Battles right to the end in all four classes. Twenty-five cars on the lead lap when the checkered flag flew. Sounds like a good time, doesn’t it?
Not when you add in 6 caution periods that encompassed one-third of the laps completed. That really was too bad, because the race actually looked like it was set up to be very competitive across the board.
Prototype
The race was set up quite well by the outstanding performance of Ryan Dalziel in qualifying, putting the ESM ran HPD on pole, surprising to some that it was by quite a margin. This did show that the P2 spec cars were capable of being competitive, at least on qualifying pace. But the first race lap set the tone, by the time the field reappeared after the first trip around the 4-mile track, Scott Sharp had dropped from his first starting position to 3rd, eventually dropping back even further.
Scott Pruett, driver of the Ganassi Ford Riley, which eventually finished 7th in class, 9th overall stated before the race that he was not shocked. “I wasn’t surprised that Ryan put the car on pole. They have tons of downforce in that car and they probably really dialed it in. They won’t be able to run that way in the race. It’ll be tough for them to compete in the race as it’s a difficult, nearly impossible thing to balance the performance between these cars. The series has done as good of a job as is possible, but we all knew heading into this that creating a balance between the cars would be nearly impossible.”
Early on, it appeared as if Action Express was in pretty good shape, but then they were knocked off track by an optimistic move by the Wayne Taylor Racing Corvette. There were times that the stewards may have penalized WTR for avoidable contact, but not this race. That pretty much set the tone for the remainder of the race, which saw lots of altercations, which led to the abundance of yellows down the road.
This Action Express/WTR altercation may also have contributed to the extension of a yellow when late in the race, the steering failed on the WTR Corvette while under caution, sending Jordan Taylor into the bridge wall while scrubbing tires. The team reported that the steering failed, no driver error here. Whether this failure was due to the earlier contact or was simply a failure has not yet been confirmed.
When the changes were announced to the DP cars for 2014, there was concern whether or not the cars would be able to withstand the dramatic increase in both downforce and power output. Pruett did say that they at Ganassi have seen some issues with cycle times on parts. “When you add 1500 to 2000 pounds of downforce to a car that wasn’t designed for it, you’ll have problems. We’ve monitored our components here at Ganassi for cycle times and thankfully we haven’t had any issues, at least in races.”
Whether or not it was cycle time or accident damage, the retirement was a disaster for WTR in the championship chase, dropping them back 16 points behind Action Express with only two races to go.
In essence, the race simply came down to pit strategy, Action Express, Michael Shank and the Sharp/Dalziel ESM opted to pit with just over an hour to go and that proved to be the ticket to winning the race. The remainder of the Prototype field opted to pit later and just did not have the opportunity to compete for the win because of the late cautions, which allowed the afore mentioned trio to have track position which they never would be forced to relinquish.
GTLM
Risi overcame a disappointing qualifying result to take their inaugural win in the TUSCC. It’s been a long time coming for the team, which has been on the short end of the BOP for quite some time.
In this case, the win did not go to the fastest car on track, but to the team that made the best out of what they had. In the race, the fastest cars were the Vipers, which took a 1-2 in class for the fastest lap times. The fastest lap times are as follows in the GTLM class:
Viper 91 2:05.267
Viper 93 2:05.286
Porsche 911 2:05.396
Porsche 912 2:05.440
Ferrari 62 2:05.515
BMW 56 2:05.665
Corvette 4 2:05.968
Corvette 3 2:06.005
BMW 55 2:06.284
Porsche 17 2:06.573
When compared to qualifying times, the Risi Ferrari was able to race much closer to their qualifying pace, only being .37 faster in qualifying than in the race. That contrasts quite spectacularly with most of the others, especially with the pole winning 56 BMW which was almost 2 seconds a lap faster in qualifying than they could manage in the race.
One of the keys for Risi was superior strategy and maybe even more importantly minimizing their pit time. They were also aided when they came out of the pits in one of their early stops in front of the Falken Porsche, which was slightly off the pace at this track. This allowed the Ferrari to stretch out a bit of a cushion over the others in class that were struggling to get past the Porsche.
Late in the race, it came down to a 3-car race, and while Muller and Bomarito fought over 2nd place, Kaffer was able to pull away slightly to give the team a well deserved win, at a track where they’ve had success in the past.
While the gap within the class is roughly the same 1 second or so, top to bottom in race pace, the qualifying gap is actually quite big. The previous BOP, which came into play for the race at Indy really shuffled the pace in the class and now it remains to be seen if the Corvette team can hang on to their points lead, as without any changes to the BOP, they will be fortunate to be able to win another of the “sprint” races. Petit Le Mans is a totally different animal…
Usually this class has been extremely tight all season long, but for some reason, this season it just hasn’t been there. Pre-adjustment, the Corvette were arguably the fastest cars out there, but since this latest change, they have almost become also-rans pace wise.
The Challenge Classes
Of the Championship chases, the PC class is the one that is the most settled. With 3 races to run, CORE is up 35 points in the drivers chase and 19 in the teams championship. Their poor result at Road America was the result of some on track incidents which resulted in two off track excursions.
Meanwhile, Renger van der Zande made the most of the opportunity to gain on the CORE driving pair in the championship and bring home the Starworks PC entry first in class, holding off a strong challenge from Sean Rayhall. Sean may have been able to really make it a tight race, but he lost ground very late in the sprint to the flag as the result of getting 2 wheels on the grass. It was in impressive run for these two, as they also took advantage of the late yellows and finished 6th and 7th overall, having pitted with just under an hour to go.
In GTD, Dane Cameron had his usual strong drive and brought the Turner BMW home first in class for the 3rd time this season. He held off a strong charging Leh Keen in the AJR Porsche and both were able to make a significant dent into the AIM Ferrari points lead. Now, the AJR pairing of Keen and Cooper MacNeil are within 3 points of AIM (Sweedler/Bell), who finished 5th in class. Cameron meanwhile put himself into the points mix, taking sole possession of 3rd in the drivers points, 12 back of AIM.
General Observations
The announcement of the schedule and the class structure for the upcoming seasons was well received and was a positive sign that the series is seriously listening to their teams. That is indeed good news for the health of the series. The announcement that 2016 would see the inclusion of full GT3 spec cars was also generally well received, but there is also a concern about the allowance of the full on GT3 cars, how will they fit in with the class balance? Currently the GTD cars are fast enough on the straights to cause issues with the rest of the competitors, how will the faster cars be balanced to match the rest of the field?
Also, to the credit of the series, the problems at Laguna that were causing so much heartburn, specifically around track time has been addressed. Good for the series. Unfortunately there just isn’t that much enthusiasm in the paddock. It appears as if most are resigned to the fact that what we’ve got here isn’t what they’d prefer to be seeing, but it’s all they’ve got, opportunity wise for endurance racing in North America. Earlier in the season, the paddock was vile. Now, it simply seems apathetic.
Some teams seem resigned to finishing the season out, making the most of what they’ve got and then sorting out plans from 2015 and beyond. Some teams will jump to other series, be it Pirelli World Challenge, ELMS or even the WEC. When a series is blessed with 50 car entries, they can afford a few teams to go missing and it won’t much affect the scene. But there are certain teams that they simply cannot afford to lose, presence wise. I don’t think I need to state them – you can figure them out. But some of them will be involved in shall we say – other activities at COTA. Those developments will be worthy of watching….
