| July 15, 2020 By Jeff Olson IMSA Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – We’re three days away from Round 3 of the 2020 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, the Cadillac Grand Prix of Sebring. Here are a few storylines as competitors and fans wrap up their preparations and get ready to return to the racetrack:  Barbosa, Bourdais Riding Hot Hand to Sebring Joao Barbosa and Sebastien Bourdais are approaching an unusual weekend at Sebring International Raceway with optimism and enthusiasm. Instead of the usual 12-hour endurance race at Sebring, the JDC-Miller MotorSports teammates will face a much shorter Cadillac Grand Prix of Sebring on Saturday night at the historic road course. “Sebring is going to be very different because we’re used to going there and preparing for a 12-hour race,” Barbosa said. “Now we’re going there for a sprint race, a 2-hour 40-minute race. It’s going to be a very different approach. Sebring is a very tough track to overtake and very tough track overall. We don’t have 10 hours to prepare and wait for the last two hours, so we’re going to have to push all the way from the beginning.” Pushing has been their specialty so far this season. Barbosa and Bourdais have teamed for podium finishes in both races of the revamped IMSA WeatherTech Championship season. They combined with Loic Duval to drive the No. 5 JDC-Miller MotorSports Mustang Sampling Cadillac DPi-V.R to a third-place finish at the season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona International Speedway in January, then repeated the feat July 4 in the IMSA WeatherTech 240 At Daytona. “The first race was more about the team executing and nobody making any mistakes and going and earning that podium, which was super sweet,” Bourdais said. “A couple of weeks ago was a little different — we had to go and get it. It was great to see. The improvements on the car obviously had made a difference and allowed us to fight for something a little bit more on pace.” The No. 5 Cadillac has surprised everyone in its first two races of 2020 — most of all its drivers. As surprises go, it has served only to motivate both of them. “Things are going a little bit faster than we expected as results go, but now everybody is so motivated to do more and to attack more,” Barbosa said. “All the effort is right there. I think we’re going to have more great races this season.” And the best place to resume the quest for more success is a sprint race at Sebring. “Every weekend is going to be a little more discovery,” Bourdais said. “I certainly feel like Sebring is a place where obviously we’ve gone testing and made improvements for that track, and we’re all hoping that translates into a good result.” After a practice session Friday at 6 p.m. ET and more practice sessions Saturday morning, the WeatherTech Championship portion of the Sebring weekend gets underway in earnest with qualifying at 2:20 p.m. NBCSN’s live coverage of the Cadillac Grand Prix of Sebring begins at 5:30 p.m.  Dalziel, Masson Back in the Driver’s SeatIt’s been awhile since Ryan Dalziel has been in a race car. He’s not alone. Dalziel will team with John Farano in the No. 8 Tower Motorsport by Starworks ORECA LMP2 07 for Saturday’s Cadillac Grand Prix of Sebring. He hasn’t raced the car since the Rolex 24 in January; the LMP2 class didn’t compete July 4 at Daytona. The season was interrupted after the Rolex 24 by the coronavirus pandemic. The postponement and cancellation of events turned drivers’ and teams’ plans upside down. “It’s obviously been an interesting few months for everybody,” Dalziel said. “We had just wrapped up a two-day test at Sebring a couple of weeks before (the originally scheduled Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Presented by Advance Auto Parts in March) before all of this happened. We haven’t done anything to the car since then. … We’ve just been monitoring the situation. We’ve been prepared to come back to racing.” Kyle Masson, who will team with Cameron Cassels in the Performance Tech Motorsports ORECA LMP2 07, experienced what Dalziel has — no on-track work in the car for months. He stayed sharp with simulator work and virtual racing, but he’s looking forward to live racing. “Getting in the actual car, getting the feel of it, getting our head wrapped around it — that’s going to be what we’re focused on,” Masson said.  It’s Sebring, After All…One underlying theme heading into the weekend is the track itself. Whether a marathon or a sprint, Sebring is a supreme challenge. “It’s an amazing track, a real drivers’ track,” said Oliver Jarvis, co-driver of the No. 77 Mazda Motorsports Mazda RT24-P DPi with Tristan Nunez. “It’s very difficult, very technical. It’s challenging for the driver and the car. I think in this particular race, the heat is going to be an added factor.” Race day temperatures are forecasted to reach 88 degrees with 78 percent humidity and a chance of thunderstorms. Nunez, for one, is used to Florida summertime weather and how it might affect racing at Sebring. “It’s definitely one of my favorite tracks on the schedule,” said Nunez, who lives in Boca Raton, Florida. “I consider it my home track. I ran a lot of Skip Barber races there, a lot of Prototype Lites (now known as IMSA Prototype Challenge). … I’m really excited to get back there and see what we can do.” |
