While the team left Daytona without silverware, 3GT Racing turned heads in its WeatherTech SportsCar Championship debut last month. Its brand new #15 Lexus RCF GT3 of Robert Alon, Austin Cindric Dominik, Farnbacher and Jack Hawksworth came home 14th in GTD, following an impressive showing of pace in varying conditions, leading the ultra-competitive GTD class during the Rolex 24 for a total of 26 laps.
It’s been a long road for the Lexus-backed team developing the car, but the RCF GT3 is finally here and ready to take on the 11 remaining WeatherTech rounds this season. This though, is just the beginning, as Lexus is once again uses sportscar racing in North America as its favoured platform for developing and promoting its performance-focused arm.
“It goes back to the gaps that we have,” Lexus general manager Jeff Bracken told DSC when asked about the decision to go racing in North America. “Our most formidable opponents are the Germans, like Mercedes Benz and BMW, even Audi, they have deeper lineups and powertrains with significant horsepower. At Lexus, we’re just getting into that, it’s a gap.
“While we’ve done well with the ‘Baby Boomer’ generation, and we have to take care of that, if we don’t come out with high output, high horsepower engines and dynamic vehicles, we’re not going to be able to keep pace in the retail position. That’s what you’ll see from us more and more in the future.”
To do this, Lexus is relying on its partnership with Paul Gentilozzi’s 3GT Racing team to showcase the RCF GT3, which endured a lengthy developmental period spanning multiple years and four iterations before it was finally ready to take on the IMSA GTD class.
And at the end of the day after considering Pirelli World Challenge, WeatherTech seemed the most logical place for us to start
Gentilozzi and his outfit have been here before. Through the years they have gained experience racing in a variety of series including Trans Am, Champ Car and the American Le Mans Series, to varying levels of success. The team won the 2009 Trans-Am title, with a programme that ran parallel with its failed Jaguar XKRS project that failed to win any races or score the outfit silverware. Nevertheless, the 3GT team has a fresh look about it with the Lexus effort, running a pair of cars that have real potential to compete against one of the strongest GT3 fields in recent memory in IMSA over the coming months and years.
“When we selected Paul Gentilozzi and 3GT Racing to get involved with this programme, we asked Paul which series would make the most sense to get back into racing,” Bracken said in explaining its entry into IMSA. “And at the end of the day after considering Pirelli World Challenge, WeatherTech seemed the most logical place for us to start. Clearly this is a marketing effort for us, we want to get the word out that we’re not just a company that builds high-quality vehicles, we build high-performance vehicles.
“So far it’s been fun for us,” he continued. “The media asks us ‘what’s going on at Lexus?’ and honestly we love that question. There’s something going on at Lexus which is different from the past 25 years. The racing part of it is our effort to add credibility to the fact that we are a sought after brand. We also felt that if we make this call we’ve got to have a great team, we can’t just go out and run around. This is expensive and there’s a lot of people in involved.
“Based on the budget forecast for our racing programme relative to our other expenses, we think it’s a good investment.
“This is so new to our consuming public, they’re not used to seeing Lexus race. We’ll work very diligently to associate what we have on the road with what we have on the track. That’s why in the commercials you’ll see the RCF road car convert into the GT3 car.
“But really, we’re here to win.”
David Wilson, president of Toyota Racing Development, is also optimistic about the programme’s prospects. He does however remain realistic about the mountain which Lexus must claim to embed itself in the highly-competitive GT3 customer market that continues to go from strength to strength each year.
“The very first emotion was relief when we arrived at Daytona, it was a journey to get here,” he said to DSC. “One of the challenges inherently is dealing with so many different stakeholders. Toyota Technocraft built and developed the car and we’re working with a new team with 3GT Racing. We’re still establishing the team and our expectations are fairly modest.
“The team took delivery of the car back in September 2015 and we haven’t had a lot of hands on experience. Most of the car’s development occurred in Japan with Technocraft. We’d have loved to see the car earlier in the year but we’re pleased with the testing that we’ve done, and in the build up to the Rolex 24 we did a lot of miles at Road Atlanta.”
Prior to its showing at Daytona, the current version of the RCF won its maiden VLN race over in Germany, before the work shifted from development to getting its full FIA homologation and preparation for the 24 Hours back in January.
A win at the longer races this year is seeing the checkered flag
“We were overjoyed that it did that well in its maiden race,” Wilson commented. “But WeatherTech is going to be a different challenge. A win at the longer races this year is seeing the checkered flag.”
“Any race car in its infancy has a steep growth curve. That VLN race was instrumental in confirming some of the ground work. They’re continuing to work on the car at TTC, and we still have areas to improve on. But from when it raced in the VLN to now, the focus has really been on getting the car homologated.
“This is secure because Jeff (Bracken) and his team at Lexus generally view this as being in concert with their F line, they want to build over time performance credibility and they realise that you can’t do that racing a year at a time, or two years at a time. BMW, Mercedes, Porsche have motorsport ingrained into their culture because of their level of commitment.
“For us a view of success is being here 10 years from now, we want to build a long term foundation for Lexus in motorsports.”
While there will be a RCFs racing in various parts of the world during 2017, for Lexus as a GT3 brand, the RCF is not going to be as popular as the established cars in the category overnight with teams. Wilson sees the GT3 programme as a real test for the brand, which will have to go the extra miles to earn respect and win over potential customers for future seasons.
This is a customer-based class and we’re applying a bit more support than will sustain itself
“We don’t have a hard number,” Wilson said when asked about the number of customer cars Lexus hopes to sell. “This is a customer-based class and we’re applying a bit more support than will sustain itself. We’re looking at realistically 2018 before the customer base becomes apparent. One of the things we need to to is show what we can do. In order to have a customer base, we need to demonstrate what our cars are capable of. We need to demonstrate how we support customers.
“It’s going to be different because we’re new to the game and are competing against mature customer based programmes. What I think will ultimately differentiate ourselves is the model we go racing. I think we’re all very proud of the commitment we have and utilising TRD for example is a secret weapon.
“What’s most important is that we equip ourselves in a respectful, successful way.”
Jeff Bracken and David Wilson portraits courtesy of Lexus and Toyota respectively.
