Barnicoat: BoP Changes to be Expected Amid ‘Game-Playing’

Lexus driver Ben Barnicoat has suggested that the wholesale Balance of Performance changes to the GT categories made ahead of this weekend’s Rolex 24 at Daytona were to be expected amid manufacturers “playing games.”

Barnicoat made the comments shortly before the publication of the latest BoP table, which notably saw both the Porsche 911 GT3 R and Ford Mustang GT3 hit by weight increases.

That followed the AO Racing Porsche of Seb Priaulx setting the fastest time during last Sunday’s qualifying session, just ahead of the Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 in which Barnicoat’s co-driver Jack Hawksworth qualified second.

“As much as we like to think nobody is playing games, I think everyone is,” Barnicoat told Sportscar365. “We don’t have that luxury with the older car, we kind of turn it on and it goes! We’ve got what we’ve got.

“There have been some changes [to the BoP], and at the end of the day IMSA has a tough job. People will always be happy and unhappy. 

“It’s pretty hard to make changes based on an eight-minute session. But we’ll do the best we can with what we have.”

The Lexus RC F GT3 was the only one of the 11 cars in the GTD class not to be handed any BoP adjustments.

Asked if he was surprised by anything during qualifying, Barnicoat replied: “Yeah, how slow some of the guys were. When you take the fuel out of the car, you should be much quicker on a track like this with these big straights. 

“We had our normal delta from race to qualifying trim. The Aston Martins and Fords didn’t make that same step. 

“At the same time, I’m not surprised because everyone is trying not to show their hand.”

The Porsche 911 GT3 R’s 20 kg weight increase has been potentially mitigated by a -1 degree minimum rear wing angle adjustment.

For his part, AO Racing’s Laurin Heinrich said that he felt the fact qualifying was shortened to just seven-and-a-half minutes made it hard to judge the relative performance of the GT cars, praising his teammate Priaulx’s qualifying effort.

Heinrich told Sportscar365: “We were just being honest, we showed what we had. Seb did a great lap in qualifying, it was all about getting the tires up to temperature because the session was so short. 

“We had a clean lap, no traffic, and we showed the honest picture. 

“Some manufacturers have new cars, the tire is new for everyone, so it’s hard to judge. But we got a new BoP, we accept it, and we’ll go out and give our best.

“I hope they made the right decisions but we won’t find out until race day.”

While Porsche’s weight increase came after AO Racing scored pole, Ford’s 15 kg hike followed a difficult qualifying for the all-new Mustang GT3s, which qualified ninth and 13th in the hands of Dirk Mueller and Harry Tincknell respectively.

Tincknell denied any suggestion that Ford had tried to hide its pace in qualifying, while also downplaying the impact of the weight increase.

“In qualifying, we just ran where we should be with the fuel out,” he told Sportscar365. “It went to plan for us in terms of that.

“Fifteen kilos, it’s not tons of weight but it’s not helpful to the cause. It won’t help things but it’s relatively small. It’s the difference between me and Seb [Priaulx] when we were in the [Porsche 911] RSR!

“It’s a brand-new car. If we can finish that would be great. Hopefully we’re in the fight and can do something. But we won’t know until the race.”

John Dagys contributed to this report