IMSA Race CTMP Mosport IMSA Round

[chernaudi]

Since there's no race thread yet and the action got started yesterday, I'll start a thread for Mosport's IMSA event.

Weekend race hub from IMSA:

https://sportscarchampionship.imsa.c...car-grand-prix

Any moderator or admin who has elements that they'd like to add, feel free to do so.

One noteworthy piece of news is that the #48 Paul Miller Lamborghini has been withdrawn after it was damaged beyond immediate repair after a heavy crash in FP3 this morning.

[Maelochs]

Live quali on IMSA.tv. Started at 11:35 a.m. Eastern

[MaskedRacer]

-Wow the GTD grid has taken a beating in the past week. Hopefully we can get as many as possible to be there for Lime Rock. Important since that is an all GT race.

-Trent Hindmans' Acura did not win the pole this time! But we have seen the BMW M6 does well at these middle of the season tracks. This driver Robbie Foley, don't know much about him. But he ain't no slouch though.

-And also BMW M8 wins a rare pole in GTLM. I don't think they have ever gone 1-2 in qualifying but they did so. I feel Porsche's win streak ends on Sunday. Don't know by whom, but advantage team R.L.L for now.

-Glad to see Porsche going back to factory livery at Lime Rock. Like the white/black/red look ever since it came in 2017. Worried about that going away with the RSR debuting in 2020.

[MaskedRacer]

I feel bad for Bryan Sellers. Still one of the top drivers in IMSA and we have not even heard much of him at all this year. He goes from having the best co driver in Madison Snow to the worst in Ryan Hardwick. Everytime Sellers gets the wheel the car is already out of contention. Did Sellers even drive at Watkins Glen during the race? I think the #48 Lambo was out by the 4th hour. And now they are out due to Hardwick's practice crash.

[broadrun96]

Paul Miller has a spare chassis at the shop in Braselton so I'd expect they're going to be at the race. It sounds like they aren't happy with the P2 car that punted them off track though.

[chernaudi]

On the Porsche color schemes it probably will be like the car run at Goodwood. Porsche motorsport has said that the WEC cars at least will be mostly white and greyish silver. Daily Sports Car has an article about the color schemes.

[Purist]

Yeah, I'm hoping GTD is a little more back together for the next round.

It's good to see the M8 having a strong showing in GTLM.

I can see why the Nissan sin't getting the race results. Holy hell! The way Colin is having the fling that thing around and hang on for dear life over the curbs like that to get the lap time, jeez; it's little wonder that car's been going off the rails at some point during the races.

[HighParker]

For many years now, going back to at least to the time of ALMS, there's been a promo event on the Wednesday before the race, usually at Yonge-Dundas Square in downtown Toronto, though once it was at a big box store complex in Bowmanville. I don't think there was one this year, unless they somehow failed to mention it on their website.
To get a little off-topic, I didn't realize the likes of Roger Penske and Bob Holbert had been racing here in Ontario even before Mosport existed.
http://www.canadianracer.com/harewood.asp
Harewood Acres became an oil refinery, while Edenvale is still an airfield and was in the news last week as the location of a cancelled classic rock festival.

[joeb]

Braun sets the lap record on way to pole for Core Nissan

http://results.imsa.com/Results/19_2...Qualifying.PDF

The other Japanese cars make up the top 5 before you get the the contingent of Caddys


Edit: I wonder if Core will elect to start with Bennett instead of Braun like they did last season and start from the rear of the proto field?

[chernaudi]

Undoubtedly a record for the DPI era, but Dindo is still fastest man around Mosport. How long, though, is a question.

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

Undoubtedly a record for the DPI era, but Dindo is still fastest man around Mosport. How long, though, is a question.

That's like arguing a GTLM record shouldn't count because Dindo was faster. It's a different class and the lap record for the cars on track was reset and improved from last year. They didn't say anything about fastest ever lap time which would be a different class of car.

[MaskedRacer]

I don't see why CORE still tries to win poles then. Are there bonus points for that? Well if IMSA really wants to discourage the qualifying/starting driver change, then have them start in the back of the overall field behind the GT cars rather than just the prototypes.

Also I think they should do away with having all of the DPI's start in front of the other classes automatically at the restart after the safety car.....

or something better.....

institute Code 60/FCY for any situations involving stalled cars or debris.

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by MaskedRacer

I don't see why CORE still tries to win poles then. Are there bonus points for that? Well if IMSA really wants to discourage the qualifying/starting driver change, then have them start in the back of the overall field behind the GT cars rather than just the prototypes.



Also I think they should do away with having all of the DPI's start in front of the other classes automatically at the restart after the safety car.....



or something better.....



institute Code 60/FCY for any situations involving stalled cars or debris.

The Code 60 bit will never fly with either IMSA or their insurance. They just aren't going to let people on track without a SC style bunching. That ship and ability has sailed away and it's not coming back and time soon.

As for them running for pole, they like it so why knock it? They're here, they've spent millions of his money to play so let them play. What does it hurt the series, the race or other teams if they want to go fast and throw down a lap time? It keeps their pro driver happy in the car.

[broadrun96]

In keeping with their usual habit, according to everyone's favorite "reporter:"

The No. 54 Nissan DPi, however, will start from the rear of the DPi field on Sunday following a decision to switch starting drivers to team owner/driver Jon Bennett, as well as changing tires. Braun said in the post-qualifying press conference that he would be “surprised” if he were to start the race. From S365 notes for the weekend.

Including a few comments about next season with some unrest in the GTD ranks with a couple teams looking at new manufacturers for 2020.

[chernaudi]

Well, if we're comparing top class to top class, then the Core Nissan DPI is still over .5 of a second slower than the old Audi R10 was. I do suspect that with some development that a DPI will be faster around Mosport in a year, two at the very extreme most.

It's just like comparing GTE/GTLM to GT1 They're basically as fast as GT1 cars now. And with their aero packages, they're only 1100kg minimum weight, 600-650bhp and carbon brakes away from doing what a GT1 could do now.

Big reason for this, of course, is tires. GTLMs also have less rubber on the road than the GT1s did, same with LMP1 vs DPI. But that's been erased by what Michelin have done.

[MaskedRacer]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

In keeping with their usual habit, according to everyone's favorite "reporter:"

The No. 54 Nissan DPi, however, will start from the rear of the DPi field on Sunday following a decision to switch starting drivers to team owner/driver Jon Bennett, as well as changing tires. Braun said in the post-qualifying press conference that he would be “surprised” if he were to start the race. From S365 notes for the weekend.

Including a few comments about next season with some unrest in the GTD ranks with a couple teams looking at new manufacturers for 2020.

Don't diss Johnny D. Sportscar365 is a great gift to us fans. The sport will be less without it.

Just speculation on my part. Trying to think who might be dissatisfied. I just can't but think that Audi maybe on top of that list. Seems like they are leaving North America in the dust now. And they just focus on Europe. More specifically SRO and ADAC. The most satisfied are probably Acura and Lexus. Which interestingly have not made a huge impact on Europe so far. Maybe BMW too with Turner's loyalty to them. And they just won pole with Robbie Foley who is essentially a bronze driver beating out the sneaky silver in Trent Hindman

[chernaudi]

To be fair, VAG though Audi own Lamborghini, and they're making inroads in GTD, even if PMR have been no where most of this season.

[broadrun96]

Well it happened again folks. Change your DVRs to CNBC tomorrow and watch the ratings plummet. But hey, Atherton said it was a huge improvement in TV coverage and being on NBC OTA would be good for IMSA. Well that's not happening now sir.

https://sportscar365.com/imsa/iwsc/c...ascar-rainout/

[cbbrit]

Anyone who doubts it might be Audi should read this:

https://racer.com/2019/07/05/starwor...c-most-popular

https://sportscar365.com/imsa/iwsc/s...tmp-lime-rock/

[Purist]

Well, let's get the first irritation out of the way. Unless there's more rain delay, the race has moved to cable for tomorrow, off the over-the-air network.

As to some of the above discussion, I generally use the old GT1 (principally 1994-98) as my main GT benchmark, since the GTS/GT1 cars didn't experience a consistent or substantial performance increase during much of their tenure. By and large, they relied on the brute force of horsepower; their aero, apart from the Maserati MC12, was comparatively rudimentary.

When comparing current GTEs to those earlier GT1s, the GTEs are about on par for pace at some of the very fastest circuits, like Daytona, Mosport, and Watkins Glen.

It should be noted though that those tracks have seen some changes that mean they're effectively faster now than in 1998. I should also mention that the FIA and LM GT1s were quicker than the IMSA and USRRC GT1s in 1998.

However, most everywhere else, the old GT1s are still faster, even at a place where you'd expect the much more advanced aero of the GTEs to claw a good chunk of that gap back, like Dijon. And heck, I'm not sure that the DPIs could lap the old, flat Homestead roval as fast as the FIA GT1s did in 1998.

Alright, sorry for the derailment, but I needed to just let that thought stream run its course a bit. I'll have to look again at who was second in Qualifying, but I think it's another case of the Mazdas and Acuras locking out the front two rows anyway.

[chernaudi]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

Well it happened again folks. Change your DVRs to CNBC tomorrow and watch the ratings plummet. But hey, Atherton said it was a huge improvement in TV coverage and being on NBC OTA would be good for IMSA. Well that's not happening now sir.

https://sportscar365.com/imsa/iwsc/c...ascar-rainout/

As I said last week, what do you expect? Even with stagnant ratings, NASCAR is still the most popular form or motorsport in America. Also probably doesn't help that both NASCAR and IMSA are majority owned by Jim France. Atherton is just a mouth piece. He used say what Don Panoz paid him to say, now he's doing the same for France. And to be fair, Fox's coverage of IMSA the last couple of years they were on there were abysmal. Just like they were just going through the motions and hoping that someone else would take over.

Also, NASCAR did try testing rain tires on ovals back in the mid-1990s, and it didn't work too well to say the least. And with the crap that Goodyear is selling to NASCAR, I don't think the results would be much better 20+years on.

[joeb]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

Well it happened again folks. Change your DVRs to CNBC tomorrow and watch the ratings plummet. But hey, Atherton said it was a huge improvement in TV coverage and being on NBC OTA would be good for IMSA. Well that's not happening now sir.

https://sportscar365.com/imsa/iwsc/c...ascar-rainout/

That's a pretty big bummer. Thanks for posting it though, I hadn't seen the report. I would have been royally ****ed though when I went to watch the race on my DVR only to see the Nascar race.

I wonder if imsa gets any compensation for this? because they have to really expect their TV deal to provide these races on network TV when they are scheduled. Don't know what the contract looks like but if x number of races were going to be on network TV and then they aren't I'm wondering if there is a clause to specify what they get in return.

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by cbbrit

Anyone who doubts it might be Audi should read this:

https://racer.com/2019/07/05/starwor...c-most-popular

https://sportscar365.com/imsa/iwsc/s...tmp-lime-rock/

Reason one and top reason why his reporting had gone to pot. Man up and actually call out Audi if that's what you what the reader to believe. Instead you try to play the don't offend anyone in case I need their money later bs. Of course that's offset by the fact Moorespeed and Land have both been fast this season and Starworks hasn't. So maybe it's not the Audi but rather something on that car isn't right? Or I guess it's more fun to throw dirt and hide behind I didn't say that later when you want Audi's money.

[Akrapovic]

From the comments:

Ryan Dalziel Matt • 4 days ago
Thanks Matt, appreciate that. Just an FYI Duff44, Audi Sport are fully aware of our set ups, and nothing on set up side is out of the Audi window. Hence the head scratching situation we are in. At WGI we were 10KPH down on the other Audis and slowest car in trap speeds. So we need to figure out why that is and not use up budget figuring that out on a race weekend. Audi are working closely with us to diagnose.

[TheMightyM]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

Well it happened again folks. Change your DVRs to CNBC tomorrow and watch the ratings plummet. But hey, Atherton said it was a huge improvement in TV coverage and being on NBC OTA would be good for IMSA. Well that's not happening now sir.

https://sportscar365.com/imsa/iwsc/c...ascar-rainout/

Well that sucks — no watching the race live for me, as I cut the cord and no longer get CNBC.