A year ago, Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s 2.439-mile, 14-turn road course was new to many of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship teams and drivers. Porsche Penske Motorsport used that, and a lot of home-track testing, to its advantage and dominated the 2h40m race with a one-two finish for its Porsche 963s. This year the track may be familiar to most everyone, but the twist of the Battle on the Bricks now being a six-hour race will certainly change the fortunes of some.
“The Indianapolis six hours will be a new challenge as it enters the endurance rounds of the championship,” said Pipo Derani, whose Whelen Cadillac Racing V-Series.R showed good pace at Indy last year, but not on a level with the PPM Porsches. “It’s also a very peculiar racetrack, one that can create a lot of marbles off-track. It’s most likely going to create a very interesting endurance event, and I am looking forward to that.
“I also think it’s nice that the championship will now finish with two endurance races in a row, which can create a lot of interesting battles and different strategies around not only the overall championship but also the endurance championships.”
Tire strategy will play a big part as the GTP teams have seven sets of hard-compound Michelins to use for qualifying and race, notes PPM’s Nick Tandy, who would like to see a better result for the No. 6 963 he shares with Mathieu Jaminet than they have typically had in endurance races.
“The obvious point around it, I would say, with Michelin limiting the amount of tire sets that we get for all races, it changes how you go about the race, from a strategy point of view,” he said. “From a driving point of view, I wouldn’t say it changes too much going from just under a three to a six, but I guess we’ll find out.
“Indianapolis is a short lap. The tracks where there are short laps tend to make the stints feel very long. If it’s a hot day — which it can be — it’ll be tough, but managing tires really is going to be is going to be key.”