Road America Friday Notebook

Photo: Mike Levitt/IMSA

***The pair of Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06s dominated Friday’s one-and-only IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship practice session at Road America. Nick Yelloly’s 1:51.008 lap time was some 1.123 seconds quicker than the best non-Acura, the No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Series.R of Louis Deletraz.

***Yelloly’s co-driver Renger van der Zande told Sportscar365: “This is a track that fits the car very well and we’ve seen it in the past. The Acura, the ORECA [chassis] is working very well here. It’s a high-speed track. And you need a lot of front-end grip to be fast around here and our car has that compared to the others.”

***Porsche Penske Motorsport driver Felipe Nasr, who ended up eighth quickest in the No. 6 Porsche 963, added: “I can tell you right away the Acuras look very strong. But then you have a pretty compressed gap between the other cars, all the way to where we were. If you take them out of the equation, then yes, it looks harder that way, but if you look at the mid-pack, I think it’s pretty close.”

***Thomas Preining, fresh off a DTM win last weekend in Oschersleben, meanwhile, set the quickest time in GTD Pro in the Austrian driver’s return to the No. 911 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo after missing the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen due to the clash with the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa, a race he also was victorious in.

***Preining told Sportscar365: “We’re quite happy with the car, obviously improving lap-by-lap, finding more rhythm and finding consistency also. But for sure, we still have some stuff that we need to improve, because I think we’re almost the only one who had an extra set of tires. We didn’t do the test last week, because we were all having clashes.”

***Rain will play a factor in Saturday’s track action, with showers forecast through at least noon-time tomorrow, which would impact Practice 2. Current forecasts also call for a 38 percent chance of rain on Sunday morning as well, right around the time of the race start, although Action Express Racing’s Peter Baron, the team’s resident weatherman, predicting that it should be “OK”.

***Baron told Sportscar365: “I think a lot of us got burnt by the weather in the 2022 race. The race started overcast and then it broke into a sprinkle, a full course yellow came out, and then everyone was looking at the radar and there was no rain around here. Everybody, other than the JDC car, went to slicks. Then it opened up. Since then I’ve been oddly enough really studying Road America weather. There’s a few phenomenons about this place!”

***A tender process has been opened for the operator of Lamborghini’s GTD Pro program next year. Sportscar365 understands that both Riley Motorsports and Wayne Taylor Racing have placed bids for the program, which is currently operated by Pfaff Motorsports. Bill Riley declined comment when asked about his team’s level of interest, although it’s understood the former Lamborghini SC63 operator also placed a bid last year and lost out to Pfaff.

***Sportscar365 has learned that the price of the Evo kit for the Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R is $190,000 USD, after the price and parts list was recently distributed to its customer teams. The Evo kit will be mandatory for all teams competing in the WeatherTech Championship and FIA World Endurance Championship but optional for SRO Motorsports Group-run series.

***One current customer team, who asked to be remain unnamed, suggested that price tag will easily increase for teams when factoring in the need to have spare parts on hand for the components that have been modified as a result of the Evo package.

***BMW M Motorsport boss Andreas Roos denied that the BMW M Hyrbid V8’s recent spell of ten days on Dallara’s seven-post shaker rig, from July 13-17 and July 20-24, is anything to do with potential Evo joker updates for next year. The German manufacturer’s LMDh car could utilize up to two more jokers, which expire at the end of 2027.

***Roos told Sportscar365: “That’s our normal development, what we do during the season, where we just try to optimize and try to work on the car. That has nothing to do with an Evo joker. It’s just the normal preparation work and development work you.” When asked if they plan to take advantage of the full allocation of five jokers, Roos said: “For sure at one stage we will look how we use them but I can’t tell you at the moment of when and where and how.”

***Both Ferrari and Peugeot were out testing possible and/or proposed updates to their LMH cars this past week, at Monza and Paul Ricard, respectively.

***Sportscar365 understands the FIA homologation process of Mercedes-AMG’s new GT3 car has been temporarily paused due to delays with its road-going counterpart, the Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series. Head of Mercedes-AMG Customer Racing Stefan Wendl told Sportscar365 in June that everything was running to schedule with the car, which is slated to make its race debut sometime next year but initially in a yet-to-be-homologated form.

***Reiter Engineering, which was involved in the car’s early development with Affalterbach Racing GmbH is understood to no longer part of the project.

***The developments come amid the recent departure of Mercedes-AMG motorsport boss Christoph Sagemuller, who has taken up a new job as the chief marketing officer of the German filtration company MANN+HUMMEL, better known in the racing world for its MANN-FILTER brand.

***Former head of commercial and marketing for Mercedes-AMG Motorsport, Simon Wilbers, took over Sagemueller’s vacancy at the start of this month, with Wendl remaining in his position as customer racing boss.

***Tickets have gone on sale for the 2027 Rolex 24 at Daytona, which will take place on Jan. 30-31, with the annual Roar Before the Rolex 24 set for one week earlier on Jan. 22-24.

***A recent media release by IMSA highlighted the sanctioning body’s increased broadcast and digital footprint. Its international broadcast partner, Greenlight International, has helped deliver IMSA content to more than 450 million households across 148 countries outside the U.S. Live race coverage now reaches more than 120 international territories, complemented by magazine-style programming, such as Motorsport Mundial and Planet Speed, which showcases personalities, manufacturers and stories from the paddock.

***Greenlight International’s Jon Quayle said: “IMSA continues to resonate with broadcasters and viewers across the globe. The combination of elite manufacturer participation, world-class drivers and compelling competition creates a product that consistently performs well for our distribution partners. We have seen continued demand from both established and emerging markets, reflecting the growing international appeal of the championship.”

***IMSA’s YouTube channel, meanwhile, is nearing 2 million subscribers, making it the most-subscribed motorsports property in North America and one of the largest motorsports channels in the world.

***Saturday’s track action includes second WeatherTech Championship practice from 9:50-11:45 a.m. CST, followed by qualifying at 3:25 p.m. CST. The two-hour Road America 120 Michelin Pilot Challenge race is set for a 12:50 p.m. CST green flag, with live coverage on Peacock as well as IMSA’s YouTube channel, commercial-free courtesy of Michelin.

Finlay Ringer contributed to this report

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