“Confident” Van der Zande Buoyed by Cadillac Reliability

Renger van der Zande said Chip Ganassi Racing is “confident” about its odds in the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, given the Cadillac V-Series.R’s encouraging run of reliability in the early stage of the GTP class of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

Van der Zande, sharing the No. 01 Cadillac with Sebastien Bourdais and Scott Dixon for the 12-hour Florida enduro, arrives at Sebring off the back of a podium finish at the season-opening Rolex 24 at Daytona.

Ganassi’ early progress in both the WeatherTech Championship as well as the FIA World Endurance Championship has been characterized by promising reliability.

Both of its cars made it through the Rolex 24 without serious issues and has so far been free of strife at Sebring International Raceway.

“We’re very confident the car will be reliable,” Van der Zande told Sportscar365.

“I think the program has a bit more breathing air to it than it had in the last year where we’ve been running the DPi championship, but at the same time developing this car and all the new bits and pieces and shortages on materials and all that.

“So it’s nice to finally start running this car and not chasing problems all the time.

“So there’s good hope for Sebring and I think the 12-hour race is my personal favorite race in the world.

“I think Sebring is the one that I want to win. I didn’t win it yet, I finished second many times, so hopefully we have a shot at it.”

Despite the car’s so-far strong reliability record, Van der Zande stressed that the Cadillac camp remains wary about any potential problems given the V-Series.R, like other LMDh cars, are still in the early stages of race action.

“I think the car is still very new,” the Dutchman said “If you look at how we went into the Daytona 24-hour weekend, we were hoping that the car would survive and not have any issues.

“But at the same time, we finished until the end in Daytona, so it’s going well with the car and reliability and all that.

“But here again, it’s the same question, actually, if the car will be okay. We didn’t have specific issues.

“The mechanics, when they build a new car, it’s actually running straight out of the box and it’s everything in control.

“But at the same time, it’s still very new and there are still some topics that could pop up and be unreliable.

“So we have good hopes, but at the same time, we’re waiting for the next thing to find out about this new car.

“That hopefully doesn’t happen during the race.”

Ganassi’s encouraging start to the season could hardly be more different compared to last year, when Van der Zande and Bourdais began the final year of the DPi era with mechanical problems at both Daytona and Sebring.

With the No. 01 crew now second in the championship standings after Meyer Shank Racing’s points reduction, Van der Zande hopes his team will be able to kick on and build upon its momentum to mount a championship bid.

“I think last year and the year before, we had three races in a row in the beginning of the season where we had trouble in all kinds of ways and we still finished on the podium in the championship,” he said.

“This year we had good points in Daytona, I want to have good points in Sebring, so we roll into the season and then you pick your wins whenever you can.

“But for me, the aim now is just to pick up points everywhere. We’re fighting for the championship, we’re still working on the car.

“So we’re here to win, but it needs to fall our way to win, we’re not going to force it.

“But like I said, it’s nice to finally have some points in the first weekend already, so we’re second in the championship and hopefully we can keep getting the points into the bag to work on the championship instead of race wins.”