Covette Racing’s Jordan Taylor says, ‘It’s nice to be back to old-school racing.’
Brian ClearyGetty Images
- The big change this year is the elimination of the GT Le Mans class, replaced by the GT Daytona Pro class.
- The LMP2 and LMP3 classes have the weekend off – there simply isn’t room for another 25 cars on the small track.
- There are only six DPi Prototypes on the 27-car entry list—four Cadillacs and two Acuras.
From 24 hours, to 12 hours, to 100 minutes.
From a long, flowing 3.56-mile roval to a long, semi-flowing, flat, very bumpy 3.74-mile road course, to a tight street course at just 1.968 miles.
From an entry list of 61 cars in five classes, to 53 cars in five classes, to 27 cars in three classes.
That’s the first three races in the 2022 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship series—the Rolex 24 at Daytona, the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, and Saturday’s Acura Grand Prix at Long Beach. It seems a little schizophrenic but it works—teams and drivers face three very different situations in the opening trio of races.
Jordan Taylor
Greg DohertyGetty Images
“It’s nice to be back to old-school racing,” said Jordan Taylor, co-driver of the No. 3 Corvette C8.R, in a Zoom interview, “and that’s what we usually get at Long Beach.”
Indeed we do. Qualifying is critical at Long Beach because passing can be difficult and sometimes full-contact, and track position is everything. “As far as street courses go, it’s definitely one of the more enjoyable ones,” said Taylor, who won his class at Sebring with co-driver Antonio Garcia. “It has good passing zones and is very raceable. When you go to other street courses, you can get stuck in line a lot of times.”
Corvette Racing has won Long Beach eight times, so the track has been good to the brand. Unlike years previous, though, there is only one Corvette instead of two. Chevrolet dispatched the No. 4 car to Europe to race in the World Endurance Championship series.
The big change this year is the elimination of the GT Le Mans class, replaced by the GT Daytona Pro class. The GT Daytona and GT Daytona Pro cars are identical, so pros like Taylor and the other five entries in the class won’t have the speed advantage over the GT Daytona cars like the GT Le Mans cars have always had, so it could be a challenge for the Pros to pick their way through the field of 15 GT Daytona cars, especially when one of the 11 Gold- or Platinum-rated drivers are at the wheel.
Cooper MacNeil drives the WeatherTech-backed No. 79 Mercedes AMG GT3.
Icon SportswireGetty Images
Point of clarification: The GT Daytona cars can have a top-rated Gold or Platinum driver, but the co-driver must be an amateur-level Bronze- or Silver-rated driver. The Pro class is all Gold and Platinum drivers, except for one lone Silver, Cooper MacNeil in the WeatherTech-backed No. 79 Mercedes AMG GT3. While the Pros are running against each other and not against the GT Daytona cars, they are bound to get mixed together, which should make for a lot more passing in GT than we’re used to seeing.
STANDINGS, PRINTABLE PDF
The LMP2 and LMP3 classes have the weekend off – there simply isn’t room for another 25 cars on the small track. “I think it will be quite a bit better without the LMP3 cars and some of the amateurs in LMP2. They were probably the biggest issue at the first two races,” Taylor said. “Restarting behind those guys at Daytona and Sebring was always interesting. If you were able to get by an amateur in an LMP3 and keep them between you and someone else, you could create a pretty big gap.
“Without that, I think the racing in our class will be a bit tighter now since you don’t have that kind of option to split the class up,” he said. “It’s going to feel like you’re flat-out for pretty much all 100 minutes.”
There are only six DPi Prototypes on the entry list—four Cadillacs and two Acuras. The DPi field is likely to be thin for the rest of the year as the Prototype teams gear up for the debut of the all-new GTP Prototype at Daytona next year. Fortunately, there are plenty of LMP2 and LMP3 cars to bulk up the Prototype presence.
As for the DPi class: “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,” said veteran Richard Westbrook, in a Zoom interview.
Richard Westbrook co-drives the No. 5 Mustang Sampling Cadillac.
Icon SportswireGetty Images
Westbrook co-drives the No. 5 Mustang Sampling Cadillac that is currently leading the points. “The track I know, but it’s the first time there 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.”
The Acura Grand Prix at Long Beach can be seen live Saturday at 5 p.m. on the USA Network and the Peacock streaming service. Radio Le Mans will be broadcasting the race, and it can be heard live at IMSA.com.
Keyword: What to Watch at Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach