Yahoo Autos IMSA teams ready to go big at Road America’s full-field sprint
It’s a crowd, and driver, favorite. With fans packing the hillsides, the 4.048-mile Road America is the longest and perhaps the most anticipated circuit the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship races on. It’s also the only event where all four classes – GTP, LMP2, GTD PRO and GTD compete together in a 2h40m race.
The track is popular among fans for its variety of viewing options and park-like atmosphere that has earned it the moniker “America’s National Park of Speed.” Add that it has what many consider the best trackside food of any race venue in the country, and it’s a destination event. Drivers love the wide surface, the variety of corners — including the pucker-inducing 175mph “Kink” coming out of the long Carousel turn and leading down the back straight — the track presents.
“One of the crown jewels of road racing in America. A place that everybody loves to go to,” says Sebastien Bourdais, driver of the No. 01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R with Renger van der Zande, of Road America.
Bourdais and van der Zande are second in the GTP points heading into Road America, and is looking forward to everything the unique track throws at drivers. “Super challenging, quick and a little bit of everything — slow-speed, high-speed corners and long straights where the cars can really stretch their legs,” he says. “The resurfacing last year made it a little tricky off-line. One year later it seems to have evened out some and all of the racing that we’ve seen so far has become less scary to go off-line, so it should definitely open some opportunities.”
As Bourdais notes, last year’s repaved surface provided more grip overall, but in the areas of the pavement that hadn’t seen much traffic, that grip dropped off precipitously. That made passing a challenge, and a minor miscue that sent a car off-line had more sever consequences than usual.
“I think it’s going to be a bit better,” reckons Filipe Albuquerque, who will be looking for the second win of the year for the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 with Ricky Taylor. “Last year was tricky as the moment that you had a locking wheel, you could never catch the car and you’d go to the grass. It seems like it’s more wide, the line. I know that the LMP2s were testing there with some GTs, so I think the more cars that drive around on that asphalt, it’s just better. So I expect a more forgiving track with the exact same grip on the ideal lap. I think that’s positive and just let the track come to us. So it’s going to be nice.”
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The Cadillacs and Acuras are likely to be chasing last year’s winners, the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 of Felipe Nasr and Dane Cameron. The victory at Road America has sent the squad on a run not even their teammates could touch, and if the championship went from August to August, the team could take home the crown now, having outscored everyone else in that timeframe. The only car with two victories this season, in the Rolex 24 At Daytona and the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen, the No. 7 Porsche has led the 2024 GTP championship from the beginning.
“Road America last year was truly a weekend that we could unlock the performance of the car, the pure speed of the car,” says Nasr. “[Campbell] and I were sharing the car back in 2023, and that was the first victory of the 7 car in the IMSA series. So a very special one in every way, just because the 7 car last year had quite a tough beginning of season so that win was really the breakthrough of of the 7 crew. Really ticking the boxes and making sure the car was up to the expectations in that track which is super demanding. It has a lot of high-speed corners, medium-speed corners and fast flowing corners, which is probably one of my favorites in the calendar, I have to say. And from from then on it really clicked.”
Gar Robinson, Felipe Fraga and Riley Motorsports come into Road America as unlikely leaders in the LMP2 standings. Rookies moving up from LMP3, they have been consistent when others have had feast then famine — but mostly famine. Three podiums have put the No. 74 on top. Headed into a race where the team has claimed the LMP3 victory the last two years represents a good chance to solidify the title lead.
“It’s a great race for us,” says Robinson. “It’s a really valuable race to one of the main members on my team, John Donovan; he’s from Wisconsin, so I think that would that would be be really, really exciting for him. I’m excited for the opportunity to win anywhere. Winning races is is one of the goals, but having another having another good points weekend is probably a bigger goal than that.”
It’s tight for the LMP2 lead, though — Riley lead Euro Interpol by PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports by only 12 points, as Nick Boulle and Tom DIllmann closed things up by winning at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park last time out.
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AO Racing comes into Road America leading the GTD PRO championship, but with a shakeup in the lineup for the car that will represent “Roxy” in pink this weekend. Seb Priaulx has been called away from the team to fulfill his duties for Multimatic, so Julien Andlauer is stepping in to partner Laurin Heinrich. While Andlauer is vastly experienced with the Porsche 911 GT3 R, Road America is new to him, as well as Heinrich, who has benefitted from Priaulx’s knowledge of the North American tracks.
So, it may be an opportunity for the chasing Heart of Racing team to make some inroads into AO’s lead. Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas won at Road America last year in the No. 23 Aston Martin Vantage GT3, and Gunn is trailing Heinrich in the championship by 98 points.
“I think the energy is really positive right now,” says Gunn. “On the 23 side, we are in a very good position in the championship. We’re not quite where we want to be, but we’ve gradually been progressing throughout the year with fourth at the start of the year, then third, and now second. There’s a little gap to the Porsche in front, but we’re gonna give it everything we can.”
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Winward Racing would like to forget last year’s race at Road America where the No. 57 Mercedes AMG only ran 15 laps. The season that the team have had so far should go a long way toward erasing that memory, as Russell Ward and Philip Ellis lead the championship by a massive 240 points on the strength of four victories. Ward and Ellis won here in 2022, so they have a history of getting the job done at Road America.
The 2h40m race is scheduled for a green flag at 3:10pm Eastern on Sunday, with live coverage on Peacock beginning at 3pm ET. Saturday’s qualifying at 5:15pm ET will also be streamed on Peacock, as well as on IMSA.tv, while a replay on CNBC starts at 6:00pm ET. Commentary from select sessions will be carried live on IMSA.com and RadioLeMans.com.
