They need to clip the apexes, hit their braking marks and maximise cornering speeds, but that’s only part of their job, especially in the modern era. Endurance racing in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship is a multi-class discipline: dealing with slower or faster cars — or both — is an important part of the game. Then there’s the task of optimising the electronic systems, increasingly part of modern motorsport, in the name of performance.
IMSA has four classes. The high-tech GTP hybrid prototypes at the front of the field are joined by their slightly slower siblings in LMP2, a much more controlled category using a spec normally-aspirated V8 engine, and then there’s the GT3 machinery in the twin GT Daytona divisions. These cars are split in two according to the make-up of the driver line-up: GTD Pro allows, as the name implies, all-professional crews, while GTD is a pro-am category in which the place of the amateur, so important in endurance racing, is enshrined in the rules.
“What makes IMSA so special as a series is that you have multiple categories,” says Jenson Button, who finished third in the Rolex 24 at Daytona in January driving for the Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura GTP team. “There are such different speeds around the track that you are never out of traffic whether you are in an GTP, an LMP2 or a GTD car.
“You never have a clear lap. For the drivers, that’s 24 hours of mayhem, but also for the fans, the spectators, because there is always something happening. If a GTP car doesn’t overtake another GTP for an hour, it is still making 100 overtakes in that hour.”
The drivers also have to keep focus on what’s going on inside the cockpit, too. Nowhere more so than in a GTP car built to the LMDh ruleset, which also allows entry into the FIA World Endurance Championship’s Hypercar class. It is a high-technology category utilising a common hybrid system that has been developed with Bosch Motorsport as one of the key partners.
The driver’s role in getting the most out of the electronic systems is complex. Button may be a Formula 1 world champion and a veteran of 306 grands prix, but his job in the cockpit of an LMDh is much more involved than anything he experienced in single-seaters.
Source: Autosport