Winward Entering “Make or Break” Phase in GTD Title Run

Winward Racing is entering a “make or break” phase of its campaign in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship according to team principal Russell Ward, as it leads the GTD championship with four races remaining.

Ward and full season co-driver Philip Ellis have enjoyed a successful season this far with their No. 57 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, winning four out of six races and finishing on the podium at the most recent round at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

Their strong run has resulted in a championship lead of 340 points over the Turner Motorsport pairing of Robby Foley and Patrick Gallagher going into this weekend’s race at Road America.

Despite their healthy advantage, Ward believes the Texas-based squad needs to remain sharp and ‘manage expectations’ in each of the races still to come.

“It’s really in our hands and the way that Philip and I drive over the next couple of races is really going to make or break our season,” Ward told Sportscar365.

“I think it’s the best form that Philip and I have been in since we started racing in GTD in the States. It’s really about managing expectations.

“Our kind of philosophy this year has been to race the track and not necessarily race the other competitors. You can’t control them, but you can control how you race the track.

“It’s just a learning experience for us, really. We’ve come and have been fortunate enough to have a decent amount of success right off the bat.

“I think the past couple of years, we’re really chasing that and not letting it come to us. We had an awesome result in Canada too.

“I don’t think we had the car to finish second on the podium. We definitely didn’t have the car to win, but it just goes to show that if you execute well, you can end up with a good result.”

For the remainder of the season, Ward has set the target to “close it out strong,” building on the early advantage that wins at events like the Rolex 24 at Daytona and Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring has brought the team.

“For us, we just want to finish the remaining races,” he said.

“To be honest, in my racing career I haven’t done a DNF-free season. We’ve always had something.

“We’ve had a mechanical failure that’s taken us out or an unfortunate driver error or crash or something that’s taken us out and that just kills your hopes of the championship.

“So that’s really our plan for the remainder of the year: let’s just close it out strong. We put ourselves in such an awesome position this year.”

When asked about contributing factors for the team’s successful run, Ward pointed to the increase in available private testing days for GTD teams compared to last year.

Ahead of the this season, IMSA doubled the number of days of testing from four to eight, something which Ward says has been key in allowing the team to gain a greater understanding of Michelin’s new-for-2024 Pilot Sport Pro GT H1 compound introduced at the start of the season.

“You have a new tire this year, which is actually a lot different than the previous year’s tires,” Ward said.

“This one seems to be a little bit more finicky, especially in the heat. So that opening up of the testing has just allowed us to learn quite a bit about the tire at these different tracks.

“There’s a lot of tracks that have been repaved, [like] Road America, Laguna. Those are all huge challenges that we need to overcome.

“I think that some of the success we have at the start of the season has been [because] I think we did a better job of capitalizing on those tests and learning as much as we can about the tire in the beginning of the year.

“I think that’s really paid its dues toward the end.”