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Championship-leading plaid Porsche grabs last-minute victory in VIR IMSA round

Photo: Motul Oil

The 2021 IMSA season is coming to a close, and it’s looking increasingly like the Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R has what it takes to secure the GTD championship this year. With three wins from the last four races, the team of Zacharie Robichon and Laurens Vanthoor has pushed its championship bid to a huge gap with just one race remaining in the season, the 10-hour Petit Le Mans race at Road Atlanta, going down in mid-November. It looked like the No. 16 Wright Motorsports Porsche would join the Pfaff team on the GTD podium, but were pushed down to fourth with a final lap hip-check from the Vasser-Sullivan Lexus team.

The Pfaff team had their work cut out for them on Saturday, as they had qualified fairly well, but were relegated down to 13th on the grid with a penalty for the crew between sessions. With a stout GT-only field to work through, nobody would have expected them to make the massive charge that they did. Robichon had a monster first stint and got the car up to fifth before passing off to Vanthoor. Around 11 minutes remaining in the race, the leading Turner Motorsports BMW was tipped into a spin by a GTLM-class Corvette, and the result was a flat tire and loss of a lap for the title contenders. By that point in the race, the Pfaff team had worked its way up to second on the road, and was gifted the win with the BMW’s poor luck. Vanthoor took the checkered flag by 2.755 seconds over the Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini with the Lexus rounding out the GTD podium.

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#9: Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R, GTD: Zacharie Robichon, Laurens Vanthoor

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Photo: IMSA

“I still don’t believe it,” Vanthoor admitted in victory lane. “This is one I’m probably happiest about because yesterday was just our mistake. A stupid mistake, but we win and lose together. Today, the guys made up for it with triple the (effort) because what got us in front was the pit stops – amazing what they did. And Zach, the overtakes (he completed) at the start and how quickly he got by and got up to the front, that’s probably those two things that gave us the race. I’m sorry what happened to [the BMW]. We were catching them, and I would’ve liked to see a battle at the end, but it went the way it went.”

Over in GTLM the WeatherTech racing Porsche 911 RSR of Kevin Estre and Cooper MacNeil could do no better than third in a three-car class, despite being easily the fastest car on the track. The factory-prepped Corvettes started the race from first and second, while MacNeil started the race in third and was mobbed at the start by the leading GTD cars. He managed to keep the car on the lead lap before handing off to Porsche factory ace Estre, who clawed the car back into contention with speed and consistency. Several bouts of contact with the grey number 4 Corvette, however, pushed the Porsche back.

Estre’s former teammate Nick Tandy, now driving for Corvette Racing, had this to say about the contact:

“Honestly, the Porsche should have won the race. But honestly, when you kind of lose your brain and start driving stupid, stuff happens. Luckily with our Corvettes, we kept them on the track and didn’t do too much damage to them.”

Harsh words from someone who should probably know what it’s like to drive a 911 RSR.

Photo: IMSA

Josef Newgarden Takes Pole At IndyCar Season Finale

2021 IndyCar Grand Prix of Long Beach Qualifying Order

Josef Newgarden
Scott Dixon
Helio Castroneves
Simon Pagenaud
Felix Rosenqvist
Romain Grosjean
James Hinchcliffe
Pato O’Ward
Ed Jones
Alex Palou
Ryan Hunter-Reay
Will Power
Scott McLaughlin
Colton Herta
Alexander Rossi
Takuma Sato
Marcus Ericsson
Callum Ilott
Graham Rahal
Charlie Kimball
Conor Daly
Sebastien Bourdais
Max Chilton
Rinus Veekay
Jack Harvey
Dalton Kellett
Jimmie Johnson
Oliver Askew

Sportscar Racer Jim Pace Dies Of COVID-19, Age 59

Team Doyle Racing drivers Wayne Taylor, Jim Pace and Scott Sharp hoist the winners trophy after capturing the 34th Rolex 24 at Daytona, 1996.

Sportscar racer, Rolex 24 at Daytona winner, 12 Hours of Sebring champion, and Mississippi native Jim Pace died on November 13, 2020 after a battle with COVID-19. He was 59 years old.

Pace made a splash in sportscar racing when he joined in 1990, immediately taking a class win in the GLU class at the Rolex 24. In 1996, he secured wins at both the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring in the same year—a coveted achievement that few racers are able to claim. He did so alongside teammates Wayne Taylor and Scott Sharp in a Riley & Scott Mk III-Oldsmobile at Daytona and Taylor and Eric van de Poele at Sebring.

RACER spoke to several of Pace’s closest friends in the wake of the news:

“Jim was a ‘determined mindset’ kind of guy,” recalled Dorsey Schroeder, a frequent co-driver with Pace and one of his best friends. “What made him different was he got where he needed to go through kindness, not by stepping on others’ toes as he went. A true champion, very soft spoken and polite. Jim wanted to be remembered as the nicest guy that anyone ever met. And the champion was.”

Commented Wayne Taylor, “It’s very, very sad news. Hard to believe, especially because Jim and I drove together and won at Sebring in 1996. I was literally showing Scott Dixon a picture of our car in the hotel last night and it was Jim in the car, then 20 minutes later I heard the news. My condolences to him and his family. I always said he was one of the best teammates I ever had.”

While he paved his career in sportscar racing with the IMSA series, Pace had more recently been competing in vintage racing. He sustained a terrible crash driving a Shadow DN4 Can-Am car in July of this year, where his car flipped upside down. Pace walked away unhurt. Unfortunately, he was not as lucky in his brush with COVID-19.

In 2015, Pace took over part of the Historic Sportscar Racing series, where he competed as a driver.

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Our thoughts are with Pace’s friends and family.

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Formula One’s Wheel Tethers Don’t Seem To Be Working

Formula One introduced wheel tethers back in 1998 to prevent errant tires from flying off a crashed car and causing more damage than necessary. Back in 2011, the FIA even implemented double wheel tethers for twice the safety, and in 2018, a third. There’s just one big problem: they don’t actually seem to be reliably working.

During Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix, Alfa Romeo driver Antonio Giovinazzi lost control and crashed into a wall. Williams’ George Russell should have been able to avoid the crash and drive away with minimal damage, but Giovinazzi’s tire came loose and hit Russell’s tire, sending the Williams driver into the wall.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a driver lose a tire in 2020. Kevin Magnussen crashed into a wall at the British Grand Prix in an accident that didn’t seem particularly high impact, but his tire still came off. Giovinazzi’s accident was definitely a harder hit, but the whole point is: these wheels should not be flying off willy nilly.

If you’ve never picked up a tire and its wheel mount, you just need to know that it is very heavy. It’s not the kind of thing you want to get hit with going at a slow speed, let alone a fast one. Throw in a ton of momentum, and a tire can very easily kill someone—and it has before.

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A few weeks ago, Chain Bear put together a very nice video that illustrates how dangerous a flying tire can be if you’d like a visual that involves squishing a cake:

The wheel tether in F1 is made of something called Zylon fibers, a lightweight substance that is resistant to high temperatures and should, theoretically, be able to withstand very strong forces. A single tether can hold the weight of nine F1 cars, and each tire is connected via three tethers.

Zylon isn’t indestructible; the whole point is that there should be one tether available if another one fails. Each tether is also connected to a different part of the car so that, should one part be damaged, you still have others to pick up the slack.

As we’ve seen, that isn’t always the case. Wheels can still escape. Sometimes, it’s the result of an insecure attachment. Sometimes, a high shearing force can break the tethers. So, instead of yanking apart, the action is more of a twisting. So, a high impact crash into the barrier might not necessarily break a tether, but a high impact crash where the tire buries into a barrier and the rest of the car whips around in another direction might just cause a problem.

It’s not that the wheel tethers don’t completely work, because there have undoubtedly been plenty of lives saved as a result of them. After all, when’s the last time we saw a tire launch, say, over a barrier? Even in crashes where the wheel comes free, it seems that the tethers at least absorb some of the worst forces.

But the fact that the tethers can be sheared presents a dangerous problem that needs to be solved—especially now that a loose wheel has wiped out another driver. It’s worth taking the tethers back to the drawing board and sorting out some improvements.

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2020’s Indy 500 Qualifying Might Be the Fastest Since 1996

Qualifying for the Indianapolis 500 is coming up next weekend, from August 15-16, and it’s set to be the quickest and most difficult qualifying session we’ve seen in over two decades. And that’s even taking into account the extra drag from the addition of the aeroscreen.

IndyCar’s regulations mandated that the 2.2-liter turbo V6 engines have 140 kPa, or 1.3-bar, boost during Indy 500 qualifying until 2018. Now, though, boost has been increased to 150 kPa, or 1.5-bar, in order to simplify engine mapping, Motorsport reports. In simpler terms, that’s an increase of 40-50 horsepower. In even simpler terms, we’re likely to see cars going real fast.

2008 Indy 500 winner and five-time series champion Scott Dixon anticipates that we’re about to set some incredibly quick speeds:

When we did the Speedway test with the aeroscreen last year, we expected the speeds to be a lot slower than they actually were, so I think the screen may be blocking some of the drag on the rear of the car, so the overall drag figure is not as much as we expected. Pole for Indy last year was right around 230, right? Well, I think we should definitely beat that, and I think even our pole run from 2017 with the manufacturer aerokits, which was 232mph – the quickest since Arie [Luyendyk]’s record in ’96 – will be gone.

Dixon also noted that weight distribution on the car is much different this year compared to last considering the addition of the aeroscreen, which is likely going to make qualifying more difficult.

For those unfamiliar, the Indy 500 uses a unique qualifying strategy: rather than just setting one quick lap, drivers are evaluated based on their average speed over four laps. Drivers thus have to hold their car on the absolute peak of performance for an extended period of time, which, if they’ll have to wrestle with a heavier car, will be a tougher challenge than usual.

Ben Bretzman, the race engineer of Team Penske’s Simon Pagenaud, who won both pole position and the race in 2019, agreed:

Yeah, it’s going to be one of the trickier qualifying sessions we’ve had there. Is the fix as simple as just putting more downforce in the car? Possibly, but trying to manage where the downforce is on the car for qualifying and if you can get the most consistent four laps out of it – that will be a pretty big deal. We’ll be able to put up a really big lap on Lap 1, but how to manage the four laps is going to be real tricky.

The drivers are really going to have to manage their tools over the four laps, especially if the track temperatures are up. It’s going to be hard with the forward weight distribution to dial out the understeer.

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That track temperature part is key. The Indy 500 has always taken place in May, so drivers and engineers will have no idea what to expect when they hit a hotter August track. It’s all going to be a mystery—so you’re not going to want to miss a moment of it.

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The First All-Electric Rallycross Car Will Attempt To Prove It Can Compete Against Gas Cars This Weekend In Hungary

Illustration for article titled The First All-Electric Rallycross Car Will Attempt To Prove It Can Compete Against Gas Cars This Weekend In Hungary — Screenshot: Lovecars on YouTube

Rallycross might be the perfect outlet for electric motorsport right now. The rounds are short and the action is fast paced, meaning cars don’t need a lot of range for a ten minute heat race. The instant torque means electric rallycross cars can dig out of the hole in rapid fashion. And while the weight takes a proper hot shoe to control, it’s far less of a detriment in a loose surface series than one that requires grip. All of that is why I’m so excited about STARD’s Projekt E electric Ford Fiesta making its race debut this weekend.

Rallycross ace and former WRC rallyist Manfred Stohl will be the guinea pig strapped into the seat for this EV vs ICE experiment. Ahead of the FIA World RX championship allowing electric racers in its Supercar class for the 2022 season, the STARD car will run this weekend’s round of the Hungarian Rallycross Championship at the Kakucs circuit.

The Fiesta is powered by a trio of electric motors totaling 450kW (about 615 horsepower) shoving forward thrust through all four wheels. That should put the car on more or less equal footing with the conventionally-powered two-liter turbocharged Supercars, which make around 600 horsepower in race trim. The Supercar class features an 11-car grid at this round, so Stohl will have plenty of competition for the race victory.

STARD CEO and lead engineer Michael Sakowicz had this to say about the upcoming race in a discussion with Motorsport.com: “It’s just another session in our extensive and continuous testing program. Our expectations are to collect further data and experience, and to have a great race weekend. It’s the first race event for us at all in this strange year.”

“It’s great that we’re giving an electric rallycross car its first proper debut,” said Sakowicz. “We’ve been pioneers in electric rallycross since 2015. We are not afraid of the challenge to do things no-one has ever done before, that’s why we’re leading the way.”

This car is meant to be a test bed for the upcoming Projekt E series, which will race alongside FIA World RX later this year as a standalone category with spec STARD powertrains. This event in Hungary will mark the first time that an electric rallycross machine has competed in the same event on track at the same time racing for the same trophy as other traditionally-powered cars.

To complicate things, World RX is adding Junior eRX as a third tier below Projekt E in 2021. So by the time 2022 rolls around, there will be three different specifications of electric rallycross car running around the track throughout a World RX weekend. Why is it so hard to get normal people to understand how racing works again? Oh, right.

If you want to see the Projekt E in action, check out this test with Tiff Needell. It’s a pretty astonishing machine, but it doesn’t sound like it’s designed to be directly competitive with FIA Rallycross Supercar classed gas cars. Maybe STARD has some tricks up its sleeve to keep the car competitive. Who knows what will happen. I look forward to seeing the result of this little experiment.

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Jaguar I-Pace E Trophy Racing Series: Dead

Image: Jaguar The lifespan of a racing series is seldom fairly so stopped as the Jaguar I-Pace eTrophy. The eTrophy collection kicked off in 2018 as a Formula Esupport collection for two periods. Its goal was to advertise electrical automobiles and also Jaguar hoped it would keep its electric crossover at the top of mind of attendees, I think. After having actually evaluated its strategy due to the continuous covid-19 viral pandemic, J aguar has actually chosen to cancel the series at the end of the existing 2019-20 season. Advertisement The I-Pace eTrophy never truly captured on, as well as currently it’s dead. Did it should have much better? Nah. I am a huge advocate of electric cars and trucks and also electrical racing, yet I’ve never ever understood why the I-Pace eTrophy existed. It wasn’t specifically interesting to watch, it really did not have any type of big name chauffeurs, and nobody wants to see crossovers race. Jaguar does claim that with the eTrophy it learned exactly how to maximize battery monitoring, thermal systems, as well as torque shipment to raise the array of street-driven I-Pace designs by 20 kilometers.