Wednesday Racing Thread
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Your humble author was one of the pace/experience car drivers for the Long Beach Grand Prix, working with a variety of stuntmen and pro drifters to amuse the high-net-worth crowd. I’ll be detailing my experiences tomorrow for paid subscribers, including the meeting I had with Spike Feresten that apparently got some traction on social media, but today is the day to discuss the races, IMSA and Indycar…
…which I didn’t see more than a few moments of, being busy at driver calls and sleeping between sessions. I did stand in line with Romain Grosjean for a while.
Any insights or discussions about this week’s racing? One topic to discuss even if you didn’t see any of the pro stuff: the 6-hour NASA Enduro at Buttonwillow was won by… a 15-year-old in a Honda Civic Type R. This wasn’t exactly the hardest-fought race in human history, as their sole competitor in class had a mechanical failure about 2/3rds of the way through the race. Still, it’s interesting seeing teenagers in these cars. Would you want to race next to them?
Also worth discussing: How much of a “lock” is this Red Bull 2023 championship, anyway? The car doesn’t appear to be completely reliable, and the Mercedes is now perhaps equal to the Aston Martin. The last thing I want to see this year is Sir Lewis cruising to an eighth title while every car around him, including that of his teammate, continues to suffer from mysterious issues.
Highlight video from the IMSA race;
And beforehand, you had fortunate daughter Ashton Harrison shit-canning an NSX GT3 into a wall:
Ashton was supposed to be part of my driving group, but clearly she had other plans. Classic Porsche Pay Driver Drivin’ after the fact, too.
I watched three races over the weekend:
IMSA Long Beach: Perhaps it was the talismanic power of Porsche enthusiast Jack Baruth’s presence that helped the Sultans of Stuttgart emerge victorious as Street Fightin’ Men! The Porsches gambled and didn’t take tires at their pit stops, and you could see that they were struggling on worn tires at the end of the race. Poor rear end grip (obvious enough to be seen clearly on TV) in the second stint has plagued the 963 since its debut at Daytona.
WEC Portimao: The Porsche’s shortcomings were once more revealed the next day in the WEC race at Portimao. The IMSA GTP / LMDh cars are rear wheel drive and run a spec hybrid system that delivers additional electric power to the rear axle. This means that they absolutely chew the rear tires after the first stint (they don’t receive enough tires to single stint in either series). Meanwhile the WEC Hypercar class cars operate with a freer rule book. The Toyota, Ferrari, and Peugeot have front axle hybrid deployment (at certain speeds), and the privateer Glickenhaus and Vanwall are pure ICE cars. I anticipate a lot of politicking over BOP at Le Mans, but there’s no remotely equitable way I can see to “balance” the inherent tire wear weakness of the Porsche, Cadillac, and Acura versus the Hypercars over a 24 hour race.
IndyCar Long Beach: Scott Dixon didn’t like Pato O’Ward’s move up the inside at Turn 8. I thought it was Pato’s corner.
As for F1: Red Bull has the title sewn up unless they are flagrantly cheating (unlikely) or blow through the cost cop again (also unlikely). Lewis Hamilton’s best days are behind him in my view, and George is clearly the team’s future. Lewis is out of contract at year end. Merc could have their pick of a vastly cheaper driver to support (or challenge) George over the next few years: Leclerc, Norris, Ocon, Albon would all jump at the chance. Or here’s a wild idea - what about a seat swap between Stroll and Hamilton? Fans would get Hamilton vs Alonso 2.0, Stroll Sr would have a box office PR opportunity, and Stroll Jr would have an opportunity to prove himself at one of the historic “top” teams, after which he could return to Aston Martin and deploy everything he’d learned at Mercedes.
Finally, Ashton: She has the strongest jaw I’ve seen since Buzz Lightyear.
Not long ago, we at Flatout Motorsports welcomed a new client - a young man stepping up from karts. This was at Lime Rock. After a test day, the kid immediately put his Spec Miata on pole (against the usual SM crowd stacked with talented, experienced racers). The class was impounded. When they were released, we noticed the kid bucking and stalling on his way back to our trailer. Somebody wondered out loud if the car's clutch was fried. "Oh no," the kid's mother said. "He's just never driven a stick shift before."