Cope harder, Formula 1 fan, since the world’s finest motorsport series – the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship – begins this weekend courtesy of the Rolex 24 on the Daytona International Speedway.
The primary leg of endurance racing’s unofficial Triple Crown (the next two events being the 12 Hours of Sebring and the 24 Hours of Le Mans respectively), the Rolex 24 has been a key fixture on the international motorsport calendar since 1962. The event also historically marks the open season for motorsport in North America.
On January 19, the Rolex 24 began with its traditional “Roar Before The 24″ event. Over two days, competing drivers took part in six practice sessions, culminating in a 15 minute qualifying race on January 21 to find out the grid for the 62nd running of this iconic event, which begins at 1:40 p.m. EST on January 27 and can conclude 24 hours later. Pipo Derani dominated those proceedings, destroying the previous track record and setting his Cadillac on the front of the grid next to 2 other Cadillac entries.
The 2024 running of the Rolex 24 can be set to be the largest in its 58-year history with a complete of 59 cars competing across 4 categories: GTP, LMP2, GTD Pro, and GTD.
Public service announcement over, now allow me to make a motorsport confession.
I’m from the UK, and I absolutely love endurance racing. Each IMSA and the LM24 are my biggest loves in motorsport. Actually, they’ve been so for around a decade now. The names, the stories, the unpredictability, big brain energy, and a rumbling, throaty V8 stir me in a way that Formula 1 outright fails to do.
Good for me then, really, as Jalopnik asked if I would really like to interview Cadillac’s Pipo Derani for this Rolex 24 preview.
Born in 1993 in São Paulo, Brazil, Derani is a double IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship title winner, and he took his first championship with a Cadillac run by Motion Express Racing – or “AXR” – within the series’ now-defunct top-flight DPi prototype category in 2021.
In 2023, when DPi was dropped in favour of the oh-so-badass hybrid GTP cars, Derani took his second title. Championship number two got here within the No. 31 AXR Cadillac V-Series.R on the Petit Le Mans season ender following an outstandingly consistent 12 months from him and teammate Alexander Sims.
Despite scoring one race win to the three of the winningest automobile of the season – the Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 shared between Tom Blomqvist and Colin Brown – the No 31 crew’s ability to bank points big or small when it mattered saw them come out on top come season end.
Derani knows the way to win across the 3.5-mile Daytona Sports Automotive course. Actually, it’s where he scored his series debut victory in 2016. AXR knows the way to win at Daytona, too. Until the North Carolina-based outfit became a part of Cadillac’s factory GTP programme in 2023, the once-privateer outfit showed itself to be “the little team that might” due to three outright Rolex 24 wins in 2010, 2014, and 2018.
Since 2019, the rostrum has eluded Derani at Daytona. Yet with Blomqvist replacing Sims within the No. 31 Cadillac (don’t forget, the Briton is in search of his third straight Rolex 24 win after move to AXR for this season) and a second IMSA title under his could 2024 be when Derani joins the likes of Ken Miles, Kamui Kobayashi, and A.J. Foyt as a two-time winner of North America’s most celebrated endurance race?
“To be honest, I don’t know,” Derani tells Jalopnik. “At Daytona, the largest thing you wish is luck. I could go on saying about preparation and dedication and exertions. After all, these are a number of mandatory parts to win this race, but ultimately, you wish numerous luck, especially in the primary three quarters of the race.
It’s a refreshing admission from a racing driver, who, in Europe, would most certainly trot out a non-committal line preceded by a “needless to say”.
“With 59 cars this 12 months, all of us will probably be in survival mode,” he continues. “At Daytona, it’s only within the last six hours when the puzzle of the race starts coming together, and also you begin to work out what piece you’re, and the sport of on-track chess begins!”
With its narrow, twisty infield paired with an imposing oval section, the Daytona Sports Automotive course makes for an “unusual” track, with the remaining circuits on the 11- round IMSA calendar adopting a more traditional layout.
“In my view, getting the straights right at Daytona is a very powerful thing,” Derani explains. “If we’re in a position to minimise drag down those parts of the circuit, that’s where the secret will probably be since it gives you more top speed. Acura did this in 2023, they usually were just about in a position to control the race at any time when they wanted.
“It’s a tough track to get right for each drivers and engineers, because to get the speed down the straights, it’s essential to remove aero. But to get the most effective out of the infield, which could be very narrow, you wish aero since you’re trailbreaking towards the apex of those corners and want a stable rear end to support the automobile whilst doing this.
“Finally, you wish a automobile that rotates mid-corner, because among the infield corners are as much as 180-degrees. Think about the traffic, it’s all very difficult and really much an art of compromise. It’s very unique, since you’re asking the automobile to achieve this many things at the identical time on one circuit.”
Despite having driven the GTP automobile for greater than a 12 months now, Derani illustrates that the hybrid MGU system makes the No. 31 tougher to drive than its predecessor, the DPi. By way of the Cadillac GTP’s layout, this small electric motor sits on the rear of the automobile between the thunderous 5.5-litre naturally-aspirated V8 and eight-speed gearbox.
On the push of a button, the MGU can add as much as 50 kilowatts – or 67 bhp – value of additional power to the engine’s 671 bhp baseline. At Daytona last 12 months, estimates show that the GTP class cars were producing around 40 additional horses due to the electronic witchcraft whirring away silently within the cars’ hind quarters.
“The DPi and the GTP aren’t too dissimilar by way of outright speed, but how they achieve these speeds is certainly different,” he says. “The DPi had a 580 bhp, 5.5L V8. Nonetheless, the automobile weighed just 930 kilograms, which is 100 kg lower than the GTP. Whilst it was less powerful, its lightness made it more nimble.
“The DPi was more of a raw race automobile. The harder you pushed, the faster you went. It was that easy. Minimum speed on the corners was also much higher than within the GTP, which might feel quite long and lazy at times.
“With the GTP, it’s so far more complicated, because you actually feel that extra weight from the hybrid system and its infrastructure. You would like a far more refined driving style to have the option to know all the transitions which can be happening within the automobile under braking. The largest of those is the regen to the battery, after which the way it’s deployed back by way of power under acceleration!
“With the GTP, it’s almost like you will have to drive under the limit to be quick. I find this intriguing, because there may be a lot you may extract purely by considering. Now when racing, you will have to have a little bit more brain power to know all the tools these cars have just like the hybrid system, for instance. When you grasp how they work, you may adjust them to your liking, which eventually translates into faster lap times.
“Overall, then, the DPi and the GTP are two very different race cars requiring two different approaches. By way of pure racing, I’d say I prefer the DPi. Nonetheless, I feel it’s really cool that with the GTP, you may get the sting on one other driver purely by being smarter than them.”
Despite AXR claiming the 2023 IMSA title, the GTP field was largely an excellent playing field with each manufacturer taking a win at some stage throughout the season. This plays into Derani’s upcoming thought in regards to the racing set to happen a stone’s throw from Daytona Beach in a number of weekends time.
Each Cadillac V.Racing.R cars – the red AXR No. 31, and the sister gold automobile run by Chip Ganassi Racing – scored one victory apiece. The Meyer Shank Acura ARX-03 claimed three wins; the 2 Penske Porsches 963s made three trips to the highest step of the rostrum between them, whilst the RLL-prepared BMW M Hybrid V8 won the Six Hours of Watkins Glen.
In brief, the GTP field ended up so close last season due to different chassis and tyre pairings performing higher than their rivals depending on the track. Yet despite the teams having a 12 months’s value of data about their cars and their characteristics under their belts, Porsche is proving to be Derani’s biggest headache heading into Daytona.
It’s not an unfounded concern. Removed from it, actually. Porsche has won the Daytona outright a record-breaking 23 times. To place this mammoth achievement into perspective, its closest rival, Ford, has notched up six outright Daytona wins. Between 2017 and 2020, Cadillac scored 4.
“Should you look throughout 2023, then the Porsche 963 was the automobile that showed essentially the most promise by way of speed,” Derani says. “They’ve numerous resources, they usually have numerous experience from their LMP1 programme within the FIA World Endurance Championship, where they wonLe Mans yearly from 2015 to 2017.
“In the event that they can get on top of a few of their issues, reminiscent of reliability, then they will probably be a really, very formidable opponent. At Indianapolis, the factory Penske Porsches just switched their tires on a lot faster than anyone else, and were crazy quick in comparison with the remainder of the GTP field.”
Undoubtedly, the racing driver playing down their expectations ahead of a race is nearly a cliché. A minimum of it’s where I’m from. Of course. Yet throughout the conversation, Derani seems genuinely unsure as to where Cadillac and AXR stand within the Daytona pecking order. On the time of writing, it’s an issue that will probably be answered inside five days.
Between from time to time, the-31 year-old is confident that despite whatever transpires over the 24 hours between January 27 and 28, the V.Series.R will once tug on the heartstrings of motorsport fans the world over, just because the automobile did when it first hit the track in testing mid-way through 2022.
The all-American 5.5L V8 powering the “Caddy” snarls and growls. It’s loud, too. Very loud, actually. Actually, the noise is just not too dissimilar to Neil Fallon in a lift shaft. When the Cadillac’s Internal Combustion Engine over from the silent MGU during a pitlane start, the aural assault is nothing short of explosive…
… and it’s wonderful. If you will have even the tiniest drop of petrol coursing through your veins, it’ll make you smile.
Little wonder, then, that in 2024’s automotive world of turbocharging, downsizing, and full electrification, the Cadillac’s unapologetic nature has already made it a living legend.
“It’s a glad automobile, isn’t it?!” Derani laughs. “I feel with the best way things are going, it’s very easy to forget the true essence of motorsport. Should you return within the day, you can immediately recognise a Ferrari V12. Even recently, with the Corvette C7.R, that automobile had its own unique sound.
“You didn’t need to use your eyes to recognise them, and I feel we’ve done the identical thing with the Cadillac – it has that old fashioned energy, and provided that noise is a type of energy, I feel that’s why it brings a lot joy to our fans!
“Even for me as a driver sitting contained in the automobile where it’s not as loud and we’re wearing all of our protective gear, the sound gives me goosebumps at any time when I start it. Whatever happens at this 12 months’s Rolex 24, you may make sure that Cadillac will still have the most effective sounding automobile there…”
This Article First Appeared At jalopnik.com
