WTR Secure Daytona 24hr Victory

[RichardHessels]

Nice that i know the outcome before i watched the race. Thanks RD! Hopefully you will continue doing this with F1

What do you expect for a site that covers the latest autosport news?

 

[Richard Dastardly]

Sorry I'm going to have to disagree slightly. As @Will Mazeo mentioned all four classes were very close during this race. The conditions split them up though and from that point of view it was felt the Caddy's were better in the cooler night conditions and that was it. However I am wondering that with the 10 and 31 the team put a slightly more compromised setup on the cars. They have huge amounts of experience at Daytona and they knew the weather would be moving in later on and also for a long period of time so they may well have tried to prepare for it.

I did consider that in the race too - but the other teams all have experienced engineers too. We will see, if there's another event with changeable weather, I guess. I still feel the Caddy was overall just a little above the Acura, at least - on dry track it was the equal of the others, and in the wet with someone in the car who could handle the rain, a class of it's own. And...

People are raging about Mazda online but the #77 was a turbo failure (so blame AER for that if you like). The #55 was just a mistake combined with being in the wrong place at the wrong time (collected by another car) which could happen to anyone. It's also Mazda USA. It's not a huge Japanese works effort (although there is some involvement on that side).

I read a great article in Racecar Engineering some time ago about the Mazda after Joest took it over and it was a huge job getting the car sorted. It didn't have enough cooling. The aero was not stable, the suspension and brake designs were compromised. It needed a complete rethink. So to get to this stage is a minor miracle and the pole lap was a good sign that the car is at least quick now.

Considering their power plant I was surprised they were that fast at Daytona. They went very well at Sebring last year before they hit problems so I am looking forward to the next one to see how things develop.

The main issue with Mazda is that they just don't seem to find the last slice of success - all the way through last year it was fast, but there was *always something going wrong*. You could blame AER for the turbo, but why did that fail? could be an installation issue meaning it got too hot, which isn't AER's fault - or it could be bad preparation, even. 55 conked out on track ( electrics, iirc ) & went behind the wall before the suspension collapse accident. I'm really hoping they didn't just decide to go so hard for pole because they thought they probably wouldn't finish & wanted something out of the event :S. There were bad Audi years too, I guess.

How does their funding from Mazda compare with Acura Penske, who're supported by HPD ( which is part of Honda USA )?

If they can at least get a podium at car-smashing Sebring that'll be decent progress - last year they manged to get both cars to the end, but last year there was also less stress thanks to pegging back to the P2s. Here's hoping!

 

[Patrick Panton]

I spent an hour just watching Alex Zanardi in the 24 BMW, its the first time ive seen him race since the accident. What a wonderful poetry in motion to watch.

 

[paracletus]

Well done.

 

[nounoubleu]

I like Daytona 24 but as I'm an European guy, I have some difficulties to understand FCY rules in IMSA.
In few words, who's allowed to overtake safety car (I assume all cars except leading car ) and how many laps can be gained by this trick at each FCY?

 

[Richard Dastardly]

I like Daytona 24 but as I'm an European guy, I have some difficulties to understand FCY rules in IMSA.
In few words, who's allowed to overtake safety car (I assume all cars except leading car ) and how many laps can be gained by this trick at each FCY?

The protos are filtered out from the GTs every time, so they don't get tangled up on the restart. You can't gain a lap back in your class from this - however if you're about to be lapped and the SC comes out you'll be back just behind the car that was about to lap you, though. If you were watching the timing you'll have noticed this happen several times.The waveby procedure is to get the leader behind the SC and all the rest of the field stacked behind that in the right order - just imagine that as the SC going backwards.

Unfortunately this means any FCY/SC takes at least 10 mins. The simple caution caused by the ad hoarding on circuit ( a bit of hardboard, it looked like ) took 17 mins in total.

 

[Will Mazeo]

I like Daytona 24 but as I'm an European guy, I have some difficulties to understand FCY rules in IMSA.
In few words, who's allowed to overtake safety car (I assume all cars except leading car ) and how many laps can be gained by this trick at each FCY?

They reorder the grid.
Cars go to pit, those that are lap down dont do yet
They are now ahead and either back in lead lap or reduced the laps they lost but they are right in front of the leaders then "about to be lapped again"
Race director will now tell you to go to do a full lap and line up behind the grid in your class.
They now pit and are back behind the leader.
This is how you get many laps back, each FCY you can get one lap you lost.

 

[Richard Dastardly]

Wasn't really watching closely, but didn't they only do wavebys before they opened the pits?

 

[Michel Bélisle]

Sunday morning, I flipped the channels and came upon that race. I watched a little and the commentators said that Alonso was complaining about the state of the track. If Alonso complains that the track is in a dangerous state, the track has to be really bad.

 

[Richard Dastardly]

Driver analysis is in, Nasr best performer overall, then Pla ( who I don't even remember driving! ) and Jordan Taylor. Alonso 8th best. Yes it's allowing for yellows etc, takes top 15 laps which is a reasonable sample, I suppose, given getting even 15 clean laps is pretty hard.. I think some of them only got in the car in the wet, mind you.

https://twitter.com/thebpillar/status/1090269739044106240

 

[Will Mazeo]

Driver analysis is in, Nasr best performer overall, then Pla ( who I don't even remember driving! ) and Jordan Taylor. Alonso 8th best. Yes it's allowing for yellows etc, takes top 15 laps which is a reasonable sample, I suppose, given getting even 15 clean laps is pretty hard.. I think some of them only got in the car in the wet, mind you.

https://twitter.com/thebpillar/status/1090269739044106240

As I suspected basically every team had a driver to keep up with Alonso. If not for the exagerated rain causing red flags this would be easily one of the best Daytona editions in history