Another good day to be a Porsche owner :cool: Porsche Penske 963 1-2 in GTP and Porsche 911 GT3 Rexy 1st in GTD.

Yep another strong performance 👏

Another solid performance by the Aston Martin too. 8th place on the lead lap with no issues. They just need to work on some speed now. That thing had to sound even better echoing off the buildings. Making Lamborghini look like an amateur effort.



http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1744547073.jpg

The Penske 963s semi-lucked into the win, IMO. BMW's pit stops and strategy gifted the win to the Porsches.

The BMWs had the pace in the first half hour. They were comfortably in the lead, 1-2. The Porsches were 3 & 5. Then a caution came out. BMW split their strategy and pitted one car, keeping the other on the track. The 2 Penske cars (and about half the rest of the field) came the first opportunity that pit lane opened and pitted. But somehow, the BMW left the pits behind the 2 Porsches. That BMW wound up following the 2 Porsches for the rest of the race. Then, at the end (?!?!) of the yellow period, the lead BMW came in. Effectively it gave up the lead to the 2 Porsches and came out somewhere like P8. Not sure why you would want to give up track position on a course where passing is near-impossible. That seemed like an inopportune decision at the time, and in the end that car spent the rest of the race trying to catch up to the leaders, finishing P5. I think it passed the Aston and then used attrition to get around a couple other cars, but it should have finished in P1. At least that's how I would have felt if I were one of the RLL drivers or crew.

Congrats to Rexy on another gold tooth.

Strategy is part of high level racing , few teams do it as well as Penske . And a little luck helps :D

Also, Porsche ran the entire race on 1 set of tires. They were consistently 1-2 tenths faster than the BMW in the race. BMW were able to put single fast laps together in practice and qualifying, but were slightly off pace in long runs and the race itself. What the heck has happened to Cadillac??? Action Express still respectable but WTR is an absolute mess :eek:

Well, the Caddys were the best-sounding cars out there. Even better than the Aston.

^^^ They do sound good!

Not sure what to think with the first look at the Genesis. Sort of an awkward design, but I've never understood Asian auto design anyway. The livery will stand out in the crowd for sure.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1744804225.jpg

Side view looks great though.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1744804591.jpg

I've been a Rahal fan since watching Bobby compete in the Ampex Cassettes Prophet Can-Am car in the 70s, but just how long can BMW hang on with them? Maybe just through the end of the season. Looks like either Pratt & Miller (who are running an LMP2 car this year for no apparent reason other than the obvious: to prep for a GTP car next year) or Ganassi. RLL simply can't get their act together, in either IMSA or Indycar. If Penske were running the BMW, they'd have had a championship trophy on the shelf by now.

Also, Imola 6 Hour this weekend - somebody, anybody, beat Ferrari. Please!

Ugh ......... IMSA BOP adjustments for BMW and Porsche before the next race at Laguna .

https://sportscar365.com/imsa/iwsc/porsche-bmw-gtps-slowed-in-laguna-bop/

One of these days, I’m going to catalogue BoP data and mess with it in Tableau.

BoPs are frustrating as a fan. I get it - they need to keep everybody close to appease the manufacturers. But from a fan POV, I think I'd rather see an adjustment twice a year and let things play out. Do the first adjustment after Daytona and the 2nd mid-season. There's nothing wrong with having a dominate manufacturer. Looking back through history, it's the dominate cars that are legendary. If it's Porsche this year, great! But that gives the others incentive to step up their game next year.

My old school philosophy on racing is read the rule book and build the best car you can . If you win/dominate then it is on others to catch up . Very simple . But unfortunately it's not that simple .

The most popular and memorable seasons in IMSA have been the ones when dominate cars were winning all the races (i.e., Porshe 935, Porsche 962, the Jaguar XJRs, Nissan GTP ZX, etc.). Fans still flocked to the track to see the spectacle. Today, it is cool to have so many manufacturers involved, but every serious fan knows that IMSA lures manufacturers in by telling them, "we will insure that your car is competitive by penalizing the others". :rolleyes:

I'd agree 100% with both your comments on the BOP

Of the 31x world championships I've helped create cars for, only 3x cars were dominating, just blew every other competitor into the weeds

Most of the other 28x cars just got beaten fair and square

On a good day quite a few cars helped a driver beat a competitors dominating team, car or driver

Think most people working in motorsport would prefer to earn their championships/race wins than having the rules helping slow down a faster car

No iconic, will be forever in racing folklore race car will ever come from a championship with competiveness managed with BOP

^^^ Yup!

And with a BoP system we, unfortunately, already know what the performance of the McLaren, Ford, and Genesis cars will be before they arrive :( They won't be allowed to fail, or dominate. It will be exciting to see and hear the new cars though for sure. That said, multi-class endurance racing is unique and inherently challenging- BoPs or not!

If there was no BOP would any other car show up to race the 963?

Paul your comment got me thinking , with BOP will we ever see " iconic " race cars again ? When we think of iconic Porsche 917/935/962 or Jaguar or Nissans we think of them as iconic because they were so dominant . While I like that many manufacturers want to play in the IMSA arena I don't like the hand tying of the rules . Maybe I am stuck in the past .

I am fortunate to have seen all those cars race (except for 917s). Race cars at the highest levels should be badass and there should be no doubt about it.

Todays cars are special no doubt, but there is not much the fan can see in a race that truly distinguishes the performance of one car to another. They look different and hopefully sound different, but the restraint of BoP keeps their performance in a box.