Grand-Am – Lessons-rich tests at Daytona

The 24 Hours of Daytona, the opening round of the Grand-Am, taking place on January 26 and 27, the competitors are already on deck. Yesterday and today, they are indeed smoothing the asphalt of the famous Florida banking industry. The best time of the first day goes to the No. 9 Action Express Racing Corvette DP. At the wheel, Joao Barbosa was in fact credited with a 1'41"334. On the occasion of the double round of the clock, the Portuguese will have Christian Fittipaldi and the Frisselle brothers, Burt and Brian, as teammates. “We spent the day trying out different set-ups, underlines Barbosa. We have work to do, but we have made progress with each session, and it is obvious that things are working better than last January. There is still room for improvement, but we are moving in the right direction. »

In second place, we find the No. 60 Michael Shank Racing Riley-Ford of Ozz Negri (1'41), followed by the No. 544 DP Gainsco Corvette of the Jon Fogarty-Memo Gidley-Darren Law quartet.

In GT, Frank Biela set the best time aboard the Audi R8 LMS Audi of America in 1'48"953. " Impressive, the German will admit as he gets out of the car. Banking gave me a strange feeling at first, but I quickly began to enjoy it. We are still in discussions regarding 2013. I would like to not only do the 24 Hours of Daytona. We are discussing the possibility of doing the entire season. » La Corvette Whelen Engineering n°31 de Boris Said a signé le deuxième chrono en 1’49 »160, précédant la Porsche GT3 Park Place Motorsports de Patrick Long.

But the highlight of this day was the presence of the Conquest Racing Morgan-Nissan at the wheel of which we found Martin Plowman. A presence demanded by the organizers, who are beginning their work in preparation for 2014, the year which will see the Grand-Am and the American merge Le Mans Series. “We knew when we arrived here that it would not be about comparisons, Plowman points out. It was purely a matter of giving the tire engineers guidance on how, in conditions similar to the Grand-Am cars, the car performs. It was a new tire brand for us, and we had to work hard to get our finger on the right settings. But I'm delighted with how it worked out. At the end of the morning, we were already satisfied. During the afternoon, we completed a simulated relay race. We were hoping to be able to run a qualifying simulation, but didn't quite judge how much fuel was left. Apart from that, we reviewed the entire planned schedule. »

Richard Buck, Grand-Am Competition Director, was also delighted with the way this first comparison went. “Today was a rich day in terms of data accumulation, continues the latter. This will help us to be even more efficient in finding solutions for the 2014 season. We will use the next few days to analyze all the recorded data in detail. »

Today, the competitors will take to the track one last time in 2012, before meeting again from January 4 to 6 for the traditional Roar Before the Rolex 24.