Detroit Thursday Notebook

Photo: John Dagys

***A total of 21 cars are set for the third running of the Chevrolet Detroit Sports Car Classic on the downtown street circuit, which sees the majority of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship cars return to its traditional liveries for the second and final 100-minute race of the season.

***Both of the Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs are back in its traditional yellow and black designs following the ‘IMSA Throwback’ weekend at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, as well as the pair of Penske Porsche 963s, which had special liveries in the last three races, including two with Apple sponsorship. Pfaff Motorsports’ Lamborghini Temerario GT3, however, is still in the light blue colors of Lithia, at least for one more race.

***The No. 77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo of Nick Tandy and Harry King is sporting an updated ‘Rexy’ livery this weekend, which features a mouthguard on its teeth and punching bags. While ‘Roxy’ took part in last year’s race in Detroit, Seb Priaulx and Laurin Heinrich took a battered Rexy to a hard-fought GTD Pro class win in 2024.

***Through two street races at new downtown circuit, six different GTD Pro manufacturers have finished on the podium. It was Ford, Chevrolet and Lamborghini last year and Porsche, Lexus and Aston Martin in 2024. BMW and/or McLaren can add their names to the podium record this year.

***RLL Team McLaren driver Nikita Johnson will be pulling double duty for the first time this weekend, between his GTD Pro class No. 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo he shares with Max Esterson, as well as being in Indy NXT, where the 18-year-old currently leads the championship.

***Johnson said: “I haven’t (run at Detroit) in either class, Indy NXT and GT. You have to take it one weekend at a time. I’m having good success in NXT and the GT program, learning quite a bit. I think Max and I are getting there. Just need a bit of time.”

***In addition to RLL, newly crowned two-time Indianapolis 500 winners Meyer Shank Racing and Team Penske will also be pulling double duty, but for the second time this season, as the GTP class also contested last month’s Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.

***Porsche Penske Motorsport drivers Laurin Heinrich, Felipe Nasr, Julien Andlauer and Matt Campbell were all guests of Team Penske at The Brickyard last weekend, where they toured the updated IMS Museum that features a dedicated ‘Penske Gallery’ and were on hand to watch Penske driver David Malukas come just 0.0233 seconds short of victory to MSR’s Felix Rosenqvist, in the closest finish in race history.

***Laurens Vanthoor, meanwhile, arrived in Detroit on Thursday afternoon directly from a two-day test at Imola with the new McLaren MCL-HY, which according to local sources, suffered a suspected technical issue and stopped on track with the Belgian at the wheel on Wednesday. Vanthoor is being loaned out to the British manufacturer for the 2027 FIA World Endurance Championship season before becoming an exclusive McLaren driver the following year.

***As was the case in Long Beach, all Porsche Penske drivers except for Nasr will be making their debut on the 10-turn, 1.645-mile circuit. Estre took part in a simulator session prior to the Nürburgring 24, calling the track “very stop-and-go and narrow.”

***He told Sportscar365: “The layout on this one feels a bit too stop and go, in the sim and when I look at the race from last year, it’s difficult. It’s a very special track. But it’s part of the calendar. IMSA has very different types of tracks and this is one of them. It also makes IMSA fun in that aspect that you’re racing in Daytona, you’ll be racing in Indianapolis, Road America and Detroit. It’s good.”

***When asked if they could be at a disadvantage with having three of its four drivers with no prior track experience, the Frenchman said: “For sure we need to put the car on the ground and have a solid first practice without issue, without crashing and a car balance that suits the track. The engineers have done a good job of having the right package to start.”

***Renger van der Zande, who along with Nick Yelloly are coming off victory in Long Beach, has won six of the last ten street races that have been on the WeatherTech Championship calendar.

***The Dutchman, who was victorious here last year in the No. 93 MSR Acura ARX-06 said that race was one of the “most fun” to have been part of. “Ricky Taylor doing an amazing job out there getting past Nasr, and then me passing him in the same move, and it was just typical street track, elbows out, street fight,” he said. “Those are the races that I live for that I dream about, and last year turned out really well. I really enjoyed that one.”

***Van der Zande is one of several drivers having recently contested the Nürburgring 24, although the Dutchman was at the wheel of arguably one of the most unique cars on the grid, a HWA EVO.R, which is based on a 1990’s era Mercedes 190E DTM car.

***He said: “Our program was amazing. Together with IMSA driver Adam Adelson, he was my teammate, who did a fantastic job for the first time in the Nürburgring, and also the car. HWA is maybe an unknown company. But the factory that they have, and they can build a car from November, from scratch, until racing to the finish in Nürburgring in May, that’s an achievement on its own. We didn’t really race for a victory, so every time a GT3 passed me, I was like, ‘It’s nice to go compete again. That’s what I live for’. But at the same time, we had a fun bunch of drivers who had a great time together, racing those amazing looking 190ish cars.”

***On the same weekend as the N24, Wayne Taylor Racing driver Louis Deletraz drove a TF Sport-prepared Oreca 07 Gibson through the streets of Malta, the island country in Southern Europe, as part of the annual Zabbar Autofest. “It was really cool to bring a race car to the streets,” he told Sportscar365. “They closed the road but there’s a lot of fortifications. It’s a very old city. So to drive through those streets was beautiful. It’s not every day you can organize stuff like this.”

***Deletraz explained the idea came about after he first visited Malta two-and-a-half-years ago and forged a friendship with a local. “We met with Visit Malta, which is the government [in charge] of the tourism,” he said. “They were very keen, so they organized it and we made it work with the car from a spare car from TF, took the livery from 2024, the [ELMS] champion car with [myself], Robert [Kubica] and Jonny [Edgar]. The red and white luckily matched the Malta flag!”

***According to a recent local news report, Pratt Miller has announced plans to expand two of its existing facilities in nearby New Hudson, Mich., which includes adding “another professional sports car race team” and “expanded support for existing Corvette GT3 race car customer support business.” The second facility expansion, of note, will create a “specialized and rare secure space to support innovative survivability and lethality solutions for government customers.”

***Chaz Mostert, who is making his Lexus RC F GT3 debut, is coming off his first victory in a GR Supra in last weekend’s Repco Supercars Championship opening race at Symmons Plains Raceway in Tasmania. The defending series champion, who switched to the Japanese manufacturer’s new Supercars program, currently sits tenth in the championship.

***Track action begins Friday with a 90-minute practice session from 8 a.m. EST, followed by a two-hour session from 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. and qualifying, which gets underway at 4:50 p.m. EST and will be streamed live on Peacock and IMSA’s YouTube channel.

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