race the DSC Ed caught up with the LMP3 class winners, Jarett Andretti and Josh Burdon from the #36 Andretti Autosports Ligier Js P320
Josh, you’ve taken the win in the qualifying race – and just about everyone that didn’t win will say id doesn’t matter – Does it matter?
“It was a race for just preparing and learning and, at the end of the day, we want to win everything we enter. So step one is complete.
“I guess starting from pole position, even though people say it doesn’t mean a lot for 24 hours- That’s true, but still, I much prefer to start first than anywhere else.
“We just had a programme before the event that we wanted to get through in the race, fuel, saving, practising in traffic, pitstops, with pressure, everything like that, because the crew is all kind of been integrated quite recently. So it just built some energy in the team.
“And as for these cars, P3 was maybe not specifically, originally designed to do 24 hours. So if you want to do this racing with these cars, it’s all about minimising all those risks and focusing on the one percenters and trying to be as clean as possible.
“So step one is done, I’m quite happy and really looking forward to this time next week.”
Jarrett, you’ve been a key part of putting this programme together? It’s great to see the name and the team here. What is the plan moving forward? Is it more of this – as long as IMSA will continue to welcome LMP3? Or for you, and for the team, are there other plans?
“The first thing to say is that Josh is absolutely right about the plan for the qualifying race – it helps us to prepare for the main event, including some challenges we have often seen at the start of a race that I saw again here.
“Getting a start around some of the slower P2 guys can be tough and actually, I ended up pinching off coming out of turn three to avoid hitting a P2 that was pretty far down the track with some exit room left.
“That ended up costing us a lead and it was a lesson learned for later in the week.
“Take that away, the traffic and multiclass stuff and just trying to understand all those, as Josh calls them, the one percenters as well as getting everybody involved gelled together – there’s nothing gels a team together, like doing battle, right? And the second thing that helps that process the best is to also be successful.
“So, whether it’s others struggling around you with their own problems, that reduce the pressure or not, you have to do your very best thing to give yourselves the best chance to perform, and not to fll into the same issues that your opposition might.
“We put a car programme and a driver line-up together that could run consistently and quickly, executed a pitstop well, didn’t hit anybody – didn’t get hit. And that’s really the name of the game in sportscar racing!
“Clean, clean, clean, round, and round and round – indeed is the key.”
IMSA brought in LMP3 initially to help them boost the grid but it’s now something rather bigger than what was intended?
We’ve got a serious grid for the class here at a very serious race. How does all of that feed in to the wider sportscsr racing picture for the team?
“LMP3 originally for us, it was like, I had to build my programme step by step, and I didn’t see a pathway to WeatherTech. And so I ended up getting an LMP3 car and I was going to run prototype challenge.
“I did all of this without any knowledge that they would move the class into the main Series.
“When we found out that was the case I got with Michael and JF (Thormann) and everybody at the shop, and I asked could we try to work on some things to get to WeatherTech.
“And we were able to make that jump and invest in the programme and the infrastructure and all that stuff. So really, IMSA did a great job opening up that door between challenge teams and Weather Tech. And I think that you can see that if you have more feeder series like that, coupled with the inexpensive nature of the car compared to other race cars. It makes a whole lot of sense to do.
“I think opening up the driver rankings in it would be better. It puts a lot of guys out of work that should be in work but besides that, it’s a great class and I think the way it fits into the overall structure, I really enjoy.
“It helps in keeping guys under the Andretti Autosport banner, like Oliver Askew last year, it helped us to help him to keep racing and he did a fantastic job for us.
“And then he got a Formula E deal and, whilst that excluded him from doing this, there’s always guys that we can keep under the banner, you know, Keep them fresh with racing, maybe when and if something doesn’t pan out with them on the on the single seater side.
“Aside from that, Josh is Australian. And Michael’s got an Australian supercar team. He’s been to Bathurst before. So who knows, maybe we go to take a run down there at some point – you never know what happens.
“I want to race more. Not necessarily in the P3 class, but I’d like to race more. Seven or eight races is not not quite enough. And so I’d like to maybe add four, five or six races to the schedule. I don’t know what that would be in. but GT cars are quite a bit of fun.
“Right now, we’re just hyper-focused on getting this programme right. Once you start winning consistently with your own programme, you can move and venture off to additional options.
“It was the same with Michael, you know. He won with his IndyCar programme and his Indy Lights programme, and then he ventured off and now he’s been winning with basically everything he does!”
