Bamber: IMSA, WEC Sebring Double Will Benefit Cadillac

Photo: Jake Galstad/IMSA

Earl Bamber believes Cadillac’s dual IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and FIA World Endurance Championship approach will benefit the manufacturer by having nearly double the amount of track time over most of its competitors at next month’s ‘Super Sebring’ event.

The luxury automaker will enter the joint IMSA-WEC event with two Cadillac V-LMDh cars in the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring and a single Dallara-chassied prototype for the 1000 Miles of Sebring.

It comes after Bamber and his full-season WEC co-drivers Richard Westbrook and Alex Lynn were part of the car’s competition debut in last month’s Rolex 24 at Daytona, which saw the pair of Chip Ganassi Racing entries finish third and fourth in the race.

“I think it’s good to get a good, solid 24-hour race under your belt with the car,” Bamber told Sportscar365.

“If it was a traditional Le Mans race, I think the Cadillacs would have finished 1-2, with the oil issues that both Acuras had.

“From that, I think it was a good first showing that we managed get two cars there at the end.

“To be honest, we haven’t had much chance to actually do setup development because CGR was the development team, so we were always running quite standard [setups].

“I believe the IMSA crew had a really good test the other day, so hopefully we can be even more competitive at Sebring and take the fight to Acura.

“I think it’s good that we’ve got the team doing IMSA and WEC with the same regulations. We can really feed off each other and drive the entire program forward.

“We’ve also got AXR as well. I think that’s going to be a big help.”

With CGR and Porsche Penske Motorsport the only two two teams committed to both the WeatherTech Championship and WEC seasons, Bamber is hopeful that could also lead to gains during the Sebring event itself.

“Porsche’s got the same thing but it definitely helps that we’re in the same truck and there’s one team that we can compare notes and drive the whole thing forward,” he said.

“It’s been quite interesting for GM and Cadillac because obviously they took over the engine program from ECR and then they’ve got the hybrid system, which most other manufacturers have dealt with before.

“We’re really learning and I think there’s still plenty to come from that as well.

“It’s also really cool to see how eager everyone is at Cadillac to try and go out and win these big races. They really want to win Le Mans.”

Bamber said its full-time WEC program with the No. 2 Cadillac has been a considerable undertaking for CGR, which has assembled essentially a brand-new team based in Germany.

“It’s going to be a challenge because we’ve set up a completely new team,” he said. “That’s always a challenge in itself, if I put my team owner cap on, I know how hard that is.

“Performance-wise, I think it’s going to be quite good. We could see that we were competitive against the Porsche already. On that side we’re looking quite strong.

“We just need to see how it all levels out between LMH and LMDh as well. That’s probably going to be the biggest question mark looming for both sides of the paddock right now.”

LMDh Displayed “Phenomenal” Racing at Daytona

Bamber, meanwhile, has praised the organizations involved with the launch of the LMDh platform, stating that it it’s the “right category for what we need” in sports car racing today.

“I have to say, the ACO and IMSA did a great job of [rolling out] LMDh at Daytona,” he said.

“If you have a look, there were four different manufacturers building different cars but to the same regulations, to the same downforce window, same power and weight and no BoP, and everyone was within three of four tenths of each other.

“I would say for a first-ever race, because there could be plenty of low-hanging fruit from everyone, that’s quite impressive.

“That shows that with a good set of regulations and a small enough aero window and the same power, everyone can arrive at the same place, which I think is quite exciting.

“Also for other manufacturers joining LMDh, it’s going to be good too.

“It’s a cool category; it’s very different to LMP1 that we had in the past. But I think it’s the right category for what we need.

“The racing is phenomenal. You can draft, you can pass. They’re quick enough through traffic, you don’t have huge aero wash behind them. I think it’s a really good category.”

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