Amongst the teams returning to the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in 2024, despite the removal of the LMP3 class from proceedings, is multiple race winners in the class Sean Creech Motorsport. The Jupiter, Florida-based squad has opted to step up into the LMP2 class, but doing so in a now unique fashion, with a Ligier JS P217 Gibson, the sole representative of the chassis in a veritable sea of Orecas.
The car is presented in a stunning ‘Stars and Stripes’ livery from Andy Blackmore and has attracted comments of both the dismissive and encouraging flavours even before it arrived at Daytona. Since arriving though the pace has been far from an embarrassment, the car topping the class times for much of a session at the Roar.
Getting here though has been quite a journey, as João Barbosa and Lance Willsey told the DSC Editor last week:
“The timing for the LMP3s to go away from WeatherTech was not ideal for Lance and the team because he made an investment just that year to buy all the assets from CORE autosport that just closed,” said Barbosa.
“Luckily, there’s still a big market for those cars so I don’t think there’ll be a problem to sell as many as Lance wants, because he wants to keep a few from what I understand (the original purchase was understood to be five Ligier P3 cars).
And it was Willsey too who came up with the plan to take the Ligier route into LMP2.
“I was super excited when Lance came up with this idea to come with a Ligier P2 and not just be another team running an Oreca, something different is always fun, and often a challenge,” Barbosa continued.
“I’m at the sharp end of the spear here. So I take responsibility for it, Willsey interjected!
“When the decision came to decide what we were going to do, the first thing I asked myself was: I’m in my 60s now, do I just, fold it up? Am I done racing? Is this an omen?
Something different is always fun, and often a challenge
“The thing is though I’m still having fun. I’m still doing alright. I had a couple of good races last year, a couple not as good. So LMP2 was the natural thing to look at. And then it was really a matter of, does the grid need another Oreca chassis?
“And, you know, some of it was philosophical, going back to the history of the P2 class; it was never meant to be a spec class. There’s a reason obviously. Four chassis that went to three pretty quickly. And then another one fell off, and then they had the Joker updates to try to benchmark against the Oreca. And that process just took longer, as I understand it, than the teams could tolerate waiting for and so they had to move on, if they were going to be on the grid.
Lance then went on to offer a pretty accurate run through the journey that led LMP2 to an Oreca-dominated picture.
“For the Ligier, the joker update was successful. But it was too little too late, teams had already moved on. Then there were the tyre challenges of developing the car on a different tyre than the Oreca was developed on. The series was run on the tyre that the Oreca was developed on so there was a much larger database. The deck was sort of stacked, you know, at that point for the Oreca and then more and more teams around the world ran the car that generated data and it just got better and better.”
What’s the history of this car?
“So this car I bought. We had the option to have a car built new, but at that point in time, we realised and accepted the challenge in front of us, not just taking on a new car, but also taking on the development task of this car. The fastest way to get on track and turn laps was to purchase an existing chassis.
“We had somebody who was working with us in Europe who investigated a variety of chassis that were available as well as packages. They found this car with ARC Bratislava, this chassis came with an engine in it and some spares of modest value too.
“And that got us started. that got us in the game because the lag time to have Ligier build us a car from scratch was going to be months longer than shipping this car from Europe to the US.”
Between Barbosa and Willsey there is no shortage of experience at the Rolex 24.
“I think it will be my 22nd?” Said Joao (a total that includes three overall wins, three further overall podium finishes and a class win).
“It’s 14 times here 14 for me but 15 races as one year I drove two cars in the same year through a turn of events with Konrad with the Lamborghini Huracan GT3. We were running two cars. I was in one but one of the drivers in the other got disqualified so they were a driver short. So I started off in the ‘my’ car got my four and a half hours done very quickly jumped over to the other car. I did the max of 12 hours that year.”
Clearly, the teams wants to go one better than you’ve done for the last three years…
“YES! It’s been tough being second three years in a row!” exclaimed Willsey when asked about his Rolex 24 target.
“On pure performance, it’s unlikely to be this year, but we don’t even know the way this race is going to go.
It’s been tough being second three years in a row
“We’re going to try to optimise not only the speed of the car, but the work of the team during the pitstops and the work of the drivers behind the wheel and see where that gets us. I don’t think in performance in a one-lap shootout we might be quite as quick as the other guys. But maybe we might have a good shot on the long runs.
“We haven’t completed as many laps as we wanted to in testing (several tests have been interrupted by weather). So we’re gonna be discovering a lot of things about the car during the race as well.”
As the Bronze-ranked driver though, Lance has a clear view of what he can do to give the team the best possible opportunities in the race:
“There’s not-so-subtle aspects of strategy that we will use to our advantage to the extent we can.
“If I get my drive time done as soon as possible. If I can finish my four and a half hours of drive time and hand the car off on the lead lap, I won my race.
“Last year, we were fortunate, I handed the car off after we pit cycled, we had my four and a half hours done and Nico (Pino) was P1. In my position it doesn’t get better. I know I’m not, I’m thinking that. The other thing is, ideally, I will double-stint tyres every time. Because again, if I’m a second off, it doesn’t matter. In the first four and a half hours of the race, it does not matter.
“What does matter is having as many sets of tyres as possible, in the event, through hard work, we are in the hunt at the end, then we have tyres available to push to do it. So if I have to double or triple stint tyres, so be it. We have to plan for success, not for me being half a second faster a lap – that’s irrelevant.”
You then get into that next phase of the race, with Joao taking the wheel. He knows how to win this race. How big a part is his experience in the strategy that comes into play?
If I have to double or triple stint tyres, so be it
“I can pass a lot of the experience I have, especially to Jonny (Edgar) as it will be his first time. The experience that Nolan (Seigel) has, he’s been driving all kinds of stuff lately, he knows what to do. He’s very smart he’s been around this race and he’s done this race before so he knows what to expect. But you know, just passing a little bit of my experience, whether it’s during the track walk or every time we chat, keep pointing out a couple of things and hopefully some of that sticks.
“They’re here because they’re good drivers and we trust their ability to help us achieve the best result possible.”
And there’s one final aspect to the SCM story that deserves a much wider audience: Lance’s helmet. What’s that all about?
“I’m an enthusiast of the sport,” he said. “And I’m very concerned about the future of the sport. So what I do every season is I buy a new helmet in flat carbon fibre black.
“At every race at the autograph session. I have kids autograph my helmet for me and I tell them I’m going to wear this helmet in the race for the whole season.
And that they will be in those races.
“You create a relationship from the perspective that they’re coming for my autograph. I tell them: “Here’s the deal. Absolutely you can have mine. But I want your autograph. I want you to sign my helmet.
“The kids love it, the parents love it. They take a picture with their son or daughter signing the helmet. And then we’ve got a fan for life right here.”
