A RACE ENGINEER'S PERSPECTIVE
Rick Mayer, race engineer of the Risi Competizione No. 62 Ferrari 458 Italia team, gives his run down and preview of the IMSA TUDOR United SportsCar Series, Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix Presented by Hawk Performance, July 10-12, 2015 in Bowmanville, ON.
Piloting the Risi Competizione Ferrari in GTLM class are drivers, Pierre Kaffer (Germany) and Giancarlo Fisichella (Italy).
Risi Competizione race engineer, Rick Mayer
General: Canadian Tire Motorsports Park (still referred to as Mosport by many) is a short but fast 2.46-mile, 10-turn, natural terrain permanent road course situated just northeast of Toronto, Canada. This track, like 'The Glen', has significant racing history. We will reach 260 kph/160 mph at the end of the long, uphill back straight before braking for Turn 8. There are no GTDs at this event, only GTLM, LMPC and Prototypes, and a modest car count of 25 cars. We hope the AMs in the LMPCs won't disrupt the GTLM race, as has been the case at some tracks. This can cause some bottlenecks with race traffic, as seen recently at The Glen and Laguna Seca.
The Track: Mosport has predominantly high-speed corners, but is very easy on brakes; the corner sequence is in decreasing speed to the braking zones and you never threshold brake. The track has been repaved recently and the surface quality will depend, as always here, on how bad last winter was. The apex patches will change the grip throughout the corner and the ideal line will depend on where the grip is. This will also change as the track gains rubber throughout the event. Curbs do not really come into play at Mosport, in the past they have not been very usable. You don't want to go off track, as there is very little run-off relative to the speed of the corners...historically, if you go off track here, the car is usually damaged.
Setup: With the long straight being important, you would like to run low downforce, to maximize speed, but you lose so much on the other sections it ends up being a quicker lap with a moderately high downforce setup. You need to match downforce and drag to your peers, for top speed parity, to not lose position into Turns 5 and 8. The track has mainly fast corners, with little requirement for low speed power down, suiting a stiffer setup (i.e. anti-roll bars and springs). A stiffer setup typically gets you into, through, and off the faster corners better by maintaining the downforce more consistently (i.e. pitch control). Braking stability does not really come into play as you do not brake very hard or for long duration. Keeping the car from getting too light over the crests is also a setup concern. Damper work will help on the bumps, transitional entrance and exit platform stability, and the crests, but dampers are not as important at Mosport as they are at bumpy circuits. Mosport is the easiest track on brakes that we go to, and we will run a lot of brake blocking to keep temperature in the brakes - they generally over-cool as there are no hard braking zones. This track is treacherous in the rain and we'll have to sort a wet setup; it usually rains during either testing or the race.
The Race: This is the second 2h40m race of the season, the distance which in the past was the base race length. We expect long full course cautions here as off track excursions rarely happen without substantial damage. But last year's race with GTLM, P and GTDs went without a caution. The Porsches, Corvettes and BMWs will be tough to beat here, but the long high speed corners in the past favored the Ferrari. Unfortunately, last year this wasn't the case. We expect the BMWs, with their air restrictor increase this year, to be very fast here. The Corvettes won here last year and have also recently received some favorable BoP (balance of performance) adjustments with larger air restrictors and less weight. You can never count the Porsche's out either; they have the most downforce in the field. We could certainly use a good result here. Hopefully this won't jinx us, but Risi Competizione has been very successful here in the past with three class wins, three-second places and three pole positions from our last seven Canadian races. The last two races this season weren't so kind to us. Hopefully this is a rebound race!
Tune-In Information:
FOX Sports 1 will air a live broadcast of the Mobil 1 Sportscar Grand Prix presented by Hawk Performance, Sunday, July 5 from 12:00-3:00 p.m. EDT. Live timing and scoring is available for all on-track sessions at IMSA.com and on the IMSA Smartphone app.
