
Photo: Jake Galstad/IMSA
IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Series veteran Sebastien Bourdais says getting up to speed in LMP2 is “not easy” ahead of one of “the trickiest” races of the year at the season-opening Rolex 24 at Daytona.
Following five consecutive seasons of top-class racing in both DPi and GTP machinery, Bourdais has joined the LMP2 ranks with Tower Motorsports for the WeatherTech Championship season to coincide with his Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA Hypercar drive in the FIA World Endurance Championship.
The Cadillac Factory driver will be making his first LMP2 start in the WeatherTech Championship at this weekend’s Rolex 24, with his 2022 WEC campaign with Vector Sport being his only other outing in second-tier prototype machinery.
“It’s not easy right now,” Bourdais told Sportscar365. “Because my knowledge of what a good Daytona car is is very limited so you try and point out what you feel and see if you can find solutions.
“That’s always the same thing. You drive to the best of your abilities and analyze the car and try and fix whatever can be fixed, and then you throw your best guess at it for the race, and from there, you just pretty much deal with it.
“It’s a fun challenge, but I’m as competitive as everybody else, so if we’re not in a place where we can compete, then it’s not fun, but we’ll keep working on it.”
Bourdais noted how getting up to speed with the Oreca 07 Gibson has been particularly challenging at Daytona, given a traditionally desired low-drag car setup for higher top speed, balanced with running the IMSA-mandated front dive planes.
“It’s a tough track,” he said. “It’s the trickiest of all because you’re always trying to trim the car out so you have low downforce, but you’re also mandated to keep the dive planes.
“There’s a lot of center pressure to the front, so you’re trying to do whatever you can to balance it out mechanically, but it’s a challenging track because it’s low grip. So it’s not the easiest. For me, not the most pleasant. It’s a great race, it’s just not always easy to find a balance around here.
“It’s on the very light side compared to what you’re going to be running at Sebring or whatever for those cars. I think I think I’ll enjoy Sebring a lot better and the rest of the season a lot more than Daytona.”
Bourdais’ sights, however, remain set on claiming his third Rolex 24 class victory on Sunday with the John Farano-owned, Ricky Capone-led squad, having taken an overall win with Action Express Racing in 2014 and a GTLM victory with Chip Ganassi Racing in 2017.
“John’s objective is to win this race and get a Rolex,” said Bourdais. “So we’ll try and achieve that.
“It’s a great group of guys. The mechanics are awesome, and Rick has got a really good group of people. But if you don’t get the setup where you need it to be, then it gets tough very quickly.
“We’ve still got a lot to do. I think balance-wise we’re a little better but performance-wise, we’re not where we want to be.
“It’s a very tough field. It’s a lot of good teams, good cars, and guys that have been running this thing for a long time and you have some very strong packages between the cars and the drivers. That’s why you need to be dialed in because otherwise, you’re going to get your a** kicked.
“I think it’s going to be interesting to see where this ship lands when it’s all said and done and we go racing.”
