Over the past three IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship seasons, Danish racer Christina Nielsen has finished second, first and first in the GT Daytona (GTD) championship standings.
She was runner-up in 2015 driving an Aston Martin for the TRG team. For 2016, she joined the Scuderia Corsa team and co-drove a Ferrari to back-to-back titles alongside Italian driver Alessandro Balzan.
This year, the 26-year-old joins a new team, Wright Motorsports, and will be in her third different race car in four seasons, the No. 58 Porsche 911 GT3 R. She’ll also have a new full-season teammate in longtime Porsche factory driver, Patrick Long, and a pair of new teammates for this weekend’s Rolex 24 At Daytona, Robert Renauer and Mathieu Jaminet.
And yet, as the 2018 season gets under way this weekend, the No. 58 Porsche team must figure among the favorites to win the Rolex 24. It would be a first for Nielsen, but the second for Long, who also won in 2009.
Live Rolex 24 television coverage in the U.S. begins at 2 p.m. ET on FOX network, with flag-to-flag streaming available domestically through FOX Sports Go. IMSA.com offers complete coverage via IMSA Radio, which also is available on SiriusXM Radio (Sirius Channel 138/XM 202/Internet App Channel 972).
In addition to the Rolex 24, the No. 58 lineup also must rate among the favorites to win the GTD title.
“The first year I raced in America, I raced in the Porsche (GT3) Cup (Challenge USA by Yokohama) series, and I actually raced against Wright Motorsports, so I’ve known them for quite a while,” Nielsen said. “To be able to finally join forces and take advantage of an opportunity that presented itself, it feels great to be with them.
“It’s something that we’ve been talking about for years, but haven’t had the chance to actually make it a reality, and now we’re finally there. I feel like it’s a really strong effort. I’m with a strong team. I am with one of the teams that can win the championship in 2018.”
If they do, it not only will be Nielsen’s third consecutive championship, but will be the second in a row for Long and the Wright team. Last year, they won the Pirelli World Challenge GT title.
Long – whose résumé includes three American Le Mans Series championships and victories in the Rolex 24 At Daytona, 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring among many others – admits it will be a bit of an adjustment for himself and the team as the World Challenge season consists of short, “sprint” races compared to the endurance racing format of the WeatherTech Championship.
“Christina is coming off two amazing championship runs in GTD,” Long said. “For Wright Motorsports and myself, coming from a different championship, it’s going to be a fusion of a lot of different energy and criteria. The competition is tough and therefore we’re going to have to do our homework.”
The homework began a few weeks ago during the three-day Roar Before the Rolex 24 At Daytona test, during which Long qualified the No. 58 machine third in the GTD class for pit and garage selections. And even though they’ve not raced together yet, both Long and Nielsen are enthusiastic about partnering with each other for the full season.
“Patrick is a legend here in America, let’s just face it,” Nielsen said. “He’s definitely one of the names that people know, that they remember and probably always will remember. My dad used to drive with Patrick, so there’s a bit of family connections there, which is really nice.”
“Christina is exciting,” Long adds. “She’s a breath of fresh air to motorsport. I think she really connects with a vast crowd demographic of people that are new to the sport and people that have been around for a long time. I know her family really well through sports car racing and also on the automotive heritage side of things. She’s no stranger to the paddock. It’s an exciting opportunity for me to work with somebody different, somebody new.”
But the most exciting part of the 2018 season for Nielsen is the fact that she will be racing, once again, in the WeatherTech Championship. She makes it clear that there’s no place she’d rather be.
“I love racing in IMSA,” Nielsen says. “For me, it’s one of the best championships to race in. I love the circuits that are over here in America. It’s just some place where you never need to discuss track limits, you never need to worry about someone cutting too much and gaining an advantage, because most of the circuits are old-school circuits.
“They have personality, they have charm, they have character. If you go off, you go into a wall or you go into a tire wall, so as a driver, you need to be precise. You need to take details into consideration. I find it an absolutely amazing challenge to be here and to race here. I think it’s the best place to be.”
