The only reason the vettes were fast in qualifying is because we were drafting each other, and we reached out fastest times on our optimal laps when the tires were up to temp and pressures and were not greasy yet around laps 3-6 or their abouts. After that the tires get greasy and lap times fall off.
The 2nd place ford was able to run basically the same time in qualifying as pole but did so on lap 12 or 13 when tires were past their max grip, and the ford was all by himself not drafting anyone.... that right there told us that it was going to be a long race.

About your fastest lap time comparisons.... its kind of misleading... yes although the Ferrari was faster than the fords by less than a 10th of a second, the Ferrari was pushing at 100% and I do not think the fords were, I think they could have done a 1:43.xxx any time they wanted to but did not need to cuz they had control of the race.
I think this because one of the fords (cant remember number) ran its 1:44.0 on lap 6 of the race! That shouldn't happen because as the track rubbers up the times always come down... Fastest times will usually come sometime on sunday as it did for every other GTLM car.....
Another reason is that the fords were basically running within 2-4 secs (sometimes less) of each other at the front the entire race.... well when they would get split up due to slower gtd traffic and be 6-8 seconds apart..... the trailing Ford after a lap or 2 would be right back up to the 2-4 second gap they were told to maintain.... and the trailing ford could do this at will by running a little harder (97%) for a lap or 2 to catch back up to the sister car and then settle back into cruise mode......

There was just no need for ford to show their true pace and risk BOP penalties..... I think if one of the ford had minor problems and had to fight back up threw the field, we would have seen faster than 1:44 times from Ford.

perfect storm

Thanks for the insight --

On the subject of qualifying -- none of the cars ran more than 9 laps.
While #3 set his fast time on lap 4,
everyone else set their fast times on lap 5 (66 & 911), lap 6 (24, 25, 912), lap 7 (4 & 67), and lap 8 (62).

http://results.imsa.com

Marshall Pruett's analysis of the #29's 5 minute penalty. Goes into a lot of detail, but short version: #29's rig was completely legal, they just got hit because they did a better job than the other GTD competitors.

http://www.racer.com/more/viewpoints...=1&limitstart=

Have a good one,
Mike

Prior to all of this IMSA on-board telemetry business, you just did some cheatin' to get that extra speed. Time-honored, especially in NASCAR. All Corvette Racing needed was a tenth or two per lap--IMSA would have hardly noticed.

Just out of curiosity, which car has the bigger fuel tank?

[VIDEO] Corvette Racing at Daytona: Doug Fehan Seminar at the Corvette Corral
We made our annual trek across the state of Florida on Friday to capture the Corvette Racing seminar hosted by Program Manager Doug Fehan in the Corvette Corral at the Rolex 24 at Daytona.
And as always, it was totally worth it..............

(Click here for more and video!)


http://www.corvetteblogger.com/2018/...rvette-corral/

You are correct about the lap numbers..... I have no idea how I came up with 12..... I was listening to quali live in the car while still traveling to daytona from Wisconsin.... I must have misunderstood the laps while i was focused on traffic haha. :thumbs:

You must have experienced culture shock --
Daytona track food vs RA brats, homemade pies, etc etc :thumbs:

Dan binks auction for tripp
 

From Dan Binks, #3 Crew Chief; "On Monday night we will be putting some items on eBay to help Tripp Postmus! (see items below!)
Also you can go to his Gofundme page to help: https://www.gofundme.com/f2ptuu-trip...rageous-knight

Tripp had a Make A Wish dream come true to hang out with Corvette Racing At Daytona 24 hours. Please do what ever you can to help. Thank you for helping in advance. Dan Binks"

Here is the link to Dan's auction items from Mobil 1 oil tropies to posters and hats!


https://www.ebay.com/sch/phillipsara...88.m1543.l2654

one of the items:
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.cor...5ef39303fb.jpg

Le Mans Entry List Posted.

As has been the case, the boys in yellow will be #63 and #64.

Some notes:

A large 17 car GTE Pro class:

-Risi is not bringing their Ferrari and will not be in GTE Pro. They will be running Ben Keatings GTE Am Ferrari.
-Ford again is entering their 4 cars
-Porsche is following suit and running 4 cars
-AF Corse is running 3 Ferraris
-Finally get the BMWs in their new car runing Le Mans with 2 cars
-Aston has 2 of their new Turbo V8 Vantages


No other Corvettes as Labre has moved to LMP2 with a Ligier. IMSA's
IMSA's JDC-Miller team declined their automatic invite.

Should be a good one, and with 17 cars, winning will be well deserved (as long as there is some reasonably decent BoP)

We don't need no stinkin' 4 cars to win Le Mans.

Le Mans
 

Le Mans Entries (courtesy sportscar 365). Note, Risi is not entering a car. They are just the team behind the Keating entry.


LMP1 (10 Entries)
1 – Rebellion Racing – Rebellion R13 Gibson – Andre Lotterer
3 – Rebellion Racing – Rebellion R13 Gibson – Thomas Laurent
4 – Team ByKolles – ENSO CLM P1/01 NISMO – Oliver Webb
5 – CEFC TRSM Racing – Ginetta G60-LT-P1 Mecachrome – Charlie Robertson
6 – CEFC TRSM Racing – Ginetta G60-LT-P1 Mecachrome – Oliver Rowland
7 – Toyota Gazoo Racing – Toyota TS050 Hybrid – Mike Conway
8 – Toyota Gazoo Racing – Toyota TS050 Hybrid – Sebastien Buemi
10 – DragonSpeed – BR Engineering BR1 Gibson – Henrik Hedman
11 – SMP Racing – BR Engineering BR1 AER – Mikhail Aleshin
17 – SMP Racing – BR Engineering BR1 AER – Vitaly Petrov

LMP2 (20 Entries)
22 – United Autosports – Ligier JS P217 – Phil Hanson
23 – Panis Barthez Competition – Ligier JS P217 – Timothe Buret
25 – Algarve Pro Racing – Ligier JS P217 – Mark Patterson
26 – G-Drive Racing – Oreca 07 – Roman Rusinov
28 – TDS Racing – Oreca 07 – Francois Perrodo
29 – Racing Team Nederland – Dallara P217 – Frits van Eerd
31 – DragonSpeed – Oreca 07 – Roberto Gonzalez
32 – United Autosports – Ligier JS P217 – Hugo de Sadeleer
33 – Jackie Chan DC Racing – Ligier JS P217 – David Cheng
34 – Jackie Chan DC Racing – Ligier JS P217 – Jacques Nicolet
35 – SMP Racing – Dallara P217 – Victor Shaitar
36 – Signatech Alpine Matmut – Alpine A470 – Nicolas Lapierre
37 – Jackie Chan DC Racing – Oreca 07 – Jazeman Jafaar
38 – Jackie Chan DC Racing – Oreca 07 – Ho-Pin Tung
39 – Graff-SO24 – Oreca 07 – Vincent Capillaire
40 – G-Drive Racing – Oreca 07 – James Allen
44 – Eurasia Motorsport – Ligier JS P217 – Marko Asmer
47 – Cetilar Villorba Corse – Dallara P217 – Roberto Lacorte
48 – IDEC Sport – Ligier JS P217 – Paul Lafargue
50 – Larbre Competition – Ligier JS P217 – Erwin Creed

GTE-Pro (17 Entries)
51 – AF Corse – Ferrari 488 GTE – Alessandro Pier Guidi
52 – AF Corse – Ferrari 488 GTE – Toni Vilander
63 – Corvette Racing – Corvette C7.R – Jan Magnussen
64 – Corvette Racing – Corvette C7.R – Oliver Gavin
66 – Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Team UK – Ford GT – Stefan Muecke
67 – Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Team UK – Ford GT – Andy Priaulx
68 – Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Team USA – Ford GT – Joey Hand
69 – Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Team USA – Ford GT – Ryan Briscoe
71 – AF Corse – Ferrari 488 GTE – Davide Rigon
81 – BMW Team MTEK – BMW M8 GTE – Martin Tomczyk
82 – BMW Team MTEK – BMW M8 GTE – Augusto Farfus
91 – Porsche GT Team – Porsche 911 RSR – Richard Lietz
92 – Porsche GT Team – Porsche 911 RSR – Michael Christensen
93 – Porsche GT Team – Porsche 911 RSR – Patrick Pilet
94 – Porsche GT Team – Porsche 911 RSR – Romain Dumas
95 – Aston Martin Racing – Aston Martin Vantage – Marco Sorensen
97 – Aston Martin Racing – Aston Martin Vantage – Alex Lynn

GTE-Am (13 Entries)
54 – Spirit of Race – Ferrari 488 GTE – Thomas Flohr
56 – Project 1 – Porsche 911 RSR – Joerg Bergmeister
61 – Clearwater Racing – Ferrari 488 GTE – Weng Sun Mok
70 – MR Racing – Ferrari 488 GTE – Motoaki Ishikawa
77 – Dempsey Proton Racing – Porsche 911 RSR – Matteo Cairoli
80 – Ebimotors – Porsche 911 RSR – Fabio Babini
84 – JMW Motorsport – Ferrari 488 GTE – Liam Griffin
85 – Keating Motorsports – Ferrari 488 GTE – Ben Keating
86 – Gulf Racing – Porsche 911 RSR – Michael Wainwright
88 – Proton Competition – Porsche 911 RSR – Matt Campbell
90 – TF Sport – Aston Martin Vantage GTE – Salih Yoluc
98 – Aston Martin Racing – Aston Martin Vantage GTE – Paul Dalla Lana
99 – Proton Competition – Porsche 911 RSR – Patrick Long

Reserve Cars (9 Cars)
41 – APM Monaco Team KCMG – Dallara P217 – Louis Prette (LMP2)
55 – Spirit of Race – Ferrari 488 GTE – Duncan Cameron (GTE-Am)
49 – High Class Racing – Dallara P217 – Anders Fjordback (LMP2)
24 – Repsol Racing Engineering – Oreca 07 – Norman Nato (LMP2)
62 – Scuderia Corsa – Ferrari 488 GTE – Cooper MacNeil (GTE-Am)
83 – Krohn Racing – Ferrari 488 GTE – Tracy Krohn (GTE-Am)
27 – IDEC Sport – Ligier JS P217 – Patrice Lafargue (LMP2)
43 – ARC Bratislava – Ligier JS P217 – Miroslav Konopka (LMP2)
42 – Brian Alder – Riley Mk. 30 – Mark Kvamme (LMP2)

Regarding Risi, they only race in the States.
AF Corse handles the European stuff.


As far as Mr. Keating and his MB GT3 goes, Mercedes does not allow their cars to race Le Mans.
It has to do with historic tragedies involving the brand.

Uhhhh....

Risi has run Le Mans a whole bunch of times, and won the class as Le Mans 3 times. They ran last year. They are not running this year as they are cutting way back on their GTLM/GTE Pro program.

Keating's GT3 Mercedes isn't running at Le Mans, because they don't run GT3 cars at Le Mans. Mercedes simply does not manufacture a car eligible for Le Mans. It is true they left Le Mans due to incidents and returned and left again in the 90s after an incident, but at the moment, they don't have a car eligible. They've stated their big factory efforts in racing are for F1 and now Formula E. They are even pulling out of DTM. And then obviously happy to sell customer GT3 and GT4 cars. In fact, GT3 Mercedeses run in the Le Mans Cup, and have/will run at Le Mans as a supporting race to the 24 hours of Le Mans. They will be on the same track the same week.

I was speaking about THIS year.

They don't have a car in ANY class for this year's race, or last year's race or the year before or the year before...all the way back to 1999 with their flying carpet: the CLR.

Sebring test is next week (optional unlike the Rolex Roar). Interestingly enough according to the entry list, Corvette is only bringing the #4 car and drivers and not bringing the #3. Not a big deal as other teams have taken similar approaches in the past, it's just unusual as Corvette generally runs as much as they can wherever they can....

35 total test entries, 8 in GTLM (including the #4).

Sebring Test BoP is out.

In GTLM, Boost changes to BMW, and fuel changes for BMW (more), Porsche (more) and Ford (less). No other GTLM power/weight changes. Again, going to high downforce configurations and slower tracks will likely even things up from Daytona.

In GTD, seems like IMSA is really struggling to get to the MB-AMG correct. This round they get a smaller restrictor, and increased minimum ride height, but get (a whopping) 5kg weight reduction. Interesting changes.

Not too surprising...

It IS interesting.:yesnod:
I would love to know exactly how they come up with these adjustments...must be computer analysis of some kind.