Hawksworth Seeking Clarity on “Level of Aggression” in IMSA

Photo: Vasser Sullivan

Jack Hawksworth is seeking clarity from IMSA on the “level of aggression” that’s permitted within the rules, stating that there was “no consistency” in the officiating process in the most recent WeatherTech Sports Car Championship round at Road America.

The Vasser Sullivan driver and teammate Parker Thompson are coming off a 11th place class finish in GTD after the Lexus factory pilot was served a drive-through penalty for avoidable contact with the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Philip Ellis.

It came in a rough-and-tumble two-hour and 40-minute contest that saw numerous instances of contact, but only some cars penalized, and also to varying degrees.

While Hawksworth was handed a drive-through, the GTP championship-leading No. 7 Penske Porsche 963 of Nick Tandy was served a stop-and-hold plus 60-second penalty for a similar incident while battling with the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Series.R of Ricky Taylor.

“From my side, I think for the drivers, they just want to know what the rules are in terms of the consistency and how they’re applied,” said Hawksworth.

“I think the problem at Road America was there was no consistency to how the rules were applied compared to the rest of the season.

“From my perspective, I was given a drive-through for absolutely nothing and then we’ve seen other instances this year where people have been… dumped at the rear and moved out of the way and it’s been the racing’s kind of been allowed to go on and there’s been no penalties.

“I think it’s more just whether we’re allowed to what that level of aggression you’re allowed to take it to, is kind of the thing that IMSA needs to decide on, and then they need to [en]force the regulations appropriately and consistently.

“The problem we’ve had this year is, is that it seems to be one rule one day, one, one minute, and then one rule another. That’s my two cents anyway.”

Ford Multimatic Motorsports’ Mike Rockenfeller, who is in his second season of GTD Pro competition, admitted that the last few races have been “borderline or too much” in terms of the level of contact.

“If you watch Road America, I think within the GT class categories, we had quite some battles, which I think somehow definitely [was] borderline or too much, but at the end, I can only say for my side,” said Rockenfeller.

“I haven’t raced in the U.S full-time for a long time and of course, in different championships, you have different rules and different penalties for it and different race directors and so on. So, you try to adapt a little.

“I would say in Watkins Glen for instance, in my case, I was a bit surprised about the battles I was involved in, and also, I learned a little bit.

“You have to adapt, you know, a little. In the end, it’s in the hands of the organization and clearly the race director to make clear that whatever he wants.”

The 41-year-old German suggests that that IMSA could follow a rule utilized in the previous iteration of DTM that he believed provided better racing in the series.

“A long time ago in DTM, we came up with a rule [where] the drivers actually had the idea because we wanted better racing and what we did was, you always had to leave one-car width room, even on the outside to somebody else,” he said.

“That, in my opinion, created quite a lot of really good races, because it just means you leave enough space for the guy to make it two-wide and then you can battle the next corner and the next corner.

“But again, here [in IMSA], it feels like you can kind of squeeze people off a bit more.

“I would say that’s a bit more how I grew up in racing, but I’m just saying it just depends.

“I think we have a lot of amazing battles, but we have to be careful that we don’t push it too far and we want to see hard racing and contact for me, that’s fine.

“But we need to be a bit careful here that we don’t overdo it, I would say.

“I’m sure we will have some talks with our race director in the next driver meeting before the race, and I’m sure he will mention it and let’s see what he says, but that’s just my feeling about it.”

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