All GTD Pro and GTD cars are competing with torque sensors attached to their rear axles for the first time this season, as IMSA moves to adopt the same performance balancing strategy that is currently used for the FIA WEC and ELMS LMGT3 classes.
As in GTP and Hypercar, these sensors – which feed live acceleration, horsepower and torque curve data to the series – have been introduced to assist the Balance of Performance process throughout the season. Despite the added cost for the teams (estimated to come in at around $250,000 a year per car (roughly £205,000)) this move appears to have been welcomed by a large section of the paddock.
For the majority of the manufacturers involved, preparing for this change has been a relatively straightforward task. The components themselves are identical to the ones used in LMGT3 and all the hard work to get up to speed was done ahead of the 2024 FIA WEC season with lessons learned in the early races last year.
However, Mercedes-AMG – which wasn’t represented on the FIA WEC’s LMGT3 grid for the category’s inaugural season (and doesn’t compete with a prototype in Hypercar or GTP) – is new to this technology and its practical application heading into 2025.
As a result, it has some catching up to do early in the season and, specifically here in Daytona, with the five AMG GT3s entered for the season opener.
“We are the manufacturer with the least experience with the sensors as we missed out on participating in WEC last year,” Stefan Wendl, the head of Mercedes-AMG customer racing, told DSC ahead of the start of testing action today.
“We know we start on a different level to the others, so we are trying to gather as much data as possible and make the best out of it.
“The Friday Roar sessions will be the first time a Mercedes-AMG will hit the track with sensors under scrutineering conditions after private tests in Europe and Daytona. It’s an exciting moment and we have tried to prepare as best we can with our customers.
“We all expect and hope for a well-controlled competition that helps the organisation create a fair BoP across the season. These are expectations that I share with other manufacturers and the series.
“We will see how it evolves, but realistically, I expect it will take a few races to come to a steady, controlled environment.”
Mercedes-AMG’s customer teams aren’t phased by the task ahead. Though after several hiccups made for a tricky start to the Roar today, understandably, there’s still some trepidation ahead of the first race of the season.
“There’s still work to do, there’s uncertainty,” Russell Ward, Winward Racing’s team principal and driver admitted. “But it’s something out of our control.
“It’s the biggest question mark going into the Rolex 24, as we have no idea what the reliability will be like or how it works. But we’ve got a lot of really smart people though who will help optimise the system.
“The early sessions have seen some real difficulties and, as is all too often the case, identifying the problems, finding a fix and then optimising the solutions becomes a real race against time at a point where we would rather be working on other things leading into such an important event.
“We are pushing super hard to claw back the time we are losing to the problem. We’re the reigning Champions and we don’t give up easily!”
