Latest news with #LMP2
NBC Sports
18-03-2025
- Automotive
- NBC Sports
Reviewing Dillman, 'fierce' GTD action at Sebring
Leigh Diffey, Calvin Fish, and Brian Till review Tom Dillman's "superb" run through the LMP2 madness, plus Rexy and the #77 GTD Pro team grabbing the victory from the BMWs and more from the Twelve Hours of Sebring.
Yahoo
15-03-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Twelve Hours of Sebring live updates: Porsche leads after BMW pole-sitter Dries Vanthoor penalized for start
Pole-sitter Dries Vanthoor was penalized for an illegal lane change before the start of the Twelve Hours of Sebring. Vanthoor, who had qualified first for the second consecutive race to start the 2025 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season, moved from the inside to the outside lane just before the green flag. The penalty was called during the race's first caution flag, and Vanthoor had to wait until the Lap 6 restart to serve his drive-through penalty in the No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8 for Team RLL BMW. Felipe Nasr inherited the lead in the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 that has consecutive victories in the Rolex 24 at Daytona. Mathieu Jaminet was third in Porsche Penske's No. 6 963. Team owner Roger Penske is seeking his second overall victory at Sebring International Raceway and first since 2008. After the penalty, Vanthoor fell to 23d in the standings behind all the Grand Touring Prototype and LMP2 cars. The first full-course yellow flag flew six minutes into the race after a crash involving two LMP2 cars (the No. 18 and No. 88) that left a fender on the track. TV/streaming: The Twelve Hours of Sebring will be streamed on Peacock from flag to flag beginning at 10 a.m. on March 15. NBC Sports' booth coverage will include announcers Leigh Diffey, Brian Till, Dave Burns, Calvin Fish and Townsend Bell. Kevin Lee, Chris Wilner and Matt Yocum will serve as pit reporters. Peacock also will carry streaming of the Ford Mustang Challenge, Lamborghini Super Trofeo, Porsche Carrera Cup and Michelin Pilot Challenge races. RADIO: All sessions live on and SiriusXM live race coverage begins March 15 at 9:45 a.m. (Sirius channel 216, XM 207, Web/App 992)
NBC Sports
15-03-2025
- Automotive
- NBC Sports
Twelve Hours of Sebring live updates: Porsche leads after BMW pole-sitter Dries Vanthoor penalized for start
Pole-sitter Dries Vanthoor was penalized for an illegal lane change before the start of the Twelve Hours of Sebring. Vanthoor, who had qualified first for the second consecutive race to start the 2025 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season, moved from the inside to the outside lane just before the green flag. The penalty was called during the race's first caution flag, and Vanthoor had to wait until the Lap 6 restart to serve his drive-through penalty in the No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8 for Team RLL BMW. Felipe Nasr inherited the lead in the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 that has consecutive victories in the Rolex 24 at Daytona. Mathieu Jaminet was third in Porsche Penske's No. 6 963. Team owner Roger Penske is seeking his second overall victory at Sebring International Raceway and first since 2008. After the penalty, Vanthoor fell to 23d in the standings behind all the Grand Touring Prototype and LMP2 cars. The first full-course yellow flag flew six minutes into the race after a crash involving two LMP2 cars (the No. 18 and No. 88) that left a fender on the track. How to watch the Twelve Hours of Sebring TV/streaming: The Twelve Hours of Sebring will be streamed on Peacock from flag to flag beginning at 10 a.m. on March 15. NBC Sports' booth coverage will include announcers Leigh Diffey, Brian Till, Dave Burns, Calvin Fish and Townsend Bell. Kevin Lee, Chris Wilner and Matt Yocum will serve as pit reporters. Peacock also will carry streaming of the Ford Mustang Challenge, Lamborghini Super Trofeo, Porsche Carrera Cup and Michelin Pilot Challenge races. RADIO: All sessions live on and SiriusXM live race coverage begins March 15 at 9:45 a.m. (Sirius channel 216, XM 207, Web/App 992)
Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
The Aston Martin Valkyrie Took A Month Off Of Racing To Get Faster And It's Still Way Off The Pace
Aston Martin Racing and The Heart of Racing decided to sit on the sidelines during the 2025 Rolex 24 At Daytona race, because the pre-season November IMSA test proved the new Valkyrie AMR-LMH hypercar simply didn't have enough speed to contest the event. Instead of racing at Daytona, the team decided to take that time and run a few dozen hours more testing with the new car at Sebring in Florida to better prepare for its first race outing. Last weekend the team flew to Qatar for its final pre-season test session in the FIA WEC's full-grid scheduled "Prologue" test, and could see if all that time spent testing had paid off. Back in November the Valkyrie was only slightly quicker than the LMP2 field at Daytona, running about a second and a half off the GTP class pace. Has the Valkyrie become more competitive with millions spent on private testing, setup changes, and upgrades? In a word, nah. For the first time in a sanctioned test session, Aston Martin had two Valkyries on track at the same time. Across the two-day Lusail International Circuit test the 007 and 009 Aston paired up for 549 laps of running, around 1835 miles in total. That falls short of the 792 laps of testing that Toyota completed, or the 722 laps that BMW put down. Aston indicated that the car was running great and never had any faults during the test, so the lack of mileage must be up to the team making lots of changes. Even with all of the changes the Valkyrie is still seriously struggling to compete on lap times. Read more: F1's Mario Kart-Inspired Saudi Track Proves It Has More Money Than Sense The #007 car of Harry Tincknell, Tom Gamble and Ross Gunn logged the 15th fastest time (1:41.089) of the test, while the sister car #009 of Alex Riberas, Marco Sørensen and Roman De Angelis came in 17th (1:41.353) split by the Proton Competition privateer effort Porsche 963. Being 15th and 17th in a 17-car class is already pretty not good, but when you compare the lap times that Aston ran, it gets even less good. The pace-leading BMW ran a fastest lap of 1:38.971 across the four test sessions late on Saturday evening, tripping the timing lights a full 2.118 seconds quicker than the faster of the two Valkyries. "We were really pleased. It's taken a lot of effort and the team," Adam Carter, Aston Martin team boss told Racer Magazine. "To see the momentum from testing continue here with a lot of laps, the car running faultlessly and the team gelling. We look forward to competing next weekend. It's a very visceral experience to watch a Valkyrie on track, like on the road. It's very special." The Aston Martins may look, and sound, the part of a fully fledged race car, but this entire concept is proving half-baked. The Valkyrie is the only car in the Hypercar class to be based on a road-going chassis, the only car in the class to run without a hybrid component, and one of just two cars alongside the Cadillac V-Series.R GTP to run without a turbocharged drivetrain. The 6.5-liter V12 engine sure sounds world-shattering, but that makes for a difficult recipe in the current rulebook. Based on the fact that Aston was actually closer to its competition from a time perspective around the longer Daytona course indicates to me that the lightweight naturally-aspirated Valkyrie doesn't have a power or speed deficit to the competition, as the Daytona course has a lot more full-throttle V-max driving than the Qatar track allows. It seems to me that all of the other cars are finding a lot of their speed from the electric acceleration provided by the hybrid electric motors. In FIA WEC competition, the hybrid Hypercars of Ferrari, Toyota, and Peugeot all adopted a system that allows electric KERS all-wheel drive under certain circumstances. All of the IMSA-style GTP cars in the class, Porsche, BMW, Cadillac, etc., are running a less-powerful KERS system which can deploy at lower speeds and only powers the rear wheels. For Aston to have neither system could prove costly in race fuel economy, off-peak power deployment, and lap time pace. I hope the team can find a way to make the car faster across the 2025 season, but it looks like the Aston squad will be starting the season on the back foot. Read the original article on Jalopnik.
Yahoo
04-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Gloves Came off at IMSA Rolex 24 at Daytona and the Result Was Strong Ratings
Fans need to see the competitive passion if IMSA wants to hit top dead center with some real torque. When Sebastien Bourdais lambasted IMSA for its post-race demotion of Tower Motorsports from first place in LMP2 over a skid-plate violation, he broke ranks. There's no racing show like one with passion, whether it's participants talking about the rules, the competition, beating the other guy or the other company. It's time to welcome IMSA back to the big leagues thanks to a raucous Rolex 24 at Daytona and some TV ratings to match. At the year's biggest WeatherTech Championship race, some drivers, teams and manufacturers spoke their minds afterward instead of kowtowing to IMSA's one-for-all party line. Instead of corporate speak, they let their opinions fly, which is what happens in Formula 1, NASCAR and IndyCar. Whether it's throwing punches, verbal jousting or a manufacturer like Ford not taking the usual line, fans need to see the competitive passion if a series wants to hit top dead center with some real torque. It was not enough to have a deep, high-tech field, with drivers and teams to match at the Rolex. When Tommy Milner called out BMW and its driver Augusto Farfus for questionable team tactics that stank, well, you could see the fumes as well as Milner's single finger salute. When Sebastien Bourdais lambasted IMSA for its post-race demotion of Tower Motorsports from first place in LMP2 over a skid-plate violation, he broke ranks. The Porsche Penske Motorsport team was demoted from victory for a similar violation at Watkins Glen in 2023, but that was followed by a carefully worded media release. The Rolex had an impressive fan turnout, international viewing numbers topping two million on YouTube and more-than-respectable TV ratings that averaged 901,000 viewers on NBC despite catawampus jumps between the main channel and Peacock as race fans got the usual pitch designed to generate paid streaming. Including a long-running online radio show, if the numbers in all these electronic realms are to go up, the more passion from participants the better. The biggest breach of protocol came from the biggest announcement. Ford is back in play at the top level of sports prototype racing with its first major commitment in decades. But the folks at the Blue Oval, led by Chairman Bill Ford, skipped the usual niceties. Instead, Ford's new chairman is beginning to sound like the second coming of The Deuce, the incomparable Henry Ford II, whose leadership led to the GT40, Mk II and Mk IV. 'We're coming back to beat Ferrari at Le Mans,' said the current chairman. He not only broke protocol by tweaking a competitor. There was not even a car or team in the room. He did not mention IMSA or the Rolex 24, much less an LMDh. The leadership at IMSA by Jim France, the board chairman, and John Doonan, the president, can understand Ford's point of view. After all, the current WeatherTech Championship that they have expertly built relies in no small part on a strong relationship with Le Mans. That sounds a bit like the preceding American Le Mans Series, does it not? There's a deeper historical precedent between the current GTP and the version that put IMSA on the worldwide map in the 1980s. Inarguably, the original GTP cars were as technically sophisticated as the machinery in any other major series in the world. The current LMDh hybrids can stake a similar claim to technical sophistication. The only remaining step is to beat the custom-built Hypercars such as the Ferrari 499P at the Circuit de la Sarthe. The emergence of a rivalry between Chevy's Corvette and Ford's Mustang in GTD is a tribute to IMSA growing its GT classes, albeit the GT3 category is not exactly home-grown. That rivalry is now augmented with some blood in the water around BMW and Milner's new t-shirt featuring a single digit salute that is being sold for charity. Combined with the hybrid prototypes, IMSA stands with any other major series in the world when it comes to competition, especially at the major endurance events, which comprise half the schedule. But there's no racing show like one with passion, whether it's participants talking about the rules, the competition, beating the other guy or the other company. The new developments at Daytona and the following Ford announcement in Charlotte are a refreshing break from a cozy relationship that exists between the sanctioning body and its competing manufacturers, which all pay a pretty penny to participate. This 'pay-to-play' partnership has sometimes made IMSA seem like Mr. Rogers neighborhood. Let's hope the cardigan sweater and the gloves continue to come off as a promising season and future continues to unfold.
