Monday, June 28, 2021

Mazda DPi, Corvette, GTD BMW All Hit Their Marks With Strategy & Style At The Glen

Mazda Motorsports holds true to pre-race prediction that they intended to repeat their win in the last Shalen"s Six Hours At The Glen. Image Credit: Multimatic via Twitter (2021)


Mazda DPi, Corvette Racing GTLM, GTD BMW All Hit Their Marks With Strategy & Style At The Glen

Three teams that had stated positions of accomplishment before the GREEN Flag waved to start The Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen

No. 55 Mazda Motorsports/Multimatic Mazda DPi co-drivers Jonathon Bomarito, Oliver Jarvis, and Harry Tincknell post race comment on following through with the prediction on a repeat win. The win was dedicated to John Valerio, an engineer at Multimatic who perished in a road accident last month.

 

In the final round of pitstops, taken during the race’s final caution period, Multimatic Motorsports’ Leena Gade, race engineer for the Mazda RT24-P, elected to take fuel and a right-front tire, while the team’s fastest rivals took on left-side tires.

The time saved was enough to jump the Mazda, shared by Tincknell, Oliver Jarvis and endurance racer Jonathan Bomarito, to the front of the field. But it meant that over the 37 minutes of green-flag running that remained, Tincknell needed to go fast enough to hold off Olivier Pla in the #60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-05, while also saving fuel, and also ensuring that he went slow enough that the DPi cars would complete only 200 laps in the six hours. Had he not received the one-lap-to-go white flag at the end of Lap 199, Tincknell would likely not have even finished in the top four, since the Mazda ran out of fuel mid-way through its slowdown lap.

Holt, executive VP at Multimatic Special Vehicle Operations, said: “Harry Tincknell was absolutely spectacular, best drive he’s ever given us in my opinion. 

“He balanced his fuel consumption against pace to keep Olivier behind by two seconds for half an hour while also heeding our warnings of not breaking out enough to cause an extra lap at the end. 

“It was an impeccable display of controlled driving. He was sailing past us into Turn 1 with absolutely no throttle [but] only losing less than a second on his lap times. 

“The white flag flew less than three seconds before we got to the line. Four seconds earlier and we would have had to do two more laps, which we wouldn’t have made. 

“The number crunching going on back in Toronto [Multimatic’s home base] and on top of the box was incredible, with triple redundancy on everything we did. The data coming off the car was perfect and we made it home with Pla right on our gearbox. Meyer Shank’s guys had banked some fuel, but so had we and it was a flat-out last lap to the flag. 

“We got out in front of the #60 and #01 [Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac] with some great pit strategy and execution. In fact the boys over the wall were perfect all day; we made all but a couple of our passes during the pitstops. This was a race where every single member of this team made a significant contribution, along with the three best pedalers in the series.  It was a pretty emotional moment when we crossed the line, having had Mid-Ohio stolen from us in the same circumstances when we had a dominant car.”

This result means that fulltimers Tincknell and Jarvis are 31 points behind Wayne Taylor Racing’s Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque heading into this Friday’s race, also at the Glen. The WeatherTech 240 replaces the originally schedule event at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park, which has been canceled for a second year due to COVID restrictions.

Tincknell, who along with Bomarito and (ironically) Pla, scored Mazda’s first IMSA Prototype win in this same event two years ago, said: “The whole weekend was a fantastic team effort from Mazda and Multimatic. I think all three of us did the job in the car but, my gosh, the mechanics and the guys and girls on the stand were just incredible.

“To get me out in the lead with 40 minutes to go was the key moment. I knew it was going to be very tight and I wasn’t going to be able to go flat out all the way as we had to save fuel. I could see Oli [Pla] coming at the end but I had the call on the last lap to go flat out so I knew at that point that we would be OK.

“I ran out of fuel at Turn 7 on the slowing down lap, which just shows we had the perfect strategy and the perfect engineering from Multimatic to get us to the line.”

Jarvis added: “We’re in the championship hunt and we’ve said all along that we need to take consistent podiums but we also want the wins. To do it in this fashion where we didn’t have the quickest car – we made some big changes as we went through the sessions and found the direction for the race – really shows the strength of this team. We had to work harder this weekend than we ever have before to get a chance of the win.

“To get it the team had to execute perfectly and the drivers couldn’t afford any mistakes. This is a very special win.”

“I love sharing a car with these guys,” said Bomarito. “They’re competitors, they’re warriors and they are flat out the whole time and that’s what it takes in this class in this series.

“It was a flat out race with some brilliant fuel-saving finesse at the end. I was listening on the radio up in the stand to all the math and calculations. I wish everyone could hear and experience it, because it’s neat to hear the engineers crunching the numbers and trying to calculate the end of the race.

“If Harry had been four seconds further up the road we would have had to do one more lap and probably would have run out of gas so that’s how close they are calculating the fuel and that’s pretty cool to see.”
----
NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R post race comments on this six hour challenge and win since 2014 by Corvette Racing.


----
The No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M6 GT3 is on a terror of late. The car has won two of the last three GTD races – including Sunday’s Sahlen’s Six Hours – and was running a strong second in the other race when a mechanical failure stopped it with 10 minutes to go at Detroit. 

With this win on Sunday's six hours, Bill Auberlen sets a new mark for the all-time leader in IMSA wins (64). Auberlen has collected four of these wins driving a BMW at Watkins Glen. No one else among the drivers entered for the IMSA WeatherTech 240 has more than two.

During the post race winners press conference, Californian Bill Auberlen was asked about the significance of his 64th win and the effects on winning a 2021 IMSA GTD championship.


Co-drivers Auberlen and Foley (aided by Australian Aidan Read for Sunday's Sahlen's Six Hours) lead the season standings but hope to make up ground in Sprint Cup points this coming weekend in the IMSA WeatherTech 240 at The Glen set to have the GREEN Flag fly on Friday, July 2 at 6:10pm ET.
[ht: IMSA, David Malsher-Lopez]

Bill Auberlen, Will Turner, and Dillon Machavern hoist Shalen's 120 at The Glen IMSA Pilot Challenge race winning hardware during podium ceremony. Image By: IMSA NewsWire via twitter (2021)

UPDATE:
Turns out that the GS Class in the Michelin Pilot Challenge was the race that came a' callin' ... and with teammate Dillon Machavern, was able to drive the No. 95 Turner BMW to Bill's 65th win in sports car racing adding to his all-time record - that's 2 in two weekends at The Glen. 

This excerpted and edited from IMSA NewsWire - 

Slick Work Pushes No. 95 BMW To Michelin Pilot Challenge Win
Auberlen Holds off Heylen at Wet Watkins Glen; No. 84 Honda Wins in TCR
By Jeff Olson - IMSA Wire Service - July 2, 2021

It’s raining, there’s a lap remaining, and Jan Heylen is inches away from your rear bumper. What do you do?
 
If you’re Bill Auberlen, you gas it.
 
Auberlen, the 52-year-old sports car legend, managed to maintain grip as rain increased during the final laps Friday to win the Sahlen’s 120 at The Glen, the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge race at Watkins Glen International.
 
In doing so, Auberlen held off Heylen – “the most treacherous person you could ever drive against,” according to Auberlen – to put Auberlen, co-driver Dillon Machavern and the No. 95 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT4 back atop the Michelin Pilot Challenge Grand Sport (GS) standings.
 
“It definitely was raining, but there’s a point at which the track still holds grip and you have your hot, slick tires,” Auberlen said. “They’re both working together. Then there’s the point at which the temperatures drop and the layer of water goes up. … I was still pretty good.”
 
Shortly after the 17th Michelin Pilot Challenge victory of his win-heavy career [now #65], Auberlen prepared for a fast turnaround to race in Friday evening’s IMSA WeatherTech 240, the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
 
During the final laps of the Michelin Pilot Challenge race, Auberlen said he had about 75 to 80 percent of the grip level that he had under dry conditions. The Boot portion of WGI’s 11-turn, 3.4-mile layout proved trickiest.
 
“You don’t know what you’ve got,” Auberlen said. “You stand on the brakes and don’t know if it rained heavy a minute and a half ago or if it was light. You stand on the brakes and you just hope there’s not a big layer of water.”
 
Heylen and co-driver Ryan Hardwick brought the No. 16 Wright Motorsports Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport home in second place in the GS class and overall, while brothers Matt and Hugh Plumb finished third in the No. 46 TeamTGM Chevrolet Camaro GT4.R.

... notes from The EDJE




TAGS: Michelin Pilot Challenge, The Glen, Sahlen’s 120 at The Glen, Bill Auberlen, #64 & #65 Wins, Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen, ZOOM Call, IMSA NewsWire, Turner, Corvette Racing, Mazda Motorsports, The EDJE
at

No comments:

Post a Comment