Blomqvist: Late-Race Yellow “Ended Our Chances”

Photo: Porsche

Tom Blomqvist believes the late-race yellow ended Action Express Racing and Cadillac’s chances of victory in the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

Blomqvist and co-drivers Pipo Derani and Jack Aitken settled for a second place finish in Sunday’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season opener, following a hard-fought race with the eventual race-winning No. 7 Penske Porsche 963.

While having started on pole thanks to Derani’s qualifying record-setting lap time, the Whelen Engineering-sponsored Cadillac V-Series.R led for 283 laps but lost the top spot in the final round of pit stops under caution with less than 45 minutes to go.

“It was toing and froing… it feels like the whole race between either one Porsche, it turned out to be the No. 7,” Blomqvist said. “They were really quick at times. We were quick at times.

“I think if I look back, we maybe had a little bit better when we were having to take more care of tires, probably double stinting.

“And they were really strong on the restarts, especially during the night when it was a little bit cooler and the best rubber on track.

“It came down to those last couple of stints there. I was slowly chipping away and managed to close the gap. We decided to take an early stop to try and undercut them.

“We didn’t really manage but thankfully I was able to get by on track.

“The whole goal there was that we’d have to make a gap because we were going to have a little bit longer [pit stop] time on the next stop.”

Having to take on slightly more energy than the No. 7 Porsche, Blomqvist emerged behind Felipe Nasr and was unable to capitalize on having a quicker car due to traffic in the fight to the finish.

“Unfortunately, that yellow basically ended our chances really,” he said. “Especially where we were on the pit lane, coming under yellow and not being able to react to the car behind, in terms of pulling early for example.

“That hurt us really. I think it was going to be a bit closer if that yellow hadn’t came out because out there, at the end of the race, we had the pace advantage. It was just so difficult to pass.

“The Porsche was really strong on the straight. We were really good in the infield.

“It was hard to make anything count. It just felt like there wasn’t many cars there at the end of the race in terms of the traffic to find an opportunity.

“Felipe there in the end… I think he did like one small mistake when he went wide by a few meters but other than that, there was no opportunity.

“Huge hats off to them. They were fantastic, really.”

The two-time Rolex 24 winner, who was seeking his third consecutive overall win, indicated that the Cadillac could have been at a slight disadvantage in terms of the Balance of Performance.

“In terms of the fuel consumption, we had the least amount of energy to use, I guess,” he said. “Our car was the lightest but we had the least amount [of energy].

“Maybe they were a little bit better on that but we also rolled the dice a little bit in terms of stopping early to try and create an opportunity to actually get ahead on track.

“It’s always easier when you have the track position and then you can figure out a way to maintain that.

“They maximized what they had.”

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