Prototype points leader drives the No. 02 Cadillac of Chip Ganassi Racing with co-driver Earl Bamber.
Three races into the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season and the Prototype points leader is the No. 02 Cadillac of Chip Ganassi Racing, with co-drivers Earl Bamber and Alex Lynn.
Alex who?
Earl Bamber is well-known to IMSA fans, having won a GT Le Mans championship for Porsche, as well as a WEC title. But this is Lynn’s first full year in IMSA, having spent some of 2017 as the third driver for Wayne Taylor Racing, with a Sebring win to his credit. The fact that Lynn had raced at Sebring was a real help, because for most of the 2022 season, that won’t be the case.
Alex Lynn
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“Obviously, I’ve never been there, which is sort of the situation with most of the tracks this year,” Lynn said in a Zoom interview. “It’s a very iconic track. Great scenery, very famous corner and I just look forward to driving it.”
The fact that the 28-year-old Lynn is new to the full-time IMSA DPi Prototype roster doesn’t mean he’s a typical rookie. The British driver climbed through the ranks in Europe, staring out in karts, and then Formula Renault, spending most of his career in open-wheel series like FIA Formula 3, as well as GP2 and GP3. After winning the GP3 title, he was a test driver for Lotus’ F1 team, then he became the development driver for the Williams F1 team, but that was as close to a Formula 1 career as he got.
Lynn began racing in Formula E in 2016, and continued with several different teams in that series through 2021, including a win last year with the Mahindra Racing team, plus two more podium finishes.
All along he has raced in sports cars, winning the 2020 24 Hours of Le Mans in the LM GTE Pro class for Aston Martin. Ganassi, with his eye for talent and his appreciation for drivers with extensive experience in Europe, signed Lynn to be Bamber’s co-driver in the No. 02, a team car to the No. 01 Cadillac with drivers Sebastien Bourdais and Renger van der Zande.
Lynn and Bamber finished sixth at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, first at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, and a strong second at the Long Beach Grand Prix. “I know it’s my first year with Ganassi, but it seems that we’re getting that Ganassi work ethic fully integrated now into this program. Obviously, they came from the Ford GT, which was a very competitive program for them, and one year out and then coming back in with the prototype — I think it took a bit of time to get everything back in sequence with how they would want to run a racing team.
Alex Lynn finished 12th in the 2021 Formula E standings.
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“They obviously run a very successful IndyCar team and now it’s really clicking into place with team members really hitting their stride, new personnel coming in and starting to make a difference, new mechanics, engineers that have been promoted with fresh ideas. That’s now starting to bear fruit for us. That’s how I see it coming together at the moment.”
Bamber and Lynn have 1,005 points in this very young season, just three ahead of the second-place team of Tristan Vautier and Richard Westbrook in the No. 5 Mustang Sampling Cadillac. The pair of Acuras are next, then the Cadillac of Bourdais and van der Zande.
IMSA POINTS STANDINGS, PRINTABLE PDF
“I think Chip Ganassi Racing is a great team,” Lynn understated. “It’s been evident for a long time, and now that the program is gaining a lot of momentum and a lot of traction, I think we’re now trying to implement a lot of features going into the future and it’s time to bear fruit for us. It’s still early days so we have to remain very humble and continue working very hard.”
Having Bamber as a co-driver, and Bourdais and van der Zande as teammates, is helping accelerate Lynn’s learning curve. “As a driver having a teammate in your car that has been there and won it, that is helping fast forward my learning procedure at different tracks. Obviously, I won races in ’17—I was the third driver at that point—and (leaning) on Ricky Taylor and letting him do all the hard work. Now, when you’re the main driver as well, you have to really fast forward a lot of learning processes to be able to compete straight away. I’m using that as a good launch pad.”
The two-hour, 40-minute Hyundai Montery Sports Car Championship at Laguna Seca takes place on Sunday May 1 at 3:10 pm ET. Live coverage begins on NBC at 3 p.m. Thirty-two cars are entered in the four classes competing – LMP3 is taking the weekend off.
Keyword: Alex Lynn Makes Unlikely Transition from Formula E to Top of IMSA DPi Standings