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| Wayne Taylor Racing's No. 10 Konica Minolta Acura ARX-05 Acura DPi at the apex of the famed passing turn at the end of the Seaside Straight, Firestone Turn 9. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2021) |
IMSA DPi Cadillac's Westbrook, Derani, & ACURA's Albuquerque Share
Thoughts On Race 03 At Long Beach Streets
A ZOOM Call interview was held on March 29 with select DPi drivers to
preview the third race of the season held on the temporary street course at
the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, April 8-9, 2022.
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| The 1.968-mile, 11-turn temporary street circuit encircles the Long Beach Convention Center and runs down scenic Shoreline Drive. It offers numerous overtaking opportunities, including Turn 1 (Toyota) - Turn 6 (Tecate Turn) - Turn 8 - Turn 9 (Firestone) - but getting the hairpin Turn 11, just before the frontstretch, right is critical as this sets up Turn 1. |
Richard Westbrook, co-driver of the No. 5 JDC Miller MotorSports Cadillac
DPi-V.R, Pipo Derani, co-driver of the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Racing
Cadillac DPi-V.R, and Filipe Albuquerque, co-driver of the No. 10 Konica
Minolta Acura ARX-05 Acura DPi remain excited over competing through the
concrete canyons on the shores of the Pacific Ocean during Southern
California's primary rites-of-spring event.
CADILLAC RACING LONG BEACH PREVIEW: ZOOM TRANSCRIPT
In advance of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race April 9 on
the 1.968-mile, 11-turn street circuit in Long Beach, California, Pipo
Derani (No.31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac DPi-V.R) -- who co-drove to the
2021 victory to lead a Cadillac sweep of the podium -- and Richard
Westbrook (No. 5 Mustang Sampling Cadillac DPi-V.R), co-driver of the DPi
championship points-leading team, met with the media March 29 via Zoom
conference.
RICHARD WESTBROOK (No. 5 Mustang Sampling Cadillac DPi-V.R):
THE MUSTANG SAMPLING COLORS HAVE WON AT LONG BEACH, BUT YOU ARE LOOKING
FOR YOUR FIRST WIN THERE. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO TO BRING IT HOME FOR
YOU AND TRISTAN VAUTIER?
“It’s going to be incredibly tough, obviously. Going into the third round
that starts off at Daytona, a completely different circuit, and then the
polar opposite going to Sebring and then completely different yet again
going to Long Beach. I feel like every time I’m going to a new track with
this car – the track I know but it’s the first time in this car – it’s
almost like I’ve never been there before because the car is so different
than a GT and the last time I raced in prototype. It’s a massive learning
curve, but there’s a lot you can take from Sebring to Long Beach
setup-wise and we obviously had a good car there. I’m quietly confident
and just really pleased to get the 36 hours of Florida out of the way
because that was my target – to get through those two events and get some
decent points on the board, learn as much as I can, try to fit into the
team as best I can and get myself a platform for the short-race season.
That’s what we’ve done. To come out of those two rounds with leading the
championship, I sort of have to pinch myself. Obviously, it’s early days
and lots of race to go, but we’ve given ourselves a good platform. I’m
looking forward to Long Beach, but a completely different challenge.”
WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF QUALIFYING ON A STREET CIRCUIT WITH A SHORT
RACE?
“Street circuit qualifying is nuts. You have to sort of go to places that
you don’t really want to go to in practice. You have to step out for sure
and take the car past its limit in some way. I prefer to be finishing that
race.”
QUESTION FROM MOTORSPORTS JOURNAL >>>
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE SECTION OF THE LONG BEACH TRACK AND WHAT ARE YOU
LOOKING FORWARD TO GAINING FROM THAT SECTION?
“I guess the last two corners because when you have sections of circuits
where you can give up a little bit to have a good run through the last
corners – where you can sacrifice a bit to gain something somewhere else.
That whole last section where you’ve got the right and then the long left
and then the final hairpin, you can go quicker in one but you’re going to
have to sacrifice in the next. It’s sort of connecting the three and I
like that sort of challenge in any circuit. We turn up for the first
practice at 9 o’clock in the morning and it’s kind of a meaningless
session because you’re just cleaning the circuit and the track just
evolves, evolves and it’s a completely different circuit come race day. I
remember that race day is normally quicker (lap times) than qualifying
because the track just continues to evolve. You have to be ready for that.
You sort of have to adapt yourself. You can’t go into each session with
the mindset that ‘I need to improve in that corner, maybe I’ll try that.’
The track next session is completely different, so you have to be
open-minded in how you set out to work. I’ve never won at Long Beach, so
it's about time I did.”
ENDS
IS THIS AN OPPORTUNITY TO GET MORE IN TUNE WITH YOUR NEW TEAMMATE?
“When you get a new teammate, the first few races you’re sort of working
out what does he like to eat, where are we going to have dinner tonight.
It’s getting used to all that stuff. The chemistry with Tristan (Vautier)
and Loic (Duval) has been really strong. We’re definitely working toward
the same goal in terms of setup on the car; we like a similar setup. For
me, it’s only going to get stronger. I can’t say enough about Tristan.
I’ve been super pleased with how he performs, and his one-lap pace is
incredible. Hopefully, he puts that to good use all year.”
PIPO DERANI (No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac DPi-V.R):
FOND MEMORIES OF LONG BEACH LAST YEAR. HOW ARE YOU GOING TO REPEAT WITH
YOUR NEW TEAMMATE TRISTAN NUNEZ?
“Long Beach last year was definitely a key moment in our championship. It
was a fantastic race because the year before we almost won the race; in
the end we wound up losing the wheel after leading the race up to the last
pit stop. To capitalize last year and make sure we win that one when it
slipped away the year before was great. Long Beach is a great track to
drive. The event is a fantastic together with INDYCAR to have a lot of
fans around. A street track is always challenging to be so close to the
walls. It’s going to be again a very challenging and a very tight field
and difficult race to win as usual in IMSA. Our Cadillac DPi runs really
well at that track. Looking forward to it with a new teammate Tristan
(Nunez). He’s driven there before and hopefully he’ll hit the ground
running with the Cadillac. After two races under his belt, he’s getting
more used to the Cadillac DPi. I’m looking forward to heading west and
having our two races there at Long Beach and then later at Monterrey.”
YOU CAME BACK LAST YEAR TO WIN THE CHAMPIONSHIP AFTER A ROUGH START. DO
YOU HAVE A PHILOSOPHY ABOUT IT OR ARE YOU EVEN THINKING ABOUT IT?
“I think last year was a little bit chaotic in the beginning for us. I’d
like to think this year has started much smoother than last year. Last
year, we had a gearbox problem at Daytona, a horrible Sebring and we made
our lives very difficult toward the end of the season to win the
championship the way we did. I think we won the championship by 11 points,
so it was really tight and difficult to overcome the difficult beginning.
This year, not ideal to finish fourth at Daytona, but getting our first
podium at Sebring I think we are much closer to the championship leaders
than we were last year. Of course, we would like to be further up. There’s
no philosophy in starting slow and trying to finish strong. I think a
championship is built not only on the second half of the season but trying
to make sure you get the points early on as well. The championship is so
strong; we had a really strong race at Daytona this year and came up short
at the end when it counted. We didn’t quite have the pace in the last 30
minutes and there were three cars that were stronger than us that finished
ahead of us. In a championship, we try to maximize points when we can. If
we can’t win, then take second or third or even fourth. I think we’re
within 30 or 40 points from the lead so better than last year. Hopefully,
it’s a good beginning to be stronger toward the rest of the championship.”
WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES TO HAVING THREE DIFFERENT SETUPS FOR THE FIRST
THREE RACES?
“It shows the diversity of the championship. You go from Daytona – very
big track – to Sebring – very bumpy track – and then to a street track in
California. I think it brings something to the championship and for the
teams to adapt quickly to these changes. They are great tracks to drive;
each have their own peculiarity. Daytona being the beginning of the season
and so many long straights and then going to Sebring, a track that was so
strong for Cadillac. You have a brand like Acura that dominated at Daytona
and then Cadillac dominating at Sebring. And now going into Long Beach – a
track that has been quite even between the two manufacturers over the last
few years. We got pole position last year and won the race. It’s great to
have such a great combination of tracks where you have to keep yourself
and your team on your toes and do the best job possible to stay ahead.”
WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF QUALIFYING ON A STREET CIRCUIT WITH A SHORT
RACE?
“It’s a track that is hard to pass. Also, you can get a little bit lucky
because you see others making mistakes, hitting the walls and eventually
you can be a little bit lucky with a yellow, but you don’t want to count
on that at all. In an hour, 40-minute race, I think you need to maximize
your chances and that starts with qualifying. That’s the beauty of the
sport; you have to put it together early and hope that the race stays
green.”
WHAT MAKES THE CADILLAC SUCH A GOOD CAR AT LONG BEACH?
“I think Cadillac has shown to be very good when the track is bumpy. Not
last year, but the year before Acura qualified on pole with a Penske car
and I think they had the pace to win just like we did. Last year, it
seemed like we had some advantage over the Wayne Taylor car and the Shank
car, but they seemed to have stepped up this year in terms of performance,
so I’m expecting a close fight. But the Cadillac is a fantastic car over
the bumps. We saw that at Sebring. It’s a car that copes well with a bump
track and normally street tracks tend to be a little bit more bumpy than a
normal track. I think this is one of the strong points of our Cadillac DPi
and hopefully we can use that to our advantage over the race weekend at
Long Beach.”
QUESTION FROM MOTORSPORTS JOURNAL >>>
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE SECTION OF THE LONG BEACH TRACK AND WHAT ARE YOU
LOOKING FORWARD TO GAINING FROM THAT SECTION?
“A fun part of Long Beach is the roundabout where it’s quite tight, it’s
interesting how you have to go around the roundabout but at the same time
try to clip a little bit of the curb. You have nice pictures there;
sometimes it looks as if the car is on top of the grass.”
ENDS
IS THIS AN OPPORTUNITY TO GET MORE IN TUNE WITH YOUR NEW TEAMMATE?
“I think it’s been a learning curve after three years with Felipe (Nasr)
when you get to learn and understand each other so well. Having Tristan
(Nunez) come on board this year has been refreshing. It’s been two races
where Tristan has allowed himself to adapt to the team. It’s always good
to have Daytona and Sebring as the first two races of the season because
you have so much track time and you have time to find all those details
you need for a good relationship with your teammate. It’s not easy to just
step into DPi with the car that just won the championship to perform at
the highest level, but so far he's doing a fantastic job. I think we’re
heading into a different type of race of the championship that is much
shorter and I’m sure he’s going to do really well. We’ll continue to
develop this relationship and hopefully bring some wins to the team and
bring another championship.”
No Transcript As Yet For >>>
Filipe Albuquerque, co-driver of the No. 10 Konica Minolta Acura ARX-05
Acura DPi
QUESTION FROM MOTORSPORTS JOURNAL >>>
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE SECTION OF THE LONG BEACH TRACK AND WHAT ARE YOU
LOOKING FORWARD TO GAINING FROM THAT SECTION?
Answer Spooled Up In Video Above >>>
ENDS
... notes from The EDJE
FEATURED ARTICLE >>>
TAGS: IMSA, DPi, Cadillac, ACURA, No. 10 Konica Minolta Acura, No. 5 Mustang Sampling Cadillac, No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac, Westbrook, Derani, Albuquerque, The EDJE
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