Vasser Sullivan Undecided on GTD Pro Move

Photo: Jake Galstad/IMSA

Vasser Sullivan is undecided on whether it will field a car in the new GT Daytona Pro class according to team co-owner Jimmy Vasser, who said they haven’t “rubber-stamped [it] one way or another” for the 2022 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season.

The Lexus squad, which has been regular front-runners in the Pro-Am-enforced GT Daytona category, is one of several teams looking at the potential of stepping up to the all-pro ranks, which will be based around GT3 machinery next year.

If it were to make the move, Vasser stressed it would only be with one car, thus splitting its efforts between the two GT3-based classes.

“Since our situation leaves everything the same, we can make a decision later on. We really haven’t rubber-stamped one way or the other,” Vasser told Sportscar365. “We want to see what everyone else is going to do and nobody’s really said anything.

“We’re not trying to hide anything. We’re perfectly fine with what we’re doing now [in GTD]. 

“[GTD] Pro, it would be one car only if it was at all. However, there’s different BoPs, different flow rates in the fuel rig, so it kind of divides us as a team.”

Vasser said he would have been in favor of the two categories having more common sporting and technical regulations.

IMSA announced in June that GTD Pro would mirror GTD in a number of ways — including utilizing the same Michelin Pilot Sport S9M tire compound for at least the first year — although there will still be some differences retained from the soon-to-be-defunct GT Le Mans class.

“Not that they reversed anything, I just understood that it was going to be one class, Pro and Pro-Am with the GT3-spec and maybe a BoP for the Corvette,” said Vasser.

“I thought it would be cool — just my personal feeling — if a Pro-Am group of drivers could fight their way up to the Pro-Pro ranks, that would be cool to watch. 

“Or if you had a Pro-Pro car and an Am-Am car… Maybe if there was a Bronze that was needed. I don’t know.

“There was just so many possible permutations of how it was going to look, it just seems like it continues to evolve.

“My gut tells me that it’s more like a repackaged GTLM.”

Vasser said a decision on his team’s end could be made on relatively short notice, other than the likely need of increasing its staff should it commit to the single-car GTD Pro operation.

“When everyone starts saying what they’re going to do, then we’ll probably have a better feeling,” he said.

“It doesn’t take much changing within our organization other than bolstering up some things if you’re going to go fight Corvette. We’re not a GTLM team. We’re a GTD team.

“[But] right now if I had to put a guess on it, we’d look very similar to the way we look this year.”

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