Latest news with #Rolex24AtDaytona
Fox Sports
04-04-2025
- Automotive
- Fox Sports
Family, Fortitude Help Bell Persevere through Loss in California Fires
INDYCAR Townsend Bell was named as one of the three members of the broadcast booth team for FOX Sports' inaugural season of coverage for the NTT INDYCAR SERIES. During Bell's first call with FOX INDYCAR producer Pam Miller in January, his wife walked into his office with a strong message. Their Pacific Palisades, California, neighborhood was on fire. 'It was the first time we were actually in work mode because I had been confirmed on the broadcast, and now we were getting to work,' Bell said. 'And, so, it was a really important phone call because those are important times to kick things off appropriately. And my wife kindly interrupted me once, then twice, and then finally, the third one was, 'I'm leaving because the flames are getting serious, and we need to evacuate.' 'And that's where I very politely had to say to Pam Miller, I'm so sorry, but I actually need to leave because my wife's telling me fires are coming.' Bell and his family have endured an incredibly difficult experience with the Southern California wildfires in early January, losing not just one, but three houses. The emotional and financial toll of such an event can be hard to process, and the fact that this is being shared against the backdrop of the 50th anniversary of the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, with its milestone anniversary as an iconic Southern California event, adds an extra layer of significance. 'It turns out that having a house burned down is a full-time job to recover from,' Bell said. 'I'm sure it's the same if you lost your home to a hurricane or any other natural disaster. It's a lot for anybody. Unfortunately for me, I have three, and so it's three things in parallel: three different insurance companies, three different locations, three different neighborhoods, and you just have wake up earlier. 'I'm normally an early wake-up kind of guy here, but my alarm is set for 4:30 a.m. because your mental demands are just that much more present and immediate. And you just get up and go through the punch list and start getting after it.' Bell's wife, Heather, has been an incredible source of strength for him throughout this ordeal. Balancing the chaos of losing homes while also managing a real estate business and helping dozens of families in similar situations was an overwhelming responsibility. Her resilience and determination are admirable while working with displaced clients. Townsend Bell's ability to keep pushing forward in his racing and broadcasting career, despite such hardship, is also remarkable. Racing in the Rolex 24 At Daytona just two weeks after the fires and then preparing for the NTT INDYCAR SERIES season requires intense focus, yet he still had to deal with the aftermath of the wildfires. That speaks to his dedication and mental toughness to juggle both personal and professional demands in such a difficult, yet empowering, journey for Bell and his family. 'Fires broke out, all hell broke loose,' he said. 'I leave for two and a half weeks to go work. Meanwhile, my amazing wife, Heather, is back home not only figuring out the Bell family situation, but she had to manage through all of that. And it was a very, very stressful time. 'But she kept her wits about her and fought through it like we all had to, so full credit to her, frankly, not only for dealing with the houses and her clients but also just keeping our family updated. You lean on each other tremendously, like any team, and I'm lucky, I've got a great team.' That's why the wildfire situation reminds Bell of his racing days. Bell made 39 INDYCAR SERIES starts, including 10 in the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge, with a best finish of fourth in 2009. He also won the 2001 INDY NXT championship that included a win at Long Beach and the 2015 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship title in the GTD class. 'In a strange way, I think racing has done a great job to prepare me for crisis because racing has an exacting timeline,' Bell said. 'You've got to fix it now because the race is going to start or qualifying, it's going to start. It's high pressure, the racing environment, and it is dramatic. And you see things as a racing driver that you would never see in terms of chaos, risk and high-stakes situations. 'So, in a strange way, I feel like being a racer prepares you well for moments like that in life that maybe you're not prepared for, but you certainly know the feeling of crisis.' recommended
Yahoo
01-03-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Corvette Conquers Qatar Securing First FIA WEC Win for the Z06 GT3.R
TF Sport and Chevrolet have done it. The Corvette Z06 GT3.R has officially conquered the FIA World Endurance Championship, claiming its first-ever series victory in a Qatar 1812Km battle. Behind the wheel of the No. 33 Corvette, Daniel Juncadella, Jonny Edgar, and Ben Keating pulled off a spectacular comeback, storming from 13th on the grid to take the checkered flag by less than half a second. This wasn't just any win—it was a statement. Corvette Racing's new GT3 challenger had already flexed its muscles by taking the GTD class victory at the Rolex 24 At Daytona, and now it's added an FIA WEC trophy to its rapidly growing collection. For Juncadella and Edgar, it marked their first triumph in both the WEC and a Corvette, while Keating, ever the endurance racing veteran, notched his eighth WEC win—four of those now with America's favorite sports car. Keating set the stage with a charge from 13th to sixth in the opening three hours, shaking off any rust from his time away since winning the 2023 GTE Am title. Edgar then took the baton, making his WEC debut and pushing the 'Vette further up the order as the sun set over Lusail. Juncadella carried the team into the class lead past the halfway mark, and from there, it was all about holding off the chasing pack. With 90 minutes to go, Juncadella strapped back in for the final run, making a strategic stop for fuel and left-side tires while the second-place McLaren opted for a full set of fresh rubber. The result? A white-knuckle final 30 minutes of nose-to-tail racing, with Juncadella fending off relentless pressure while slicing through faster traffic like a seasoned fighter pilot dodging missiles. Meanwhile, things weren't as rosy for the No. 81 Corvette, which suffered a heartbreaking mechanical failure just an hour into the race. But let's not dwell on that—this day belonged to the No. 33. Over in the Hypercar class, Ferrari's AF Corse squad locked out the podium in a dramatic 1-2-3 finish, with Antonio Fuoco holding off Robert Kubica to take the win in the No. 83 Ferrari 499P. BMW, Toyota, and Cadillac all had flashes of brilliance, but Ferrari's trio proved too strong. Back in LMGT3, Juncadella's heroics weren't just about surviving; they were about thriving. He withstood relentless attacks from McLaren's Grégoire Saucy in the dying moments of the race, sealing Corvette's second win of 2025 in as many major endurance events. 'Looking at my heart rate, I think I was 35bpm higher in the last stint than in the first one, so that tells you pretty much everything!' Juncadella quipped post-race. 'We were hoping for a solid start to the season, maybe a top five, but winning? That's something else.' The Corvette Z06 GT3.R has officially arrived in the FIA WEC, and it's not just here to make up the numbers. Next stop: the 6 Hours of Imola, where the 'Vette will look to keep the momentum rolling.
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
07-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Honda warming to idea of Acura FIA WEC Hypercar entry and customer programs
Could we see the Acura ARX-06 competing in the hands of private teams and/or in the FIA World Endurance Championship's Hypercar class in the future? Honda's new-look two-car IMSA GTP effort in lockstep with Meyer Shank Racing made its debut at last month's Rolex 24 At Daytona. The likelihood of an ARX-06 entering the WEC seemed slim when RACER asked HRC US President David Salters about it a year ago, but now it appears that its position on Hypercars is starting to shift. 'First, you've got to balance LMH and LMDh, which seems to be happening,' Salters told RACER 12 months ago when asked if it was viable for Honda to enter the FIA WEC. 'You have to make sure you can compete, then it has to make business and budgetary sense to Honda. Sometimes they line up, sometimes they don't. If in the future they could, we could be interested. 'There is already a rude reality of priorities in the company, and you'd imagine that at the moment, F1 is pretty high priority. We already do global motorsport at the highest level, and we sort of dominate!' A year later, though, it appears Honda is taking a closer look at the WEC's top class, which currently features 18 cars and is poised to swell to more than 20 in the next two years when Genesis, Ford and – as RACER expects – McLaren join in. Salters confirmed that an active evaluation is ongoing. 'Are we interested? Yes, we have an amazing car. The series is growing. Le Mans is Le Mans. Of course, we're interested,' Salters said. 'We've just got to figure out, does it make sense to Honda? And then the economics of it, all that sort of stuff. 'So we are interested, and we are working on it in the background, shall we say. But like all these things, it has to make sense looking forward. 'WEC is doing an amazing job. The series is in very rude health. Super rude health. We have a car that I think will be good. As we've always said, we keep evaluating it, and we are seriously evaluating it, and we see how it makes sense, and does it fit. 'Aside from that, I think IMSA is doing a really, really good job. This is growing here. And when I look over the ocean, ACO/ WEC is doing a really, really good job. The proof is in the pudding. It's growing!' As for the appetite from HRC US to offer customer ARX-06s, there's interest in this area, too. If there's one element of the current convergence era that's failed to take off, it's in the customer ranks, in part due to cost and the availability of cars. So far, Porsche is the only brand that has offered true customer cars to private teams with its 963 platform. But to this point just three teams have found a way to make the sums work, and with JOTA headed to Cadillac to run its WEC factory team this year, just JDC-Miller and Proton remain in 2025. Interestingly, though, there appears to be movement from some of the manufacturers involved in Hypercar and GTP to find a way to make customer programs work in the future. Lamborghini, for instance, is planning a customer-focused future for its SC63 project, and Salters has now confirmed to RACER that HRC US is now interested in supplying cars, should a credible party come forward. 'I think the cars are very complex, so it could have been a lot at the start for someone to get hold of a customer's car and just use it,' he explained. 'I think we're all getting smarter on how we could do that. That may be something that was prohibitive and now is OK, but then there have to be discussions about how we get the cost more under control. 'I'd quite like to have a couple of customers, and we support them, but it needs to be customer stuff. They also need to find the business case that works, because it has to be sustainable in that sense too. I have a budget. My peers have budgets. We can't just give out cash or cars. 'There's active discussion on how to make it cheaper. We need to carry on with the active discussion. It needs to become sustainable, but I'm not opposed to customers. I'd love some, but it's got to be done the right way. 'We are open to customers. We've had some interesting conversations. We're very happy to have more, but it needs to be done on an economically sustainable business basis. But also we want our customers to be able to win. 'It's an Acura. I don't care which Acura wins — the No. 60, the No. 93, or a customer. It's Acura and having more out there in endurance racing is a good thing.' Story originally appeared on Racer
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
McLaughlin, Newgarden to test Penske Porsche at Sebring
NTT IndyCar Series drivers Scott McLaughlin and Josef Newgarden will test the Porsche Penske Motorsport 963s in next week's IMSA-sanctioned test at Sebring International Raceway. 37 cars will attend the test from Tuesday to Thursday, Feb. 11-13. Fresh off his run with Trackhouse by TF Sport at Daytona, McLaughlin will drive the No. 6 Penske Porsche for the first time in an IMSA sanctioned test. His Penske IndyCar teammate Newgarden will be back aboard the No. 7 Porsche for the first time since he joined the winning team at the 2024 Rolex 24 At Daytona. The two-time Indianapolis 500 winner and IndyCar Series champion also raced at the 2023 Petit Le Mans in a Porsche Penske Motorsport GTP car, but only drove short stints in either race versus the full-time Porsche factory drivers. The new Aston Martin Valkyrie AMR-LMH will also be testing ahead of its IMSA debut at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring next month. Ross Gunn and Roman De Angelis were already announced as the full-time drivers of the No. 23 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie, and they'll be joined at the Sebring test by Alex Riberas, who has a full-time ride in one of the FIA WEC Aston Martins. JDC-Miller MotorSports will also give 29-year-old English driver Sennan Fielding his first test in a Porsche 963. Fielding won the 2022 British GT Championship GT4 title and has spent the last two years driving LMP3s in the Michelin Le Mans Cup, for Steller Motorsport. Ten GTP cars are entered, with the absence of the No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Series.R due to accident damage sustained at Daytona, and the No. 63 Lamborghini Squadra Corse SC63. In LMP2, Honda factory driver Kaku Ohta will test the No. 18 Era Motorsport ORECA 07. Ohta tested with Era Motorsport in preparation for his GTP debut with Acura Meyer Shank Racing, and is expected to add select LMP2 races to his busy 2025 schedule. After making his VP Racing SportsCar Challenge debut at Daytona, Matias Perez Companc will test the No. 88 AF Corse ORECA alongside his father Luis. Jonny Edgar will test both AO Racing's 'Spike' and 'Rexy' cars, turning laps in the No. 77 Porsche 911 GT3 R in GTD PRO as well as the No. 99 ORECA LMP2. Provisionally, Ben Barker is expected to return to the cockpit of the No. 64 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang GT3, after a collarbone injury sidelined him from Daytona. GT classes will run on Tuesday, then all four classes will run on Wednesday before closing with prototype-only tests on Thursday. Story originally appeared on Racer
