All about training and accident auer
2. Training in the box
This time Cadillac strikes! Three V-LMDh finishes in the top four. Richard Westbrook ran a best time of 1:35.185 minutes with the #02 Ganassi-Cadillac (Bamber/Lynn/Westbrook). It was the third best time in the five regular “Roar” pretest sessions. At the last second, Louis Deletraz is still on P2 with the #10 Acura, followed by two more karts. Still not clearly visible: BMW with eighth and ninth, but not too far behind.
There were four interruptions again this time, three of them for LMP3 vehicles. JDC Miller Duqueine #85 (Bechtolsheimer/van der Helm/Mars/Filippi), AWA Duqueine #13 (Fidani/Kern/Bell/Kranz) and Andretti Ligier #36 (Andretti/Chaves/Dickerson/Lindh) all caused red flags with Technical problems. LMP2’s #55 Proton-Oreca (Poordad/Pizzi/Allen/Bruni) was the hardest hit. Francesco Pizzi was involved in an accident at the Le Mans chicane, but was released from the media center after a short check.
the whole story
We have summarized everything about the Lucas Auer accident in this article. As soon as new information becomes available, you will of course learn about it here and in the article.
Not much going on with the team
Apparently, Winward’s team pulled off the chassis, which isn’t surprising given the open-post cage. There’s not much activity in Winward’s garage, says our on-site reporter, Jamie Klein. You will now have to try to bring in a new chassis at first, otherwise this will already be the case for the GTD shaft setters. If successful, they could, if necessary, run as third without Lucas Auer and remain in the GTD class.
Meanwhile, the second free practice session started.
Auer Responsive!
There is preliminary information: Auer is said to have been responsive and complained of back pain after the accident. He is being checked in the hospital now.
Photographers describe that the roll bar apparently came loose when Auer was rescued. We are currently awaiting more information from the team.
Missing parts or silent BOP protest?
While we await information from Winward (our colleague Jimmy Klein is gathering information on the ground), there is news from the political front. Pfaff Motorsport will only drive to a very limited extent in practice. The team officially denies that it’s a score against the balance of performance (see entries for Wed 18:47 and Thurs 01:57), but the predicate is clear. Statement from last year’s winners says:
“Unfortunately, our Porsche will drive very little in official pre-race practice. Much has been written about the lack of pace of the Porsches at Daytona. This is in no way a sign of dissatisfaction with IMSA or their BoP process. We have full confidence in THEIR OPERATIONS It’s been a tough decision to make sure we have the car and components in acceptable condition to start the race as our goal will be just to survive and make up places through the wear and tear of our opponents. We’ll fight hard with what we’ve got!”
Only after an accident in the hospital
Lucas Auer has to go to the hospital after an accident in the first free practice. According to preliminary information, he landed on the grass with both right wheels at the exit of Turn 1 and then turned left. There he hit the pit wall hard on the right-hand and left-hand turns, which were pushed all the way out. It’s still not clear if it’s a driver bug or a technical issue.
Once more information is available, you will find it here.
Mayhem in FT1: Five Reds, Violent Crash by Auer
In the first free practice session, the red button had to be run five times, and no real rhythm developed in the 90 minutes. The first was for the #92 Riley Porsche (Brule/Udell/Davis/Bleekemolen) stranded, the second for wreckage on the road. The crippled #63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini (Grosjean/Bortolotti/Caldarelli/Pepper) wrecked #3, #4 was involved in an accident involving minor injuries by John DeAngelis in Performance Tech League #38 (DeAngelis/Allen/Bloum/shields).
An all-around pro was responsible for the first major departure: Lucas Auer sank the No. 57 Winward-Mercedes (Ward/Ellis/Dontje/Auer) into turn two, having set the best time to complete the GTD tasks. This was also faster than all of the GTD Pro cars. It is also the car with the best GT time in qualifying. The interruption lasted a quarter of an hour, and Winward’s team had a lot of work to do.
Best time went to the #10 Wayne-Taylor-Acura (R. Taylor/Albuquerque/Deletraz/Hartley). Filipe Albuquerque clocked a time of 1:35.366 minutes in the session’s final race. That would have been good enough for third place in the regular five sessions in the “Roar Before 24” pre-test (notwithstanding the spontaneous rehearsal for Sunday’s qualifiers).
Criticism of the LMP2 braking
The leading LMP2 drivers are critical of the fact that the LMP2 class must continue to run with less power and more weight compared to last year (see entry 02:03). “It’s hard to understand, now that all GTPs are going at the same pace as DPis before,” Nicholas Lapierre (PR1 Mathiasen) tells our sister portal.Motorsport.com GlobalThis makes life with LMP3 much more difficult for us. In the end it’s the same for everyone, so I don’t mind.”
Josh Pieron (TDS) doesn’t see a problem for himself, but for others: “It’s becoming a problem for the bronze drivers. Some of them are now having more problems overtaking LMP3. In my opinion, it wasn’t necessary. GTP vehicles are almost as fast as DPis. It’s a big gap now [zu ihnen] And the distance to LMP3 is smaller than it should be. It is difficult to bypass them from the river bed. If you’re unlucky, you’ll stumble across the entire field.”
In the LMP2 category, at least one driver must earn a Bronze classification. Ben Keating’s pole time was nearly three seconds slower than the first lap in 2022.
© Motorsport Pictures
Westbrook: LMDH vehicles require more drivers
Interesting insight from Ganassi driver Richard Westbrook: He considers the Cadillac V-LMDh more demanding in terms of driving than its DPi predecessor: “It’s definitely a driver’s car. It’s heavier, it doesn’t have a lot of downforce, but a lot of power that’s good for GT drivers.” [beim Wechsel zu den Prototypen]. There are no tire warmers and getting the tires in the window is a challenge. The driver is needed here.”
With less downforce and the need to do double intervals [durch ein kleineres Reifenkontingent] It will be more exciting than DPi. One vehicle will damage tires more than the other. This will make itself felt for more than two hours. It’s going to be great.”
GTD Pro’s tenth car
MDK-Porsche #53 (Kvamme/Estep/Magnussen/Hart), where Kevin Magnussen was originally registered but could not compete due to a manual operation, was changed to the GTD Pro class. This increases this class to ten cars, and GTD shrinks to 23. TF Sport has taken on the #64 Aston Martin (Giovanis/H. Plumb/M. GTD). In GTD Pro, each driver only has to complete two hours of driving time per Racing, but in GTD it’s four and a half for amateurs.
© Motorsport Pictures
LMP2 also remains unchanged
Despite the surprisingly high speed of the GTP cars (see entry from 18:16 below), LMP2 will maintain its previous level. This leaves the Gibson V8 with a 35mm air restrictor and a top speed of 8000rpm. So far there have been no restrictions and a maximum speed of 8700 rpm. In addition, the Oreca 07 weighs 950 kilograms in that weight, ten kilograms more than in 2022.
LMP2 drivers complained that they could no longer exit the LMP3 and GT cars’ hairpin bends in the infield, which they considered a safety hazard. Overtaking maneuvers now move more into the straights.
Tincknell (Porsche, GTD): We miss at least 16 km/h!
Harry Tincknell absolutely doesn’t understand that the Porsche 911 GT3R doesn’t get a better rating. “distance [von 2,8 Sekunden im Qualifying] is the real distance,” says the Briton, who races for AO Racing, to the sister gate.Motorsport.com Global“We will not see any sudden improvement in the race because of the sandbags.”
“We ran on low fuel, had platinum drivers in the cars, showed what we could do and got beaten by bronze drivers in other cars. The difference in speed is insane, we’re in a completely different class. Out of the race. Even if we start racing one lap from the front, We wouldn’t even finish in the top 10. Like the others, the DRS was open.”
Tincknell puts the difference at ten to twelve miles per hour, which is 16 to 19 km/h. “In December we rode with 50 kilos less and 38 millimeters. Now we have 33 millimeters. That’s not rocket science.”
Hardly any changes in the balance of payments
The performance balance for this weekend’s race has been published. In all classes, it fully corresponds to the preliminary test last weekend. The only exception: the BMW M4 GT3, represented only in the GTD class, has a larger 2-liter tank.
In the Porsche GT camp in particular, this inactivity caused resentment. The new 992-generation Porsche 911 GT3R had absolutely no chance and was 2.8 seconds slower than the best qualifying time.
BoP can be found in the information overview
How the ‘Roar Before 24’ test drive went
The first decision has already been made: In qualifying this past weekend, the #60 Meyer-Shank-Acura (Blomqvist/Braun/Castroneves/Pagenaud) came out on top with a time of 1:34.031 minutes. That was just over three-tenths slower than the official DPi course record in 2019, 1m33.685s, set by Oliver Jarvis on a Mazda RT24-P. The 100 kg heavier LMDH was actually expected to be slower. However, the high-speed characteristics of Daytona International Speedway are again befitting hybrid cars.
Qualifiers – Bericht
qualified result
The starting grid of the race
In addition, five individual test sessions were conducted on the software during the test drives. The racing pace has been worked on here. The LMDH cars have already proven impressive reliability and there is a race imminent in the future. Here is an overview of the results:
Session Result 1 (Friday, January 20, 12:40 p.m. local time)
Session outcome 2 (Friday, January 20, 6:05 PM)
Session outcome 3 (Saturday, January 21, 12:48 p.m.)
Session outcome 4 (Saturday, January 21, 4:14 p.m.)
Result of the night session 5 (Saturday, January 21, 8:32 PM)
Session Result 6 – GTP only (Sunday, January 22, 1:41 p.m.)
© Motorsport Pictures
Welcome to the 24 Hours of Daytona event ticker
This will provide you with the latest information on the days leading up to the start of the race, and we will also include short summaries of the free training here. The event marks the debut of the LMDH cars, codenamed “GTP” in the IMSA SportsCar Championship.