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,Continental Tire Road Race Showcase at Road America, August 7-9, 2015 in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.
Car count will not play as big a role at the longer 4.05-mile Road America circuit; the cars will be spread out and there's room to get by slower class cars on the long straights. This will be another fierce GTLM battle with the Porsches, BMWs, and Corvettes all having good top speed, which is key here with the numerous fast sections. The latest IMSA BoP (Balance of Performance) adjustment puts the Ferrari at a slight deficient to the Corvettes, BMWs and Porsches for the balance of the season. But a lot can happen in a two hour, 40 minute race, as we are hoping for the best.
The Track: Road America is a long, natural terrain circuit with a more traditional, European-style layout. The track is mostly smooth, with some small bumps through the centers of some of the corners; this can change depending on the severity of the previous winter. This circuit is primarily a series of single corners without tricky or technical combinations, with useable but aggressive curbs, which all GT cars will use. This is one of the higher top speed tracks we'll go to and we'll see 160mph (260kph) three times per lap.
Setup: Long straights mean relatively low downforce to maximize top speed; you don't want to lose position on the straights. This track is typically an understeer track, especially the long 'Carousel' corner. We'll adjust the spring and aero balance to help this. The track prefers a stiffer platform but the curbing requires a softer car so we'll need to find the balance. Dampers will come into play - you need to get through the mid-corner bumps without compromising the platform, and remove enough high speed damping to suit running the curbing. Road America isn't hard on brakes, but the long straights cool the front tires so you have to be careful of brake lock-ups and flat-spotting tires in the braking zones. With the lap time being long here (typically around 2:06) you don't get many laps in a one-hour practice session - especially if there are any interruptions - so you need to hone in on the setup quickly. Keeping the drivers focused on setup and not lap time will be the challenge. Our drivers never want to be second, even to their co-driver!The Race: There usually are many full course yellows, even with a long track and reasonable runoff area. The pit stops came into play last year and we expect the same this year. The Ferrari won't be the quickest here, but the competition is tight and things can happen in the race that could be to our advantage. This will be another thriller of a GT race for the fans. We won here last year from quick pit work. Let's hope we can have another good result this year.
Tune-In Information: FOX Sports 1 will air a live broadcast of the Continental Tire Road Race Showcase on Sunday, August 9 from 2:00-5:00 p.m. CDT. Live timing and scoring is available for all on-track sessions at IMSA.com and on the IMSA Smartphone app.
