Part two of our scientific-unscientific-scientific look at the Roar Before the 24. Up next, the meat of the competition, the GT classes!!! Along with a look at PC.
With a host of new cars this year, the GTE (and I will continue to call it GTE, not GTLM) field looks to be the best it has ever been. Factory cars from Corvette, BMW, SRT, and very welcome return of a US factory Porsche team to the fold. Ferrari and Aston Martin, along with Falken’s new 991 RSR will add some spice to the grid. Let’s take a look at the new cars first.
First off: the 2014 Porsche 991 RSR. Porsche put an enormous number of miles on the car last year with its two car WEC program. But NOTHING can replicate the driveshaft angles and severe loadings that the Daytona banking imparts. Don’t get me wrong, the car was very fast, posting the fastest GTE time of the test-a 1:45.564. But both cars suffered numerous driveshaft problems over the course of the weekend. Expect to see beefier components, and as an extension, some weight savings in other departments to offset the increased weight of the new components. The driver lineups are the all-star collection of Porsche drivers, so you really can’t choose one car over the other. As for Falken, the team will actually take part in building their car at Porsche’s motorsport factory in Weissach. At any rate, it will be fascinating to watch how the team develops both the tires around the entirely new 991, as well as how they develop the car around the Falken tires, rather than the Michelins the car’s always run. Expect Brian Sellers and Wolf Henzler to share the driving duties, except for the Rolex, where Wolf will be driving with Magnus Racing, but a third driver has yet to be named for the long distance races, or indeed who will replace Wolf for Daytona.
Now it’s on to everyone’s favorite ‘Murican sports car. Yes, it’s the ground-pounding earth-shaking Velocity Yellow (the camo at the Roar was actually just vinyl wrap over the actual livery) Corvettes. The departed C6R was one of the most successful GT2 cars since the de facto demise of the GT1 class at Le Mans, and expect that trend to continue just because they have a new car. The #4 C7R posted the second and third fastest times during the weekend, the fastest being .490 seconds slower than the #911 (very clever) Porsche 991 RSR.
Obviously the Corvette is well suited to the rigors of the Daytona International Speedway. The big front mounted V8 makes the car incredibly stable under braking and at high speeds, something which Daytona features heavily, combined with the rather spread out power curve that lets the car really stretch its legs, means that the car an incredibly potent package. And the driver lineups, THE DRIVER LINEUPS!! General Motors has finally recognized what we’ve seen in Robin Liddell for years, and have finally promoted him to Factory Corvette Badass and sent right to the top of the GM racing ladder. Ryan Briscoe (at least to me) was a complete shock, but is a very welcome addition to the team. The rest of the drivers are all known quantities, and are among the best in the world. It would be incredibly hard to bet against them for top honors, provided serious teething troubles don’t arise.
I get the feeling that the SRT Vipers may not be the best cars for the infield section. That monstrous 8 liter V10 up front might provide mountains of torque, but it also suffers from a little thing called inertia, and spinning up that much engine takes no small amount of time and energy. It’s posted some fast times, but the whole front end must be under serious loads on the banking due to the G-forces acting on that monster under the hood. The car’s made enormous strides since its Mid-Ohio debut in 2012, but I get the feeling that it’s still hamstrung on some circuits. The team has six solid drivers; the #91 possibly being the slightly stronger of the two, but Rob Bell is an extremely strong replacement for the departed Tommy Kendall. The Viper scored its first win at Road America last year, so it obviously loves the straights, but the annoyingly twisty infield may be a little bit of a problem. But they’ll be solid team, and will probably come back and pick up right where they left off last year.
What’s up with BMW?! It’s hard to explain why the Z4 GTE (GT3) was over half a second seconds slower than the Porsche. I’d suggest that the car must be draggy as hell to score that bad of a time. Essentially a GT3 car with GTE parts on it, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Z4’s downforce numbers also create the inevitable drag that comes with the territory. It seemed like-at least at the test that Daytona and the BMW Z4 GTE (GT3) don’t exactly get along well. But BMW won’t take this lying down, and they’ll come back probably right back where they left off. The drivers are typical BMW factory fare, except for Graham Rahal, who finally has dad’s permission to drive one of his GTE cars. While both lineups are very strong, I think the #55 has the slight edge, although I really can’t put my finger on why.
Grouping the two single car teams together: the Krohn Racing Ferrari 458 and the TRG/Aston Martin V8 Vantage. Both are the only GTE teams that have amateur drivers (being Tracy Krohn and Paul Dalla Lana). Krohn has made a one or two year jump in cars, from the 2012 Ferrari 458 that they ran in the GTE-Am class in the WEC last year, to a 2013 or 2014-spec Ferrari, and some pretty big changes have been made between 2012 and 2013. The car itself is a very good car, but the car could be let down by the amateur in the cockpit. Tracy hires top-notch drivers drive with him. But Tracy’s a bit like a coin flip: when he’s on it, he’s a very good driver, but when he’s having problems, the car is pretty much nowhere. Sadly look for them at the bottom of the GTE timesheets. Although being mid-engined, the car would be well suited to handling the twisty and annoying infield section of the track.
The British Bulldog is back! And what a comeback it has been for Aston Martin! From the ashes of the epic fail that was the LMP1 AMR-ONE project of 2011 (epic fail is too epic), to a 2013 drivers’ and constructors title in the 2013 WEC GTE-Pro class! And now they have a US partner in the Kevin Buckler run TRG (The Racers Group for those of you who don’t know). This car is actually entered under the team name “Aston Martin Racing” instead of “TRG-AMR” as the two GTD V12 Vantages are, making the #97 a true Aston Martin factory entry.
Paul Dalla Lana drove the #99 Aston Martin in the WEC for Le Mans and the rest of the WEC season, where the rest of the world learned that he is one of the best amateur GT drivers out there. The car posted a fastest time that was .554 seconds slower than the #991 Porsche; while that may seem slow, it puts it ahead of the #93 SRT Viper, the #912 Porsche, BOTH BMW Z4 GTEs, and the Krohn Racing Ferrari. Being a member of the big front-engine V8 club, the car is well suited to the Daytona road course, with large amounts of torque and stability under braking, which was demonstrated with how the car performed on the Tilke-designed circuits that the WEC visited post Le-Mans. The rest of the lineup is essentially the top of the AMR factory lineup, with Mucke and Turner Stanaway carrying the factory flag. Top five for sure, a podium if luck shines on them.
Now we get to the problem, that being GTD. Due to their lack of downforce (and therefore drag), they hit higher top speeds on the banking and get out of corners faster than the GTE cars, which presents a huge safety problem. Unless severe BoP adjustments are carried out to slow the GTD cars down, the GTE cars will have to dive bomb the GTD cars to overtake, which would put the drivers and the marshals at risk as well. The field is so huge that I lack both the time to go team by team. So let’s look at the manufacturers instead.
Having left the top of US sports car racing in 2008, the Ingolstadt Monster has returned with a vengeance; yes, Audi is back in a big way with four Audi R8s, with former Porsche stalwart Flying Lizard leading the charge. The #45 Lizard set the fastest GTD time of the test, .247 seconds faster than the new Porsche 911 GT America. Although outnumbered by Porsche, I’d take Flying Lizard to win.
Porsche: honestly, I really have nothing to say about them other than there’s a lot of them, the cars are filled with Porsche Supercup and Carrera Cup drivers and champions, with teams sprinkled up and down the GTD timesheets. Like most years, Porsche will probably come either first or second, because Daytona. The lack of downforce is a real benefit for the straight-six 911, meaning that its deficit in torque to the V8s and V10s isn’t that big of a problem.
The Ferraris have really struggled at the test coming off a championship winning year. Not just a little bit off the pace, but surprisingly slow for a car that was winning races last year. I don’t know if the car just doesn’t do well at Daytona, or if the 458 Grand-Am has been hit with the BoP hammer. If they can recapture some of their pace, the Ferraris should be up in the thick of it.
There are three completely new cars for GTD, the V12 Vantage, the SRT Viper GT3-R and Turner’s Z4 GT3 based car. All have been well down on the pace, the #007 V12 Vantage posting the second slowest time of the entire test. Which is to be expected from brand new cars, but they (as well as the Audi, the Ferrari and most of the Porsche) are all based off of GT3 cars. Which means some severe BoP will be going on between the test and the race. Out of all three, the Aston Martin will probably prove to be the fastest of the three come race day, but it’s honestly up in the air until we finally see how the BoP treats the new GTD cars.
On to the COMPLETE lottery that is the LMPC class. The Oreca FLM09 chassis with Katech-prepared LS3s have provided some of the best racing in the US since their introduction. Thankfully that won’t be changing this year, with seven cars under a 2.275 second blanket, making this a crazy 24 hour battle. While all of the cars are equal, the teams are not treated equally, with CORE, Starworks and 8Star being the big three in contention for the win. Although CORE may be on the back foot in LMPC due to their status as Porsche’s US factory team. In all honesty, you really can’t draw a line between them. There is no doubt that the class win will come down to the amateur driver(s), not only in their pace, but also in how they are used. A gentlemen driver could be put in the car during a caution so the team can fulfill his minimum drive time while at the same time minimizing the loss of position when a gentlemen drives against professionals.
So there you have it, how I spent my Christmas Vacation. After finishing this, I think I need like 30 drinks, and then to sleep for 24 hours. Daytona looks to be the most exciting it’s been since the early 2000’s, so look forward to much crazy and excitement! Shorter posts to resume next time.
The Corner Station 