Laguna Seca Friday Notebook

Photo: Jonathan Grace

***JDC-Miller Motorsports took to the track with its customer Porsche 963 in Friday’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship practice session for this weekend’s Motul Course de Monterey powered by Hyundai N, with Mike Rockenfeller completing 17 laps in the GTP class entry after working through the LMDh car’s electrical systems. The 1:19.563 lap time was good enough for the 17th quickest time overall.

***Rockenfeller revealed that his only previous mileage in the car prior to the 90-minute session at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca came while driving through the parking lot of the team’s workshop in Savage, Minn. last week.

***The 39-year-old German said he spoke with Porsche factory driver Andre Lotterer, who drives for Porsche Penske Motorsport in the FIA World Endurance Championship, to gain insight into the car prior to this weekend. “I was at his house and we had lunch and gave me some insights,” Rockenfeller said.

***JDC-Miller team principal John Church told Sportscar365 that the team has extremely limited spares on-site, with “bits and pieces” showing up from Germany on a daily basis. Church said they hope to complete a private test prior to the next month’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen.

***Church said they have a “pretty good idea” on the team’s third driver for The Glen, which is expected to be announced in the next few weeks. He said it may not necessarily be the same driver that will complete the lineup for the season-ending Motul Petit Le Mans.

***Porsche factory LMDh director Urs Kuratle said he’s set to meet with Proton Competition team boss Christian Ried this weekend to finalize the delivery dates for the team’s two Porsche 963s, which are still on schedule to debut at the Monza (WEC) and Road America (WeatherTech Championship) rounds.

***Track limits has already been a major talking point this weekend, with the addition of asphalt run-offs in Turns 5 and 6 as well the Turn 9-10 complex. Numerous drivers lost their lap times in practice as a result, with several others, including Corvette Racing’s Jordan Taylor, having taken to social media on Thursday following the track walk to voice their displeasure over the change.

***Taylor told Sportscar365: “For me, everyone likes coming to America for our race tracks and how old school and raw they are. I’m sure they have good reasons for why they added it. But for me it just takes away from the history of the track and what it was.”

***Katherine Legge, who is making her first Indianapolis 500 start in a decade, has been juggling her two programs with Gradient Racing and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing this month which has included cross-country travel and jumping between engineering meetings, all with two vastly different cars. Legge will be in a Honda-powered Dallara for the 500, while is driving Gradient’s Acura NSX GT3 Evo22 alongside Sheena Monk this weekend.

***Legge said: “I will be kind of glad when May is over and I can go back to normality. The biggest change for me is that the pit lane and radio buttons are completely opposite on both cars. I try and talk on the radio and I put the pit lane speed on. I think there’s enough time that I can make the switch. It’s more the auxiliary stuff because the on-track stuff is so different.”

***IMSA has revised the date of its sanctioned test at Daytona International Speedway to Dec. 6-7 instead of the originally published Dec. 5-6. The two-day test at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 28-29, meanwhile, has been opened up to all WeatherTech Championship competitors instead of originally being limited to one car per GT manufacturer.

***Porsche Penske Motorsport will utilize one of its WeatherTech Championship chassis for its No. 75 car at the 24 Hours of Le Mans according to Kuratle. “We have to wait for the outcome from here,” he said on whether it will be the No. 6 or 7 car. “If there’s a big crash or anything like this we have to adapt.”

***The team’s WEC operation is coming off a two-day pre-Le Mans test at Monza this week with a single Porsche 963, which is also set for a three-day test at Paul Ricard beginning on Monday.

***Antonio Garcia recently completed sim work for Corvette Racing’s Le Mans GTE-Am effort at GM’s Charlotte technical center, with fellow factory driver Tommy Milner set to also get seat time in driver-in-the-loop simulator later this month, alongside the team’s Le Mans drivers Nicky Catsburg and Nico Varrone. Catsburg and Varrone will be joined by Ben Keating in the single-car effort in France.

***Jordan Taylor is set to make his oval racing debut next week as part of the CARS Tour Pro Late Model race at North Wilkesboro Raceway. Taylor, who is set to race under his alter-ego’s name of Rodney Sandstorm, will be at the wheel of a Chevrolet Pro Late Model with a DuPont-inspired livery fielded by E33 Motorsports in the Wednesday evening race, which is on the support bill for the NASCAR All-Star Race.

***The Motul Course de Monterey powered by Hyundai N will be live on network NBC beginning Sunday at 3 p.m. ET led by the NBC Sports broadcast team of Dave Burns and Calvin Fish in the booth, with Dillon Welch and Matt Yocum on pit lane. IMSA Radio will also have coverage, with the usual team of John Hindhaugh and Jeremy Shaw in the global broadcast booth.

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