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Roar Before The 24: Saturday Paddock Notes

News and notes from the second day of track action at Daytona

Roar Before The 24: Saturday Paddock Notes

Vantage GT4 debut delayed

The Saturday afternoon VP SportsCar Racing Challenge race, which was won by the Mustang GT4 on its global debut, should also have featured the race debut of the new Aston Martin Vantage GT4.

Rebel Rock Racing was set to field the test car ahead of the imminent delivery of the first production car, which will race in next week’s four-hour Pilot Challenge season opener.

However, the test car was sidelined yesterday, with an issue understood to be focused on gearbox electronics. And with no spares available here, the car was withdrawn from the VP races.

The 2024 GT3 and GT4 Aston Martins are set to be formally revealed at an Aston Martin Motorsports event at Silverstone on February 12th. At that event, the names of the new cars will be revealed. (The cars are still running with masking vinyls over the front headlamps to disguise the styling of the new road car.)

Pitt in the pit?

It appears movie star Brad Pitt has arrived at Daytona for the filming of the upcoming racing movie on Apple TV. A Cadillac Escalade was spotted by DSC parked in the paddock this afternoon, surrounded by fans, outside the Wright Motorsports pit garage, with the shutters down and the garage internally blocked with screens.

Either Pitt is on-site or Pat Long’s fan club has seen a significant boost in numbers over the off-season. We’ll let you be the judge…

iRacing Daytona 24 Hours underway

By the time this notebook goes up, the seventh running of the iRacing Daytona 24 will be well underway. Steve Myers, the executive vice president of iRacing.com confirmed that 15,983 unique drivers are participating in the race across multiple ‘splits’ (instances) of the Rolex 24’s virtual recreation.

This year the field will feature all four of the current GTP cars with the recent additions of the Cadillac V-Series.R, Acura ARX-06, and Porsche 963. LMP2 will be represented not through the Oreca 07 but through the Dallara P217, while six contemporary GT3 cars will round out the selection – including one car not featured on the Rolex 24 grid, the Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II.

Romain Grosjean, Eswatini’s number one!

This same mixup befell fellow Swiss driver Simona de Silvestro when she was part of Heinricher Racing with Meyer Shank Racing in 2019.

A look at this year’s watch

Rolex has released an image of this year’s specially engraved Oyster Perpetual Cosmograph Daytona watch, which will be presented to the winners of each class at next weekend’s Rolex 24 Hours. It’s a beauty!

Mitas and WEC engineering staff on site to assist Cadillac’s GTP team

Stephen Mitas, the team manager of Cadillac Racing’s FIA WEC Hypercar team, is on-site at Daytona to assist the Ganassi IMSA GTP team with a couple of his engineers.

“We are one team, so we are doing what we can to help the IMSA and WEC programmes be successful. There are a couple of WEC engineers with me to help the CGR entry,” he told DSC.

Mitas and his engineers aren’t the only members of the Ganassi WEC programme on-site, as both Alex Lynn and Earl Bamber are here on GM duty with Corvette. They will compete in the Rolex 24 Hours aboard Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs for the car’s global race debut.

Lynn and Bamber are the only two drivers that will compete with Cadillac in Hypercar for the full 2024 FIA WEC season. An announcement from Cadillac on the third driver chosen to join them for select races during the 2024 campaign is expected soon.

Following this trip to Florida, the focus for Mitas and his WEC team immediately shifts to the FIA WEC Prologue and season opener at Qatar. The WEC chassis is already en route to the Middle East from the CGR Cadillac base in Germany.

Helmet reveals

There has been a flurry of helmet reveals from drivers in the past 24 hours, including Felipe Nasr, Marvin Kirchoefer and Jordan Taylor.

Nasr’s new lid has been designed by Brazilian artist Adonis Alcici, who also designed his helmet for the 2023 Le Mans 24 Hours.

McLaren driver Marvin Kirchoefer has also shown off his new Bell helmet designed by JMD Helmets, featuring US colours on one side, and Canadian on the other.

WTRAndretti racer Jordan Taylor meanwhile, has opted to incorporate imagery of his dogs ‘Fonzie’ and ‘Chachi’ onto his new design, as part of a nod to the comedy movie Step Brothers. “In the words of Dominic Toretto,” he wrote on social media “family”.

Fans everywhere!

This weekend’s Roar Before The Rolex 24 has proved to be a real draw for fans. The infield at the circuit is packed already, with attendance believed to be up 20 per cent on 2022. It’s so busy in fact, that infield parking was full before lunchtime, forcing many to park outside the circuit and take shuttles in.

The infield atmosphere has also been bolstered by a strong contingent of 4,200 boys and girl scouts who will camp here overnight tonight and soak up the experience.

Fan access at the Rolex 24 has always been second to none and this year is no different. A perfect example of this came early this morning when DSC spotted AO Racing driver Gunnar Jeanette conducting garage tours with groups of children (above).

Hanson loving life at JDC

Phil Hanson says he is relishing every moment of his first event as a GTP driver, with JDC Miller Motorsports in its privately-run Porsche 963.

It hasn’t taken the Briton to get up to speed, as he posted the fastest time GTP time of the weekend so far, ahead of tonight’s night session. He says he feels it was achievable because of the team environment at JDC Miller.

“That was my first time on new tyres, it might be my last!” he quipped after the afternoon session. “The car was very good. The JDC boys did a good job rolling out a good car. We were very fast when we drove this morning, and it translated to this afternoon.

“We are learning so much about the car. We want to get as much data as we can. I don’t think we’ve shown our hand yet to be honest.”

While still very new to the 963, the Roar isn’t his first run in the car, as Hanson spent time with his new WEC team  -HERTZ Team JOTA – at a recent two-day test in Bahrain.

“I’ve just come back from the Bahrain test, where we ran one car with most of the drivers. Jenson (Button) and Oliver (Rasmussen) are great to work with and I couldn’t ask for anything more. Both JOTA and JDC are very similar because they are kind and friendly, but they will do whatever it takes to get the most out of you. I am enjoying all the driving.

“There’s a lot to learn,” he continued. “Systems-wise there is a lot that jumps out of you compared to LMP2. It’s nice but also very scary, the amount you can change. You can find yourself in a bad spot by making changes in the cockpit. But JDC and JOTA have been so good, the process of learning it has been great. It all seems a lot more simple now.”

New Corvette “feels pretty good already”

DSC caught up with Corvette factory driver Nicky Catsburg earlier today to get some feedback on the feeling of the Z06 GT3.R behind the wheel after some running at the Roar.

“It feels pretty good already,” he said. “In terms of balance, we are already close to where we want to be. It feels fast and comparable to what I remember the previous generation car. We still have things to get our heads around, like the new clutch, which feels very different. But, in terms of pace, I feel we will be strong.

“Honestly it feels very similar (to the GTE C8.R and the C8.R that previously competed in GTD). It’s the same concept, the engine is different, and it’s built to GT3 spec with ABS. It feels a little different, but it’s not like starting from scratch.”

With the feeling behind the wheel with the new car coming naturally to Catsburg and his teammates, and the Pratt Miller team behind the scenes almost identical to the previous factory set-up, what is the level of expectation like at this stage?

“We definitely don’t feel like we’ve got a leg up on the competition (because the Z06 GT3.R feels up to speed already),” he explained. “However, I am happy with where the car is already. We’ve had years where we were searching for the set-up all week and I feel now we are already close to where we want to be.”

Zilich now on double duty

Connor Zilich is now set to pull double duty at Daytona. The longtime Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup driver, in addition to his LMP2 debut with Era Motorsport at the Rolex 24, will return to MX-5 Cup next weekend with BSI Racing and backing from Classic Mazda Orlando.

This means we now have nine drivers competing in both the Rolex 24 and a support race across this and next weekend:

Stevan McAleer, Spencer Pumpelly, Trent Hindman, Jack Hawksworth, Corey Lewis, Aaron Telitz, Robby Foley, Kenton Koch and Lance Willsey.

Dumas a late arrival

Proton Competition GTP driver Romain Dumas is the only driver in the GTP field that hasn’t yet set a time in testing so far. The Frenchman has a good excuse for his late arrival though, as he is travelling back from the Dakar Rally.

In the other classes Luis Perez Companc, Brendan Iribe and Andy Lally also haven’t set competitive times as of yet, ahead of the Saturday night session.

On-track images courtesy Jake Galstad, Richard Dole / IMSA, Rolex watch image courtesy of Rolex

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