All WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTD Pro and GTD cars are competing with torque sensors attached to their rear axles for the first time this season, as IMSA moves to adopt the same performance balancing strategy that is currently used for the FIA WEC and ELMS LMGT3 classes.
As in GTP, these sensors — which feed live acceleration, horsepower and torque curve data to the series — have been introduced to assist the Balance of Performance process throughout the season. Despite the added cost for the teams (estimated to come in at around $250,000 a year per car) this move appears to have been welcomed by a large section of the paddock.
For the majority of the manufacturers involved, preparing for this change has been a relatively straightforward task. The components themselves are identical to the ones used in LMGT3 and all the hard work to get up to speed was done ahead of the 2024 FIA WEC season with lessons learned in the early races last year.
However, Mercedes-AMG — which wasn’t represented on the FIA WEC’s LMGT3 grid for the category’s inaugural season (and doesn’t compete with a prototype in Hypercar or GTP) — is totally new to this technology and its practical application heading into 2025.
As a result, it has some catching up to do early in the season and, specifically in Daytona, with the five AMG GT3s entered for the season opener.
“We are the manufacturer with the least experience with the sensors as we missed out on participating in WEC last year,” Stefan Wendl, head of Mercedes-AMG customer racing, told RACER ahead of the start of Roar Before The 24.
“We know we start on a different level to the others, so we are trying to gather as much data as possible and make the best out of it.