Hawksworth: “Mindset Doesn’t Change” in GTD Pro Title Fight

Jack Hawksworth remains ardent that he and the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus team can maintain their GTD Pro points lead provided they apply the same race-by-race approach to the final three rounds.

The 32-year-old and co-driver Ben Barnicoat have finished on the class podium at all-but-one of the eight IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship rounds this season.

At the most recent race at Road America, a second place class finish saw the duo extend their points lead to 169 over the No. 3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R pairing of Jordan Taylor and Antonio Garcia.

Hawksworth describes how the class crown has been the goal for the season, and that their current position is due to consistency – on and off-track – and having better “bad days” than the competition.

“I think the biggest thing this year has been consistency,” he told Sportscar365. “That comes from us having really good consistency with our driver lineup and crew who have been together for a while.

“We’ve found those marginal gains really over the last two or three years. We’ve just chipped away at it and got better and better with the same group of people.

“Jimmy [Vasser] and ‘Sully’ [James Sullivan], TRD and Lexus have done a really good job of just trying to get a little bit better every weekend with the group we’ve got.

“If you look at the way the season has gone this year, I think you would say that we’ve done better than the others on our bad days.

“All of the competitors have won races and had good days, but when they’ve had bad days they’ve been worse than our bad days, generally. So that’s been where the separation has come in terms of points.”

Hawksworth frames his and the wider Vasser Sullivan team’s philosophy and how that has played out across the eight races so far this season.

“We kind of came into this season with that mindset that, to win these championships, you’re not going to have the fastest car every weekend,” he said.

“The way you put yourself in a position to have a shot at it is to be there when you haven’t got the fastest car. And that’s something we’ve really focused on. Get the basics right.

“I think we’ve seen the fruit of that this year. We’ve been able to just be there whether we’ve got a fast car, and we’ve generally won or had a shot at it, and when we’ve not had the quickest car we’ve been able to finish a little bit higher than we should have pace-wise.”

No Change to On-Track Approach

Hawksworth forecasts no change to his on-track approach to the final three rounds of the season, admitting to wanting to maintain a level of aggression even in wheel-to-wheel combat.

The only time the No. 14 Lexus RC F GT3 has failed to finish in the top three was at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park where contact between Barnicoat and the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R of Klaus Bachler forced the former through the grass, resulting in significant damage to the cooling system.

Regardless, the 11-time IMSA race-winner does not intend to alter his notably assertive driving style, despite never having led a WeatherTech Championship drivers’ standings this late in the season.

“I’ve never really understood this mentality shift where it’s like once you have the points lead the last few races are different. It’s not really different,” Hawksworth said.

“The mentality of protecting the car, looking after the equipment and trying to get to the end of each race, racing people aggressively but trying to protect the vehicle, that needs to be there from Round 1 onwards.

“For me it’s like, the points lead is there and obviously you don’t need to take quite as much risk as you would early in the season, but early in the season you already need to be thinking of the big picture.

“You already need to be thinking we have to finish these races, we have to get to the end. I don’t want to put myself in a position where one of my competitors can potentially damage my car or I can lose points.

“A lot of the time it’s really about being clever with your race craft. For me, if I see an opportunity to go forward I’m going to take it, but I’ll try and take it in a way where I’m the aggressor.

“I don’t want to put myself in a position where if they have a go at me I leave myself vulnerable in a situation where if we have contact I come off worse.

“I think it’s about trying to find that balance between being aggressive but making good decisions.

“If you start to drive too protective and too in your mirrors then that’s when you leave yourself open to making mistakes.

“There’s a difference between smart and aggressive, and being reckless and it’s all about finding that balance and trying to keep that throughout the year, not just in the final rounds.”