Improvements by BMW and Porsche Put Them on Pace with Acura and CadillacMarch 21, 2023By Mark RobinsonIMSA Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The results are in and they are conclusive. We’re in for a whale of a season in the reborn Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.All four competing manufacturers were highly competitive in the hybrid-powered top prototype class at Saturday’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring. Each led laps in the grueling endurance event and the fastest race laps turned by each were within less than a half-second of each other.What’s more, all four were in contention for podium finishes as the 12-hour marathon ticked away the final minutes. Even with the wild ending that included a crash eliminating three frontrunning GTP entries, three different manufacturers were represented on that postrace podium.That included teams from BMW and Porsche, both manufacturers making dramatic improvements from the class debut in January at the Rolex 24 At Daytona. In that opener, neither had a car finish closer than 15 laps behind the race winner. On Saturday, the Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963s were running first and third when collected in the late-race melee that also included the No. 10 Konica Minolta Acura ARX-06 that was in second place.The result of that skirmish opened the door for the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Racing Cadillac V-Series.R to claim the win, followed to the finish line by the No. 25 BMW M Team RLL BMW Hybrid V8. Though it didn’t complete the race, the No. 6 Penske Porsche was scored third in GTP.“To be on the podium in our second race, it just shows things to come,” said Nick Yelloly, the closing driver in the runner-up No. 25 BMW. “We made a good step forward in terms of pace and are able to actually mix it up a little bit in the race. It was really nice to get in and amongst it a few times today as well, whereas at Daytona we weren’t really doing that.”Yelloly credited the continued dedication of the BMW and Team RLL engineers and staffs following the Daytona disappointment where Acura and Cadillac swept the first five finishing positions. Long hours of work both in Germany and at the team’s Indianapolis shop led to performance gains in a recent Sebring test, a harbinger of things to come on race weekend.“Our boys and girls were able to sort through all the data, piece things together and come here for the test a couple of weeks ago and make already a small step forward,” Yelloly said. “And then when we got here (for the race), obviously we made another step forward. … Really quite promising looking forward.”BMW M Head of Motorsport Andreas Roos was also delighted with the GTP program’s progress on a weekend when he also saw his brand’s GT3 cars finish 1-2 in the GT Daytona (GTD) class and BMW GT4s do the same in the Grand Sport (GS) class of the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge race.“We are gradually getting closer to the performance level that we want to achieve,” Roos said of the GTP cars. “Therefore, this second place scored by our No. 25 car is a great motivation for us to continue in the same fashion in the coming weeks and months.”Porsche is feeling the same way, despite the extreme disappointment of its two cars seeing the chance at victory slip away with the finish line in sight. The Sebring results may list the Porsche 963s in third and fifth place but Urs Kuratle, Porsche Director of Factory Motorsport LMDh, saw a pretty bright lining to the dark cloud from Saturday night.“Today, we showed that we can achieve anything with our new Porsche 963 in the IMSA series,” he said. “We have a good platform with great potential. We’re feeling confident about the future because we now know that we can win through our own efforts.” |
