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First garage location a major goal for DPi qualifying



By: J.J. O'Malley | 37 minutes ago


More than bragging rights will be on the line in today’s 15-minute qualifying session at 12:15 p.m., highlighting the final day of the Roar Before the Rolex 24.

The times will be official, with the fastest qualifier in each class getting the first choice of pit location and garage stall (for both of its entries for multi-car team).

The fastest DPi team not only gets the first choice of a pit stall, but the prime first garage stall for the Rolex 24 on Jan. 26-27.

That garage location proved a key factor in Chip Ganassi Racing’s 2006 victory, when the No. 02 Lexus Riley took two quick visits to the garage for major repairs. With no limit to the number of personnel working on the car — compared to the limit of crewmen allowed “over the wall” — the team made major changes in quick order with minimal loss of track position en route to victory.

Last year, both overheating Action Express Racing entries made quick stops in the garage for a supercharge of cool water — helping the team preserve a 1-2 finish.

“This is a race where any advantage you can get is vital,” said Action Express Racing team manager Chris Mitchum. “We’ve been fortunate to work from this location five years in a row, and we’ve gotten quite used it. If there’s any competitive advantage, you want everything you can get. There are ways you can work around it, but it’s absolutely important. But if we don’t have it, we’ll still be able to go for the win.”


Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac DPi in the pits at last year’s Rolex 24. (Image by Michael Levitt/LAT)

For car owner Wayne Taylor, there’s another major advantage to be gained by winning the pole.

“In my case, the major reason is so our Konica Minolta trailer can be in the best location to by seen by all the fans and sponsors,” said Taylor, owner of the No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R. “Secondly, if you do have a major problem during the race, it’s easier to get in and out of that garage stall. There’s no sandbagging for us at all — we will go as fast as we can with what we have. But right now, I don’t think we have the speed or the power of the Mazdas, so it’s going to be hard. If you look at the sector times, there’s a very clear picture of what’s happening.”

Despite the advantage of the key garage stall — and parking location for the transporter — today’s qualifying will not overshadow official qualifying for the Rolex 24 on Thursday, Jan. 24.

“Race weekend qualifying is more important,” Taylor said.

“When you talk about qualifying for a 24-hour race, you have to gauge the importance of it from the marketing and media side,” Mitchum said. “We have to do the best we can possibly do for our sponsors. But by no means do you have to qualify on the pole to win the Rolex 24.”

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Mazdas 1-2 again in pre-qualifying Roar session



By: J.J. O'Malley | 6 hours ago


Mazda continued to improve in IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Roar Before the Rolex 24 practice Sunday morning at Daytona International Speedway, running a weekend-best lap of 1m34.224s in the No. 55 Team Joest Mazda DPi.

Mazda went 1-2, with Oliver Jarvis second with a lap of 1m34.616s at the end of the session. Next were the two Action Express Cadillacs, with Eric Curran at 1m34.821s in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac DPi-V.R., followed by Filipe Albuquerque, at 1m34.885s in the No. 5 Mustang Sampling entry.

Results

Teams had just a short break before qualifying begins at 11:50 a.m. ET for the GTLM class, followed at 12:15 p.m. for the combined DPi and LMP2 competitors.

While no official records will be set during qualifying, not only will Joao Barbosa’s two-year-old DPi track mark of 1m36.903s be under attack, but P.J. Jones’ 26-year-old all-time IMSA Camel GTP record of 1m33.875s faces its first serious challenge to date.

Ben Hanley led the LMP2 competitors with a best lap of the weekend, a 1m35.975s, coming on his last lap in the No. 81 DragonSpeed ORECA Gibson.

Richard Westbrook was fastest in GTLM, running 1m43.083s in the No. 67 Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT, beating his best lap of the weekend for the category.

Jarvis beats Daytona record to pace Roar qualifying

 

By: J.J. O'Malley | 3 hours ago


Mazda Team Joest’s Oliver Jarvis and Harry Tincknell gave Mazda a 1-2 result in Sunday’s Roar Before the Rolex 24 DPi qualifying, unofficially breaking the Daytona International Speedway all-time record in the process.

While the times won’t count in the record book, Mazda will have its choice of pit road and garage locations for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona on Jan. 26-27.

On his first qualifying lap, Jarvis bettered P.J. Jones’ long-standing record of 1m33.875s, set in time trials for the 1993 Rolex 24 in Dan Gurney’s No. 98 All-American Racers Toyota Eagle Mk III. Jarvis later improved to 1m33.398s in the No. 77 Mazda DPi, 0.025s quicker than Tincknell’s 1m44.423s in the No. 55 Mazda. John Doonan, Director of Mazda Motorsports, dedicated the performance to Gurney.

Results

“It felt incredible,” Jarvis said. “The car was an absolute joy to drive. We ran in full-quali spec — I don’t think many of our competitors can say the same. In that configuration, you could push the car to the limit, and that’s what us drivers live for, that feeling of getting everything out of the car.

“It’s really confidence-inspiring,” Jarvis continued. “We know we’ve got a good package for the race. We’ve had a really good Roar, especially when you look back 12 months to last year’s difficult Roar. This time, we really hit the ground running. But we also know our competitors will be much closer when we come back. We’ve still got a lot to do, but it’s the first step on what we want to achieve, and that’s the outright victory.”

Ricky Taylor took third coming to the checkered flag, with a 1m34.261s in the No. 7 Team Penske Acura DPi. Action Express Racing took the next two positions. Filipe Albuquerque was fourth, at 1m34.282s in the No. 5 Mustang Sampling Cadillac DPi-V.R, followed by Felipe Nasr at 1m34.368s in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering entry.


No. 3 Corvette Racing Corvette C7.R of Jan Magnussen, Antonio Garcia and Mike Rockenfeller. (Image by Richard Dole/LAT)

Following up a successful strategy from 2018, Corvette Racing’s Jan Magnussen used a tow from teammate Oliver Gavin to capture the GTLM pole, running 1m42.651s — the best lap of the weekend in the class — in the No. 3 Corvette C7.R.

“For qualifying, we agreed on who was going to tow whom, and it was me again getting towed around,” Magnussen said. “That gave us a good top-speed advantage. Ollie did a fantastic job placing himself at the right distance. We did the exact same thing to get the pole here last year, and I’m not sure why everyone else isn’t doing the same exact thing.”

Gavin wound up eighth, 0.542s behind. “The difference in our times is the difference the tow makes,” Magnussen said.

Chip Ganassi Racing took the next two slots. Richard Westbrook was second, with a 1m42.779s in the No. 67 Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT, followed by Joey Hand at 1m42.898s in the No. 66.

Porsche took the next two places, with Earl Bamber (No. 912, 1m42.919s) beating out Nick Tandy (No. 911, 1m43.051s).

Gabriel Aubry led the LMP2 class, at 1m35.930s in the No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA Gibson.

The Roar concludes with one additional one-hour session, beginning at 2:45 p.m. ET.

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CORE autosport tops final Roar session



By: J.J. O'Malley | 25 minutes ago


After missing Friday morning’s opening practice for the Roar Before the Rolex 24 while still coming to grips with its new Nissan DPi, CORE autosport ended the test by leading Sunday’s final session.

Loic Duval ran a 1m35.176s in the No. 54 Nissan, edging out Jonathan Bomarito’s No. 55 Mazda DPi, at 1m35.283s.

Results

Timo Bernard came to a stop in the Roar “pole”-winning No. 77 Mazda Team Joest Mazda DPi to bring out a red flag midway through the session, two hours after Oliver Jarvis led qualifying in that car with a lap of 1m33.398s.

Otherwise, the Roar ended on a calm note, with 15 cars participating in the final one-hour practice. Action Express Racing, Acura Team Penske and Wayne Taylor Racing packed early, joined by both Chip Ganassi Fords and the Risi Competizione Ferrari in the GTLM class.

Nicolas Lapierre led LMP2, with a 1m36.188 in the No. 81 DragonSpeed ORECA Gibson, while Antonio Garcia paced GTLM in the pole-winning No. 3 Corvette C7.R, at 1m43.977s.

The GT Daytona class did not participate in Sunday’s Roar testing. Dominik Baumann had the fastest time in the class, 1m45.406s in the No. 71 P1 Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3, but the time was disallowed due to the team using a Gold-rated driver in Saturday’s qualifying session. Trent Hindman was next fastest, 1m45.533 in the No. 86 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Acura NSX GT3; teammate Bia Figueiredo (formerly Ana Beatriz) led qualifying in the team’s No. 57 Acura, 1m45.537s.

Official practice and qualifying for the Rolex 24 will begin on Thursday, Jan. 24, with the race taking the green flag at 2:35 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 26.

 

Kombinovani rezultati testiranja:

 

http://results.imsa....r_Session 7.PDF

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Performance Tech evaluating ELMS P2 move



By: Stephen Kilbey | 50 minutes ago


Performance Tech Motorsports could step away from IMSA’s LMP2 class after the Rolex 24 At Daytona and run in the European Le Mans Series.

Four cars are currently confirmed for the LMP2 class at Daytona, although two of them are being fielded by ELMS and WEC (and soon to be IndyCar) regular DragonSpeed. That team isn’t expected to compete in IMSA beyond Daytona, though adding Sebring to its program alongside its WEC commitments is a possibility.

“We’re still in the early stages of planning [an ELMS program],” O’Neill told RACER. “Our biggest concern is what we do if something happens to IMSA P2 — I know IMSA is working hard to try and get three cars in the championship, but it’s hard to sustain it. The business model doesn’t work. You can’t really run a championship with two cars.”

IMSA recently moved to make a P2 program more viable for teams by reducing the class schedule through the elimination of Long Beach and Detroit; a move that O’Neill recognizes is helpful — to a point.

“I give IMSA credit for trying to help us out by moving the calendar to eight races, it helps us sell the program, but at the end of the day, there are only two cars,” he said. “That might be a shock to IMSA, but it shouldn’t have been a shock that Jon Bennett [CORE] wanted to do DPi, there’s no secret there.

“When the opportunity presented itself they went for it, and JDC was the same, as their partners wanted to race in the top class. It’s a double-edged sword – it doesn’t look good with two cars.”


No. 38 Performance Tech Motorsports ORECA LMP2 of Kyle Masson, Kris Wright, Cameron Cassels and Robert Masson at the Roar test. (Image by Jake Galstad/LAT)

Another factor is the difference in budget required to run in ELMS over IMSA. Even with the logistical challenges of racing in Europe with a U.S.-based team, O’Neill said that it’s still significantly cheaper to run a program in the ELMS than it is to run in the shortened eight-race LMP2 IMSA schedule.

“The budget for ELMS without Le Mans is $1.4 million; if you do testing, $1.5 million. Eight races here, it’s almost two million dollars. That includes moving everything back and forth from the USA to Europe, and it’s only six races instead of eight. There’s a big difference in the number of hours you put on the car, but the competition is there – it’s a huge LMP2 grid.

“The entry fee for ELMS is what the entry fee is for Daytona. It’s difficult, because I’ve been in this paddock a long time, but we bought it last year to do LMP2. Look at how many there were last year — it was awesome. And if you look at what’s happened, it’s almost all DPi [now].”

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PRUETT: Roar reflections



By: Marshall Pruett | 18 hours ago


What did we learn at IMSA’s WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Roar Before The 24 test?

Speed is back. The paddock loves its new Michelin tires. Mazda mastered the art of chess-boxing, and there’s so much more to cover — let’s start with the first two items, which are linked.

The 2019 edition of the event will be remembered as the ‘We Love Our Michelins’ test.

Using a basic comparison of fastest Roar ‘qualifying’ lap times from 2018 on the spec Continental tires and what teams just produced on Michelin’s products, the extra grip available through the corners has brought plenty of smiles to the paddock.


Image by Levitt/LAT

Time navigating the infield was down, and at Daytona, where drivers spend the majority of each lap at full throttle on long and winding straights, the improved traction offered by the Michelins also meant their machines left the corners harder, which translated into shorter elapsed times on those straights.

In DPi, Mazda Team Joest’s Oliver Jarvis managed something few would have expected from an LMP2-based car by eclipsing the 26-year-old Daytona lap record set by All American Racers and its greatest-of-all-time GTP model, the Toyota-powered Mk III.

The Briton’s lap of 1m33.398s, nearly a half-second below P.J. Jones’ pole of 1m33.875s from the 24-hour race in 1993, was not a new official standard due to being generated at a test, but it demonstrated the year-to-year leap made by IMSA’s DPis. The best from last year’s Roar time trials was a 1m35.806s — or 2.408s slower — delivered by an Action Express Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R.

IMSA has given the DPi class a slight bump in BoP to create proper separation to the prototypes in its new LMP2 class, but overall, the big leap in speed is directly related to the big increase in tire performance.


Image by Dole/LAT

“The BoP freedom has definitely had an effect, especially at a track like Daytona where straight line speed and power has such a big influence, however, the majority of the lap time improvement definitely comes from the Michelin tires,” Jarvis told RACER. “They have been a big step in overall grip from the Continentals. I would say it’s at least two seconds, purely from the tires.”

A similar improvement was found in LMP2 where, despite IMSA taking power and optimal gearing away from the spec prototypes to create the aforementioned gap to DPis, the No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen ORECA 07-Gibson team went 1.344s faster than the top P2 lap of 2018.

GT Le Mans, the only class to use Michelins prior to 2019, also found pace with a different tire solution brought by the French manufacturer as Corvette Racing’s C7.R managed to gain 0.959s from the best Ford Chip Ganassi Racing’s GT recorded 12 months ago.

To fully appreciate the speed at which the GTLM cars are traveling at Daytona, Corvette’s Jan Magnussen crossed the start/finish line with a 1m42.651s lap to top all competitors in the class. Wind the clock back to 2015 with the actual pole for the Rolex 24 achieved by Michael Shank Racing’s Ligier JS P2-Honda LMP2 entry of 1m39.194s on Continentals, and the rate of progress is stunning.


Image by Galstad/LAT

In round numbers, that’s a 3.5-second separation from 2015’s fastest prototype to today’s top GT car. Leaving the Roar, the number is up to 9.25 seconds between Jarvis’ Mazda and Magnussen’s Corvette. Coming back to the central theme, the Michelins account for the huge change, along with the overall gains in performance and technology contained within IMSA’s DPi platform.

And in GT Daytona, the leap was 1.837s as 2018’s best of 1m47.374s by the GRT Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini Huracan GT3 was upgraded to a 1m45.537s from Meyer Shank Racing’s Acura NSX GT3.

“It’s wise to look at the only change we’ve had year-to-year,” Jeff Westphal said of the Michelins on the Ferrari 488 GT3 he drives for WeatherTech Racing. “All the GTD cars have been refined during the offseason, but I’d put 1.5 seconds of it down to the tires. When I give throttle input and we’re rolling through the center of the corners, the Michelins give more of what we ask.”

Averaged across the four classes, IMSA’s fastest cars from the Roar bettered 2018’s top laps by 1.637s. We can’t attribute all of it to a change in tire partners, but it’s also fair to say that without the move to Michelin, lap-record speeds wouldn’t be the big headline to follow when proper qualifying gets under way at the Rolex 24.


Image by Galstad/LAT

The other significant talking point went to Mazda and its undeniable pace.

Fastest in five of the eight sessions, including a trio of 1-2s by the pair of RT24-Ps, the Mazda Team Joest outfit had all the markings of a program that played its cards wrong at the Roar. The regular routine for most teams, regardless of the class, is to stay off the series’ radar by running slightly below their maximum potential.

With IMSA using the Roar to gather data that will be used to dial cars up or down on lap times through its Balance of Performance rules, posting flashy times — and breaking, albeit unofficially, the outright lap record — had many asking if Mazda armed the series with all it needed to hammer the RT24-Ps through BoP penalties when we return for the race.

As it turns out, Mazda went into the Roar with a plan it presented to IMSA that laid out exactly what unfolded in those eight sessions.

Some manufacturers, and this isn’t exclusive to DPi, deploy the sandbags for significant portions of the Roar, while Mazda Motorsports director John Doonan and the MTJ team went hard to run at race pace, and went hard once more in qualifying trim.


Image by Galstad/LAT

With IMSA’s technical department observing, Doonan said there was no fear or gross misjudgment by Mazda on how to play the Roar.

“IMSA asked us to show what we could do, and we committed ourselves to do that,” he explained after Jarvis turned the 1m33.398s lap. “I commend IMSA for what they’ve done in terms of investing in the tools and analysis to make this a level playing field. I trust the system, and what everyone has done to assure all the manufacturers that come here.

“This is not about who can spend the most money, it’s a level playing field for all of us to showcase our brands. I’m not worried [about being slowed for the race], I’m confident in the system.”

In kind, IMSA competition VP Simon Hodgson spoke warmly of the Japanese manufacturer’s commitment to the BoP process.

“I commend John for that approach,” he said. “I’m sure that some of his peers would say this is John going on the offensive … he’s lobbying through his BoP, but the reality is, when he came to talk to us, we said, ‘Don’t focus on other people. Focus on your program. You’ve got some great drivers in that package,’ and he’s further expanded his investment in people and he’s doing the best he can to make sure his program is correct.”

Hodgson touched on the last point of interest with Mazda’s front-running performances. Take the Michelins, sprinkle in a bit more power for the DPi class as a whole, and then factor in the sweeping upgrades in engineering talent supplied by MTJ partner Multimatic, and this is the version of team that was meant to hit the ground last year.

If the Roar gave Mazda fans a taste of something new, it was a reason to expect the Nos. 55 and 77 entries to give Acura, Cadillac, and Nissan a fair number of headaches. Wins aren’t guaranteed for the MTJ outfit, but with the army of talent contained within this 2019 squad, it won’t be long before seeing the Mazdas up front is no longer a surprise.

GT Le Mans was the only class that looked and felt routine during the Roar. Four of the five manufacturers topped the time sheets, with only BMW lacking a P1 during the seven standard sessions and one qualifying run. Porsche was up front for half of the outings which, considering the somewhat unrewarding 2018 season it endured, could be a cause for optimism.


Image by Dole/LAT

GTLM’s paddock was the most frequent source of sandbagging complaints, which has become an accepted part of the Roar. Without GTLM teams and drivers pointing fingers at the other brands, the class would not indeed look or feel routine…

By the numbers, five of the GTLM sessions had relatively small gaps from first to second. A scant 0.007s to 0.131s covered those sessions, and in the other three, it widened considerably — at least for a highly controlled category like GTLM. Porsche went 1-2 in the first session (+0.287s to third), 1-2 again in the fifth session (+0.316s to third), and Ford went the farthest by leading Corvette (+0.423s) in the sixth session.

BMW is the one clear outlier for IMSA to review. Never better than fourth, the M8 GTEs floated between fifth and seventh — in a class with nine entries — for the majority of the event.

The Pro-Am GT Daytona class also revealed a brand or three that would benefit from a BoP review. Acura, Ferrari, and Mercedes-AMG featured during the abbreviated two-day test for GTD models, and Audi, defending class champion Lamborghini, and Porsche struggled — barring one session where a 911 GT3 R led — to encroach upon the three leading manufacturers.


Image by Galstad/LAT

Playing the role of performance sleuth is infinitely easier in the Pro-Pro classes like DPi and GTLM; if a brand is out to lunch, the detective work needed to find the root causes — real or contrived — is usually within reach. Less so, in Pro-Am, where the blend of drivers and competencies can muddy the BoP waters.

The stage is set for IMSA. Its investigators are pouring over terabytes of data to verify or debunk the performance information taken off its cars. Weather permitting, new class records and possibly an outright lap record could fall when the WeatherTech Championship teams reconvene from January 24-27. IMSA’s 50th anniversary is finally here.

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Ford unveils retro Rolex 24 GT liveries


 
By: Marshall Pruett | 26 minutes ago


Ford Performance and Chip Ganassi Racing will reach back to IMSA’s fabled 1980s era with the No. 66 GT, and pay homage to sponsor Castrol with the No. 67 GT for the upcoming Rolex 24 At Daytona.

“We’re excited to show off our Ford GTs in a new way, and at the same time join IMSA in celebrating its 50th anniversary,” said Ford Performance Motorsports global director Mark Rushbrook.

The one-off liveries are a first for Ford since its GT endurance racing program launched in 2016.

“I’m really excited and proud that Ford is doing something to celebrate the 50th anniversary of IMSA,” said FCGR driver Richard Westbrook, who pilots the No. 67 with Ryan Briscoe and Scott Dixon. “Ford and Castrol had a lot of successful history in those years, so for the two to come together and do something as eye-catching as these new liveries, I’m going to be really proud driving that car.


Image by Marshall Pruett

“I’ve seen enough footage of cars in that livery going around Daytona before the bus stop chicane was put in, which was a very iconic period of IMSA racing, so to be in an iconic car in that livery trying to defend our title will be something really special.”

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Acura taps Comptech history for 2019 ARX-05 DPi liveries


 
By: Marshall Pruett | 19 hours ago


Acura Team Penske will pay tribute to the championship-winning Comptech Racing IMSA prototypes from the early 1990s throughout the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season with throwback white and orange liveries.

The unmistakable dayglo orange, featured on the factory IMSA GTP-Light entries from California’s Comptech, helped the Acura NSX-powered prototypes built by Spice to stand out from its rivals as the team and brand dominated its class from 1991-1993.


Image by Marshall Pruett

“This is a natural look for Acura prototypes, and a salute to our heritage as a performance brand,” said Acura executive creative director Dave Marek, who brought the liveries forward to its ARX-05 DPis. “The Acura brand was founded in 1986, and its debut in motorsports soon followed.

“Today, we’re proud to unveil a livery that accurately reflects our long, successful history in North American racing – and look forward to adding new chapters to the story of Acura Precision Crafted Performance.”

In addition to Acura’s GTP-Lights and DPi, the white and dayglo orange theme was also carried on Comptech’s initial Honda-powered CART IndyCar program, and got its start in the 1980s within IMSA’s International Sedan series — a forerunner to today’s Michelin Pilot Challenge championship. More recently, the RealTime Acura team employed the livery on an Acura NSX GT3 fielded in the former Pirelli World Challenge series.

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Rossi earns rave reviews from Acura



By: Marshall Pruett | 4 hours ago


Alexander Rossi’s first outings in the world of sports car racing had little in common with the bold and daring moves fans have become accustomed to from him in the IndyCar Series.

Unrewarding trips to Le Mans in 2013 in an LMP2 entry (pictured below), and once more at the 2014 Rolex 24 At Daytona with the DeltaWing team, gave very few indicators of what would be delivered as the newest member of the Acura Team Penske IMSA program. Partnered with sports car champion Ricky Taylor and three-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves in the No. 7 Acura ARX-05 DPi, the front-running IndyCar star has made quite an impression on the team and the manufacturer in a short amount of time.


Image by Marshall Pruett

Rossi’s rapid adaptation to the twin-turbo V6-powered prototype has, in Taylor’s estimation, shown how far the Californian has come in his efforts to master machines other than his Andretti Autosport open-wheel car.

“Alex and I raced together one time at Skip Barber 2006,” he told RACER. “Then, obviously, I went and followed him through his time in Europe and then in IndyCar, and I knew he was fast. I knew that he’d gained a lot of confidence and he was really coming into his own as one of the top two or three IndyCar drivers. And when I heard he was gonna drive for the team, it was really exciting. I knew he’d do a good job.”


Image by Michael Levitt/LAT

Taylor was impressed by how well prepared his new teammate was for the endurance racing opportunity he was given by Acura and Penske. Coming on the heels of his recent first-time participation at the Baja 1000, Rossi is building a reputation as an all-rounder who can handle anything he’s asked to drive.

“Whenever you see a driver come into sports car racing from driving something else, you always think, ‘That’s going to be different,’ he noted. “As competitive as IndyCar is, and with all the other formula car drivers that come to IMSA, you expect a little bit of a learning curve when they come hop into the sports car. New buttons, new dash, new everything. It isn’t natural for some of them.

“He was shocking from every aspect,” Taylor added. “Right out of the box, he was super fast, giving feedback and developing the car in the first time that he was sitting in it. Also, just the amount of homework that he did. Probably the biggest thing is, it took Helio and I a year to learn that steering wheel, dash, and everything. He’d learned it before he even got to the track.

“That was all really exciting for me — to see how much effort he’d put in, how seriously he’s taking it. Obviously, it’s not his primary ride for the year. That’s his Andretti Honda Indy car. To see that he’s taking it seriously in the Acura ARX-05 he’ll race only a few times this year, it’s exciting for us.”


Image by Michael Levitt/LAT

Rossi replaces fellow IndyCar driver Graham Rahal, who bowed out from the endurance driver role after struggling to fit his 6-foot-3-inch frame in the cockpit. Despite his general lack of experience in a series like IMSA’s WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, Honda Performance Development VP Steve Eriksen says Rossi has turned out to be the perfect choice to fill Rahal’s void.

“Graham did a fantastic job,” he remarked. “You look at that last race of 2018 (Petit Le Mans) and he just was on fire, and doing a bang-up job and doing four stints or whatever. It just was incredible — but he just was not physically comfortable in the car and so he made the extraordinary decision to say, ‘This is where I’ve got to bow out, because I just don’t fit in the car.’ We were left with figuring out what to do, and we picked Rossi.

“The feedback that I’ve gotten from the team is that Alex really impressed everybody. He really fit it. It’s been such a seamless fit too, personality-wise and even setup-wise. His setup is different than what was already in place, so that also fit in well. He’s just been a great addition to the package and the team. I’m looking forward to seeing that group of drivers having a fun time at the Rolex 24.”

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Jarett Andretti got a late start on racing because he had to get his college degree but after a few seasons of USAC sprint cars, Aldo's son and Mario's nephew is headed for the Pirelli World Challenge with McLaren.