Yahoo Autos United Autosports USA diving headfirst into IMSA
Major class restructuring in both the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and the World Endurance Championship created the perfect storm for growth in IMSA’s LMP2 class, which is going from seven full-season entries to 11 for 2024. It also created the perfect opportunity for Richard Dean and Zak Brown’s United Autosports team to seek its next challenge.
United Autosports USA will field two ORECA 07 Gibsons in the LMP2 class in the WeatherTech Championship, the only two-car team in the class. Reigning LMP2 champ Ben Keating will partner with Ben Hanley in the No.2 (Nico Pino serving as the third driver for Michelin Endurance Cup races), while Dan Goldburg and Paul Di Resta will drive the No.22, joined by Bijoy Garg for the endurance races.
Being a European-based team, there was much work to do to launch a full-season effort in the WeatherTech Championship. Enter Billy Glavin and the Jr III racing shop. The Mooresville, N.C. shop proved the perfect base for United, and with Glavin winding down Jr III’s long and successful LMP3 program, he was available to run the operation as general manager.
“It’s a big commitment for a European team to come in and take on a full season,” said Dean, co-owner and CEO of United Autosports, “so you need a push to do it. And LMP2 coming out of WEC was just exactly what we needed. We just needed that reason, that push over the line. We’ve been talking about this for a while, so let’s go and try to do it properly. Let’s not just try and commute in and out.
“That’s why we’ve partnered with Billy Glavin at Jr. III. His situation, being in LMP3 that’s coming out of WeatherTech, and us coming in, our situation sort of emerged perfectly to give us what we needed — quality people and a base in Charlotte. It’s a shortcut for us to set up a workshop here. I took one look around his place and I spent a day with him and it was a ready-made step into into the U.S. with a permanent base.”
United Autosports has competed at Daytona, and Dean’s father raced there, but this will be the first full-season effort from the team. United has competed in WEC, European Le Mans Series, Asian Le Mans Series and elsewhere, and will continue racing LMP2 in ELMS as well as starting a new LMGT3 program in WEC with McLaren. But IMSA has been a big pull all along.
“IMSA has just got this sort of electric atmosphere around the racing. And everybody loves it, everybody from those sat in the grandstands to in the pit lane, the media people, the mechanics … everybody gets excited and invigorated,” Dean said. “So when we have our planning meetings, people are pushing, ‘Can we do more IMSA races?’ So we’re always pulled towards it. For us, having taken on and won in European Le Mans and the World Endurance Championship and Le Mans, the thing we haven’t done is we haven’t won here in IMSA. We’ve done Sebring, we’ve done Daytona, but we haven’t won here. So I’m not saying we’re going to come here and win, but it’s our ambition to have a go at it.”
United Autosports is well stocked with talent in and out of the cockpits of its two ORECA entries. Motorsport Images
They are having a go with an impressive driver lineup. Keating is a two-time IMSA champ, a two-time 24 Hours of Le Mans class winner, the defending WeatherTech Championship LMP2 title holder and the 2023 WEC champion in GTE-Am. Hanley is an Asian Le Mans champion and won the 2023 Michelin Endurance Cup in LMP2. Di Resta is a Le Mans winner in LMP2. Goldburg is a rookie in LMP2 and the WeatherTech Championship, but has proven his chops in VP Racing SportsCar Challenge LMP3.
“To win a race, you’ve got to have the best car, the best team, the best people and the best drivers. So it’s down to us now because [Keating’s] a race winner,” said Dean. “He knows what he wants and the discussions I’ve had with him since we started talking about it and since we shook hands… he’s already driving the team as well and adding his experience to it, so it’s massively important. Dan Goldburg, the bronze in the other car, also knows his way around the tracks and he knows his way around the IMSA paddock.”
“I like to think that we’ve really copied a Hypercar factory structure and we’re applying it in a smaller fashion in LMP2,” says Richard Dean. JEP/Motorsport Images
So United Autosports comes to the WeatherTech Championship with a winning record, a great driver lineup and, with Glavin on board, a structure in place to facilitate it all. But there has to be some secret to the team’s success beyond Dean’s and Brown’s experience. While the team has had some great drivers such as Filipe Albuquerque, Tom Blomqvist, Oliver Jarvis and Alex Lynn in its ranks, that doesn’t guarantee success. So what’s the recipe?
“There’s a common theme, I suppose, that says employ the best people you can, let them do the job, don’t interfere with them. That’s really what we’ve tried to do,” Dean said of the team’s general philosophy. “We hired a new technical director two years ago — Jakob Andreasen, who came from Toyota’s Hypercar program — with a view to improving not just technically; there’s a lot of detail around getting the best out of an ORECA, because everybody’s got access to the same car, tires, engine equipment. So the details are important.
“But you know, there are a couple of people — Jakob coming from Toyota is one of them — that understand the structure and organizational charts of how a team can operate. With the size that we are, as we’ve been growing, you don’t want to lose control of that. So you need a structure and you need an organizational chart within your staff, and reportability and accountability. I think probably we are slightly different to most teams at this level, because I like to think that we’ve really copied a Hypercar factory structure and we’re applying it in a smaller fashion in LMP2.”
Dean and his squad will have their first shot at showing that the recipe works when the Rolex 24 At Daytona, the opening round of the 2024 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, takes place Jan. 23-26.
