IVRA Endurance at Virginia International Raceway
For most of us in the team, this is the second season in the IVRA Endurance league. Last year, we participated with a LMP1 car and a GTE car and managed P2 overall in both classes. But in that entire season, and including the current season, we only have one race win. Until now! Last weekend at VIR, Stellan and Philip did an excellent race and managed to take home the win in their #19 LMP2 car! Over the line, they had 50 seconds to the next car, really impressive given the tough competition in this year’s lineup.
Up until raceday, both the LMP2 cars and the GTE car were debating on the correct aero setup to make the most out of the long back straight at VIR while still remaining competitive in the roller-coasty sections leading up to the two main straights. Given the overall pace, all of our cars seemed to have found a good compromise, but it was clear that some competitors ran with a lot less aero, making overtakes tricky since the main overtake sections are definitely the straights on VIR.
We came into the race with high hopes, VIR being an awesome track to drive and most of us felt that we had decent race pace. The two LMP2 cars qualified P8 and P11 and the GTE car started in P3.
The race once again, unfortunately, became very disrupted by a large amount of pace cars due to a lot of incidents in the famous Oak tree corner. That led to some different strategies between cars and to be honest, it was hard to understand who actually led the race. Our GTE car managed to time their pit stops well and with 90 minutes to go, the car was in the lead and had a full fuel tank meaning that things looked pretty good. However, Oak tree claimed yet another victim when the brake point was slightly missed and the car slid into the barriers. We limped the BMW to the pits and ended the race there. Really unfortunate given how the race had progressed so far.
For LMP2 #29 things looked really good for some time, running in P2 most of the time but an unfortunate rejoin from another LMP2 entry ended their race prematurely. Without anyone really noticing, LMP2 #19 worked their way into the lead with some good strategy calls towards the end of the race. With 30 minutes to go, the lead was around 30 seconds and it increased further when the competitors struggled with each other or the track in general. A satisfactory ending to this weekend, awesome to claim victory in such a competitive field.