Road America Saturday Notebook

Photo: Porsche

***Lilou Wadoux became the first female pole sitter in WeatherTech Championship competition since Katherine Legge in 2018 when she scored pole honors, also in GTD, at the wheel of a Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3. The Frenchwoman claimed class honors in her last series start at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring in March.

***Wadoux revealed that AF Corse is utilizing a new Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo chassis this weekend following a heavy crash in the Esses at Watkins Glen by Simon Mann after contact from the No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac V-Series.R, which went on to overall victory without receiving a penalty.

***Vasser Sullivan got its spare No. 14 Lexus RC F GT3 out on track for qualifying just 4.5 hours after the decision was made to go to a backup car following Jack Hawksworth’s accident in the rain-soaked Practice 2. The total work time was actually less than four hours, from the time the spare car was unloaded and pushed into the garage according to a Lexus spokesperson.

***Hawksworth’s qualifying run, however, was dashed after receiving a mechanical black flag and deletion of all qualifying laps due to a crew member touching the car during the session. Hawksworth reported a “small vibration” they had to fix, which led to the infractions.

***He added: “It’s been a really tough day. I made a mistake in Practice 2. Our Lexus was good and I just got a little bit onto the exit curb in Turn 6 and didn’t quite realize how slippery it was and it caught me out. A little thing like that can get away from you sometimes and I put the guys in a really tough position. They thrashed really hard to get the spare car out and did a phenomenal job.”

***The No. 120 Wright Porsche Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo also received a mechanical black flag in qualifying and will start at the rear of the GTD field.

***Reigning Porsche Carrera Cup North America champion and Porsche Motorsport North America Selected Driver Ryan Yardley said he received the call-up from RS1 team owner Justin Bellinzoni last week to make his second series start, and first for the team after making his debut in January’s Rolex 24 at Daytona in Muehlner Motorsports’ Porsche.

***The U.S.-based Kiwi has been staying busy in SRO America competition, including in GT World Challenge America powered by AWS, where he currently sits second in the Pro-Am standings in a Wright Motorsports Porsche, as well as racing in Pirelli GT4 America.

***Yardley told Sportscar365: “Daytona was awesome to be there but it was extremely tough, my first time in the GT3 R, first time at Daytona, first time in the WeatherTech Championship, so there were a lot of firsts. It was nice to have the GT World Challenge program, get more experience in the car.”

***While the No. 24 Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 features a unique ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ livery for the recently released film, drivers Sheldon van der Linde and Dries Vanthoor are also sporting Spider-Man-themed driving suits.

***Colin Braun said he’s eagerly awaiting Sunday morning’s drivers’ meeting, which is expected to outline the code of conduct for the first-ever six-hour WeatherTech Championship race at Road America, coming one year after one of the most incident-filled races in series’ history that led to a massive clamping down on driving standards for the remainder of the 2025 season.

***Braun indicated he began to see instances of questionable driving at Watkins Glen last month. “I didn’t compete much in the Watkins Glen race but watching it on TV, there was a lot of interesting driving and things going on,” he told Sportscar365. “I’m interested to see what Beaux [Barfield, IMSA race director] has to say about that. Obviously coming into this race where it was such a big issue last year, and it was half the length and less cars. I think there’s a lot in [Beaux’s] lap of how to manage the group.”

***Alec Udell is on another one-off ride this weekend, jumping into DragonSpeed’s Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R in place of Henrik Hedman, who was originally set to return for one final race but is understood to have stood down from driving in the WeatherTech Championship altogether.

***Udell, who has extensive Z06 GT3.R experience, told Sportscar365: “I got a call and he was like, ‘Hey are you available, do you want to do it?’ I said, ‘Heck yeah, let’s go!’ They’ve got some good guys in the car. They’ve had good pace, good speed in the year and some really back luck. I’m happy for the call.”

***While Giacomo Altoe and Casper Stevenson are expected to drive the GTD class entry in next month’s Michelin GT Challenge at Virginia International Raceway and September’s Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the team’s third driver for the season-ending Motul Petit Le Mans is still to be determined.

***IMSA President John Doonan confirmed to Sportscar365 that entry applications for the Rolex 24 at Daytona will open on Tuesday, with “north of 80 requests” again expected based on current paddock indications.

***Doonan said IMSA would be open to a Garage 56-style entry at the Rolex 24 in the future but said it would have to be something “unique” and fit within the current performance windows. Doonan served as the NASCAR Garage 56 program manager for the modified Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 that took part in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2023.

***He told Sportscar365: “It’s been an idea that’s been bounced around but nothing firm for us at the moment. You’re seeing unique things, like we did with NASCAR and Garage 56, you’ve seen people think outside the box. It could be some day.”

***JDC-Miller Motorsports is likely to expand its program next year into a full season LMP2 car according to team principal John Church, who told Sportscar365 that there’s a “better than 50 percent” chance of it happening although said it would not be for team co-owner Gerry Kraut, who is making a one-off start in the team’s No. 79 Oreca 07 Gibson this weekend with co-drivers Josh Burdon and Sennan Fielding.

***While Church wouldn’t outright rule out a second Porsche 963, as it already owns a second car, he admitted it currently looks unlikely for next year with the team understood to still be finalizing the lineup for its primary GTP entry.

***Doonan suggested there will be no additional privateer entries in the GTP class next year beyond JDC-Miller’s planned entry, meaning there’s likely to be up to a nine-car grid considering Acura’s exit at the end of this season. “I was at Le Mans and saw a lot of teams that are expressing interest in coming to IMSA but nothing specific as of yet,” he said.

***High Class Racing, which had inquired about running the Isotta Fraschini Tipo 6 LMH-C, would not be eligible according to Doonan, who said IMSA will uphold the regulations of road car production volume.

***With the FIA World Endurance Championship’s Hypercar tire tender from 2030-32 still not announced amid Goodyear’s bid against Michelin, there holds a chance that the WEC and WeatherTech Championship could be on different tire providers in their respective top classes under the unified 2030 technical regulations. Michelin’s long-term partnership in IMSA runs through at least 2035.

***Doonan said: “If you roll the clock back to July 2021 when we put out the elements of convergence, a common tire was one of them. Certainly that would be our hope and I would imagine the hope of most of the participants. But obviously that’s their business and they have to decide what they’re doing. For the good of the sport, we want to keep doing everything we can to maintain a set of technical regs that align such that manufacturers can race in both championships without having to change dramatically.”

***Bryan Herta Autosport with PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports will be testing at Road America on Monday and Tuesday with a number of drivers, including at least one FIA Bronze-rated pilot that currently races in the GT3 ranks. When asked the reason for the test, coming after the race, team principal Bobby Oergel told Sportscar365 that it’s “drivers wanting to test a LMP2 car at Road America” and “nothing to do” with driver evaluations for next year.

***Algarve Pro Racing is still working on the prospects of a Porsche 963 program for the 2026-27 Asian Le Mans Series according to team principal Stewart Cox, who indicated the calendar could dictate whether the effort would get the green light. Sportscar365 understands that the schedule will be released on Monday after numerous provisional iterations that had included proposed rounds in Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Australia.

***Cox told Sportscar365: “We’re still 100 percent looking at it. We need to know what the calendar is before we know what we’re selling. The bigger picture is the calendar. Hopefully it’s still in Asia because I think that would be something that people would rather do.”

***The six-hour Motul SportsCar Endurance Grand Prix gets underway Sunday at 10:40 a.m. CST (11:40 a.m. EST) with live coverage on Peacock as well as internationally on IMSA’s YouTube channel. Leigh Diffey, Brian Till, Calvin Fish, Townsend Bell and Oliver Gavin will anchor the NBC Sports coverage, with Dave Burns, Kevin Lee and Amanda Busick in pit lane.

***IMSA Radio’s lineup includes the addition of Peter MacKay along with John Hindhaugh, Ryan Myrehn and Arjuna Kankipati.

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John