No. 3 Cadillac Suffered “Minimal Damage” from Hyperpole Fire

Chip Ganassi Racing replaced the engine on the No. 3 Cadillac V-Series.R following its fire in Hyperpole even though the car suffered “minimal damage” according to its global director of operations Mike O’Gara.

Sebastien Bourdais’ Hyperpole session came to a sudden end on Thursday evening when he brought the car to a halt on the Mulsanne Straight following a reported loss of fuel pressure.

The car then caught fire, although the Frenchman was able to put the flames out with a fire extinguisher and the aid of the marshals at the scene.

O’Gara told Sportscar365 that the fire caused no structural damage to the car, describing it as “pretty minimal.”

He added that the engine change, the second of the week, was a precautionary measure ahead of the race.

“It was kind of a flash thing and Seb took control and got the fire extinguishers and got it put out,” O’Gara said.

“So minimal damage, we’re changing the engine just to be on the safe side.

“Some soft stuff, hoses and looms that are going to melt easily, but no structural damage. No other hard parts of the car got destroyed.”

O’Gara said the the team was still in the process of determining the root cause of the problem.

“[It was] something on the engine and it was enough that they wanted to pull it and put a backup in, so backup engine is going in,” he explained.

“At least we have the warmup tomorrow to leak check the car and make sure everything is fine.”

O’Gara said Saturday’s 15-minute warmup session will serve a dual purpose, also bedding in new brakes.

“We’re going to start the engine here and it would be nice to go run it somewhere today,” he said.

“Obviously that’s not the reality, but we’ve got 15 minutes tomorrow.

“That 15 minutes we’re going to make sure nothing leaks, we’ll put new carbon brakes on and make sure those are bedded in and ready to go and we’ll go for it.”

The car returned to the garage during the fourth and final Free Practice session on Thursday night, after which initial observations about the damage level could be made.

“GM and Cadillac really wanted to have a first look at where the issue was and then get a game plan for how we attack it,” O’Gara said.

“When [the car] got released, [it] came back here and [we] started peeling bodywork off.

“It was pretty obvious what the issue was and then we just put a game plan together for pulling the car apart and what needed to be done to the tub as well as what other parts from Dallara and GM we’d need.

“Luckily we had everything on hand to get it back together.”

O’Gara clarified that it was a “conscious decision” not to work through the night for the engine swap, instead postponing the work to the Friday prior to the race instead.

“We could have worked all night and been to a better spot today, but I was really conscious of these guys having to do a 24-hour race over Saturday night,” he said.

“So we got the engine out last night, got the gearbox cleaned up and sent everybody home to rest.

“It won’t be late today when we’re done. So hopefully the guys get a decent night’s sleep tonight as well.”