IMSA Will “Continue to Work On” Tire Requirements Protocol

Photo: Mike Levitt/IMSA

IMSA President John Doonan said the sanctioning body and tire partner Michelin will continue to work to refine its tire requirement protocol, after the revised procedure resulted in 11 mechanical black flags during last month’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen.

Multiple teams in the GTP, GTD Pro and GTD classes were forced to bring their cars in to “stop and repair” after they were found to have not met Michelin’s operational tire pressure requirements in the race.

Watkins Glen marked the first WeatherTech SportsCar Championship event where no warnings were first issued to competitors regarding pressures, which caught out multiple teams, either with not meeting the minimum requirements or having faulty tire pressure monitoring sensors.

“With IMSA and Michelin, there’s been a huge collaboration to try to make sure that we have a level playing field,” Doonan told Sportscar365. “In our sport, there’s a lot of factors that go into having success and having performance.

“One of them is in tire pressure management. There’s a lot to be gained by tire pressure management in terms of pace.

“It’s just like your road car; there’s a recommended tire pressure for longevity and safety and good mileage. It’s a perfect example of that same thing here.

“Michelin has a set of recommended pressures for the teams to operate at. In good partnership with them, we’re trying to help them make sure teams are operating in that preco.

“It’s difficult because I don’t think any of us want [penalties]… IMSA certainly is not in the business of wanting to penalize during a race. We do not get excited about that, either during a race or post-race.

“A few times this year we’ve had to do both of those things.

“In ongoing collaboration, we need to get to a good place where teams realize what we’re trying to accomplish for the good of the sport and have a system in place that doesn’t have us intervening in the outcome of the race in that regard.”

Doonan acknowledged that the Watkins Glen race resulted in an excessive number of black flags, which he hopes will improve in coming races.

The sanctioning body has not made any changes to the rule for this weekend.

“None of us want to do that,” Doonan said of the black flags. “It’s too many, in my mind. Not just because it’s too many but it’s not good for the show and it’s not good for the competitors that are investing so much here.

“Finding a good process or evolving the one that we have is what we’ll keep continuing to work on.”

When asked if IMSA would consider rolling out a spec tire pressure monitoring system to teams, in an effort to prevent faulty readings or sensor failures, Doonan stressed the importance of keeping costs in control.

Currently, teams utilize TPMS directly from their OEMs, which are often taken from production cars and may not have the same durability for race-usage.

“We’ve talked about that,” Doonan said. “We need to get to a place where we have a common process. I’m not saying we can have a common system.

“The other thing is… none of us want costs to go up and have a requirement that everyone has to buy some thousands-of-dollars system.

“We also want a system that’s accurate. There’s a lot to be considered here but less penalties is better for all of us. It keeps cars on track, keeps the show going.

“We had a great meeting with Michelin this weekend and we want to keep that collaboration going.”

Doonan Explains Difference in MSR, Porsche Penske Post-Race Penalties 

The IMSA President has also clarified the difference in the penalties issued post-event and post-race to Meyer Shank Racing and Porsche Penske Motorsport from the Rolex 24 at Daytona and Six Hours of The Glen, respectively.

A number of people had questioned why MSR retained its win in the Rolex 24 while Porsche Penske did not.

“We have a rulebook and we have a set of technical regulations that every team in this paddock has to follow,” Doonan explained.

“In this particular case [with Porsche Penske], we went through the process to a T. We found an issue when it came to skid wear, which impacts ride height.

“Once again, like tire pressure settings, ride height, especially on the new GTP cars, is very impactful for performance.

“A millimeter here or a millimeter there makes a massive difference in performance. I’d imagine every engineer up and down [the paddock] would love for another mill and lower ride height.

“We found that in technical inspection before unofficial results were filed.

“As part of our process, there’s either a protest of the penalty, there’s eventually an appeal process that could take place.

“In the end, we heard from the team. We chose to not accept their protest given the technical findings that were red light and green light.

“It ended in great partnership. They were obviously disappointed. We were disappointed to issue a penalty to anybody.”

Doonan said the situation from Daytona was different largely because of the official results having already been published, prior to IMSA receiving word of alleged cheating by the MSR team.

“If you compared that to Daytona, the timing of when we found it, technically, the process we went through immediately to issue a penalty, versus finding out five days later or whatever the timing was after official results had been filled,” he said.

“Digging deep into what the penalty was, how it came about, how we were informed.

“The board, in that case, made the best decision we could with the information we had at the time, post-race, post-official results.

“In this case [at Watkins Glen], it never even made it to a board level. It was just the supervisory officials that went through the process.

“The [Porsche Penske] penalty was black and white. The other one put us in a very unique situation.”

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