Ok, so it is practice day for the Six Hours of Circuit of Americas 2015, forming the headline event in this years Lone Star Le Mans, as a round of the World Endurance Championship.
Also part of Lone star Le Mans is the Tudor United Sportscar Championship, Continental Tire Sportscar Challenge, Lamborghini Super Trofeo and IMSA GT3 Cup.
Now last years race day was incredibly wet, and COTA effectively became a large lake as many drivers found out rather quickly, so hopefully the weather conditions are far better for this years edition.
The race is Saturday, as part of the format for the event that came into effect last year, whereby you have the IMSA TUSCC race in the afternoon, followed by the Six Hours going into the night-time hours at Circuit of the Americas.
I was going to write a full preview of all the teams and drivers in both IMSA TUSCC and the World Endurance Championship but a change of plan has occurred, so instead of talking about things you probably already know about or generally aren’t interested in knowing about.
I’m going to let you folks ask the questions to me, on what you want to know, and hopefully I can provide an answer to some of them at least. Whether you are going to Austin for Sportscar racing for the first time and just want a quick explanation of the class structure and an introduction to the sport of endurance racing, or you have followed Sportscar racing a while and just want to discuss or debate something, the questions are up to you!
It’s the US round of the championship so it makes sense to try this now.
What can I do to overcome the sadness I feel because I can’t go to LSLM this year?
Watch it on TV and go to Petit Le Mans in a few weeks instead?
How am I going to wipe the smile off of my (and my 8 yr old’s) face tomorrow at COTA?
Well with abit of luck your 8 year old will keep asking you to go to more and more events, so you won’t need to wipe the smile off your faces, and we get another race fan for the next generation :-)
Audi are keeping a brave face, but do you think they with continue to stay in WEC if they lose a few titles to corporate partner Porsche?
Also, WEC seems able to manage budgets, testing, technology, tires, and excitement fairly well. Could you see F1 incorporate some of WEC’s regulatory structure to help stabilize the series? Would that work? If so, which parts would you like to see amalgamated?
Audi are in until the end of 2016, Well we know for sure are developing a car, but then Peugeot developed a car and then mothballed it so who knows for sure but whatever, it’s far too late in the day to go somewhere else next year, without a formal announcement thus far, so I think ’16 is safe. Now 2017, that is a different story, LMP1 is set to have new regulations for 2017, of what magnitude that change is we don’t know yet, but if Audi commit to that, probably would indicate staying for a while to challenge… Read more »
So, who are the race favorites this year?
In WEC, or IMSA TUSCC or both?
WEC,
Porsche for LMP1
KCMG possibly for LMP2
AF Corse for GTE Pro
Aston Martin Racing for Am.
TUSCC
P- Pick a Corvette DP team and you probably have a pretty good chance.
PC – Core Autosport
GTLM – Porsche #911 though Corvette racing at home, i’d be surprised if aren’t in the running.
GTD – Probably the hardest to predict, but I’m going to go with TRG-AMR #007.