Van der Zande Eyes Three-peat, Privateer GTLM Porsche Ready, Alegra Founder RememberedJan. 30, 2021By Holly CainIMSA Wire ServiceDAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The No. 31 Whelen Engineering/Action Express team will start its Cadillac DPi-V.R from pole position Saturday in the Rolex 24 At Daytona – the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season opener.
The car and its drivers have been consistently fast in testing, won the race to set the pole position and, by many accounts in the paddock, are widely considered the car to beat. Just don’t expect that to be the attitude of the team.
The full-season drivers, Brazilians Felipe Nasr and Pipo Derani, along with reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Chase Elliott and racing veteran Mike Conway, of Great Britain, have instead insisted on an attitude of optimism, not overconfidence – an assurance that the team’s hard work and talent could result in a new Rolex watch for the foursome.
“We don’t consider ourselves the car to beat, but we try going to a race like this with the mentality that we have done all the best preparation that we possibly could,’’ Derani explained Friday, on the eve of the green flag.
“Now we know we have a great team. We know that we have great mechanics, strategy, engineers and drivers. But I think going into a race thinking you are the one to beat is not the right attitude and is not how we do ourselves in the Whelen Engineering/Action Express Racing team.
“We always try and be the most prepared we can, and we hope that by doing that over the last test and weeks, that that will be enough. But there are plenty of very, very experienced teams around with great lineups.
“It’s going to be a very difficult fight out there. But we are prepared, that’s for sure. Being the ‘ones to beat,’ I wouldn’t say, but we are definitely ready for the fight.’’
Action Express Racing has three overall victories in the Rolex 24 (2010, 2014 and 2018), including an amazing 1-2 finish for the team cars in the team’s most recent Rolex victory three years ago. Nasr and Conway co-drove the second-place car that year. Derani has an overall win in 2016 while with the Tequila Patron ESM team. A victory this weekend would mark the first time Nasr and Derani have co-driven to Rolex 24 glory.
“It’s a dream come true to have such a lineup and I’m super happy to represent in the race,’’ Nasr said. “Hopefully, we can bring this one home. I think my expectations are in line with what everybody said. We have proven in the past few weeks that the car has the capability to run up front. We did that in qualifying and in the pole award (race).
“All drivers here have had enough time to get used to it. And I hope we go out there and have fun. It’s a special race. I’m really happy to be representing our sponsors and our team, Whelen Engineering and Action Express Racing.
“I think it’s going to be a pretty good fight up front.’’
Live coverage of the 24-hour race begins at 3:30 p.m. ET Saturday on NBC. After the first hour, the flag-to-flag coverage moves to NBCSN, NBC Sports Gold and the NBC Sports App before returning to NBC on Sunday at 2 p.m. for the conclusion. Complete IMSA Radio coverage may also be found at IMSA.com, RadioLeMans.com and SiriusXM Radio (Sirius channel 216, XM 202 and Internet 972).
Van der Zande Aims for Three-peat
By John Oreovicz
No driver has claimed three consecutive overall victories in the Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway.
This year, two have a chance. But Renger van der Zande and Kamui Kobayashi are no longer teamed together at two-time defending race champion Wayne Taylor Racing.
When WTR committed to field an Acura ARX-05 Daytona Prototype international (DPi) car in 2021, Kobayashi – a factory Toyota driver in the FIA World Endurance Championship – had to step away from his Rolex 24 seat for a team now affiliated with a rival Japanese manufacturer. At the same time, WTR cut ties with van der Zande and co-driver Ryan Briscoe to pursue a new full-time driver lineup.
Kobayashi landed a ride for this year’s Rolex 24 in the “all-star” No. 48 Ally Cadillac fielded by Action Express Racing, while van der Zande joined Chip Ganassi Racing’s new entry into the DPi category, also with Cadillac and teamed with WeatherTech Championship rookie Kevin Magnussen.
With Ganassi’s championship pedigree (the team won a total of seven IMSA titles in the Daytona Prototype and GT Le Mans categories and is an eight-time victor at the Rolex 24), van der Zande has an excellent chance to claim a third consecutive Rolex 24 crown come Sunday.
“I’m very grateful to be part of this team,” van der Zande said Friday. “I spent a full day at the shop after the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, and (team competition manager) Mike Hull showed me around. We talked the whole day about racing – how Chip runs his team, how the team comes together and what they are looking for and what they want to achieve. We spent the last 20 minutes talking about the contract, and then started working together.
“We have the same philosophy,” he added. “It’s all about racing, and winning races.”
Team owner Ganassi revealed that six-time IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon was “probably Renger’s biggest proponent” when his team’s new affiliation with the Cadillac DPi program was in the planning stages.
Dixon was part of the winning driver lineup for Wayne Taylor Racing in the 2020 Rolex 24, when he, van der Zande, Kobayashi and Briscoe set a new race record for distance completed, 2,965.5 miles.
That marked the only time Dixon competed in the Rolex 24 for a team besides Ganassi, which has been his home in the IndyCar Series since 2002. Dixon shared in the overall victory in 2006 and 2015 for Ganassi, along with GTLM class honors in 2018.
“I think Renger did a fantastic job last year in the short period of time I was teamed up with him,” Dixon commented. “I think it was a good fit. The team had a lot of very good options, but Renger is an exceptional driver.”
The CGR No. 01 Cadillac started the Motul Pole Award 100 qualifying race in third place, but Magnussen almost immediately jumped into the lead and held it for the first 42 minutes. Pit stop strategy relegated the entry to a seventh-place finish. Van der Zande has been tabbed to start the Rolex 24 in the No. 01 car.
Privateer Porsche Ready to Take on Factory GTLM Teams
By David Phillips
Privateers? Yes. Underdogs? Maybe.
It’s easy to cast the No. 79 WeatherTech Racing Porsche 911 RSR-19 as underdogs in the GT Le Mans (GTLM) class at the Rolex 24. After all, the effort is the result of an 11th-hour collaboration between long-time GT Daytona (GTD) competitors WeatherTech Racing and German-based Proton Competition following the decision by the factory-backed Porsche GTLM operation to close the program at the end of the 2020 season. What’s more, the WeatherTech Racing privateers will be up against the factory BMW Team RLL and Corvette Racing teams as well as the estimable Risi Competizione and its potent Ferrari 488 GTE in the Rolex 24.
That doesn’t mean WeatherTech Racing is going it alone in the GTLM debut, witness a lineup that sees Porsche works drivers Gianmaria Bruni, Richard Lietz and Kevin Estre partnering with WeatherTech’s Cooper MacNeil.
And that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
“Porsche is all about motorsports,” MacNeil said Friday. “They’re all about racing and winning races and building amazing race cars. They were very adamant on getting a Porsche back onto the GTLM grid after the end of last year, so they did anything they could to ensure that they were back. If that meant giving us a tremendous amount of support, that’s what it took. So you see these three guys (Bruni, Estre and Lietz); obviously they are throwing everything at it that they possibly can.
“They’ve been very open, very transparent with everything and showing us a tremendous amount of support. Anything we’ve needed at any time of the day was answered. Not that there were too many requests because Porsche knows how to run a racing program. We kind of said, ‘You guys handle it. You know what you’re doing and we want the best support possible . . . and we’ve had it.”
MacNeil and Estre drove the No. 79 to a third-place finish in last weekend’s Motul Pole Award 100, finishing only behind the two Corvettes in class.
Alegra Motorsports Honors Late Founder with Decal on Car
Alegra Motorsports is honoring the memory of the late Dr. Alejandro De Quesada by running a decal bearing the team owner’s name in this year’s Rolex 24. Dr. De Quesada died Dec. 17 at the age of 88.
In addition to being a lifelong racing fan and supporter, De Quesada was among a team of doctors at the University of Florida who created Gatorade, the famous sports drink, in 1965. He founded Alegra Motorsports – the name a combination of the first names for him and wife Graciela – to further the racing career of son Carlos. They were rewarded with a GT class win in 2007 at the Rolex 24. A decade later, Carlos and son Michael repeated the feat in the GT Daytona (GTD) class.
The No. 28 Alegra Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 with co-drivers Michael De Quesada, Daniel Morad, Billy Johnson and Maxi Buhk will start 14th in GTD in this year’s Rolex 24 and carry the memorial decal. |
