Final season, the mix of Pipo Derani and Alexander Sims helped the group seize the GTP title within the IMSA SportsCar Championship, with Jack Aitken becoming a member of the duo to safe the Endurance Cup.
This 12 months’s full-time lineup will function Derani and Aitken, changing Sims, who departed for Corvette’s GTD program. Moreover, Tom Blomqvist, the 2022 IMSA DPi champion and two-time defending winner of the Daytona 24, will co-drive at endurance rounds that don’t conflict along with his upcoming rookie marketing campaign within the IndyCar Collection for Meyer Shank Racing.
Getting into this weekend’s Roar Earlier than the Rolex 24 At Daytona, Chris Mitchum, director of operations for Motion Specific Racing that runs the manufacturing unit program No. 31 Cadillac V-Collection.R, believes the group’s program might be considerably totally different coming into the second 12 months of its GTP program.
“There’s a large benefit from the place we have been 12 months in the past to the place we are actually,” Mitchum mentioned.
“In racing years, if you may make the comparability to canine years, I believe we’ve achieved a minimum of three years’ price of labor in a single years’ time throughout all the Cadillac program. A tip of the cap to IMSA with how they structured the whole lot.
“We’re equally ready to go to Daytona now as we have been in each different championship 12 months we’ve had. “The whole lot that we will put together within the store – and it’s racing so that you’re by no means accomplished; you may at all times decide one other layer of onion – however I’d say we’re additional down the street in preparation not solely in comparison with final 12 months however additional down the street in preparation than my expectations the Monday after the ’23 season ending.”
The six-time IMSA champions have been already capable of knock off some offseason rust and start working with Blomqvist finally month’s Daytona, too.
“Anytime you’re capable of get on monitor is a profit as a result of there are fixed updates,” Mitchum mentioned.
“You need to get to a monitor and get to a refresh level to the place issues are. For us, one among our greatest benefits on the December take a look at was we have been in a position to herald Tom Blomqvist. For him to have the ability to be taught the group, get the time on monitor with the automobile after being within the simulator, it permits us to enter the 24 with a group member who is aware of how we function, is aware of the preparation. One remark I bear in mind from Tom leaving the monitor was my guys at all times commented they by no means knew how they bought out of the monitor earlier than everyone else. I get it now.”
Picture by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Pictures
#60 Meyer Shank Racing w/ Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06: Tom Blomqvist
And Mitchum isn’t shy about sharing his ideas about how stout Motion Specific Racing’s driver lineup. “It’s truthful to say it’s probably the greatest driver lineups we’ve had as a group,” Mitchum mentioned.
“There’s a particular relationship that was pre-existing between the three drivers at a friendship degree and having a little bit of understanding between one another. So, it’s not a very new individual to fulfill. I believe any time on a group you may equalize that prime degree of competitors amongst all three drivers, it’s superb to observe how they increase their very own sport inside their very own group.
“The lap instances would be the identical, however they’re getting there in numerous methods. They will be taught from one another to get quicker, which each and every group seems for and hopes for. We’ve had that at instances all through our historical past, so I couldn’t be extra excited to see it once more.
“Tom’s professionalism, his demeanor, the opposite drivers being excited and respecting one another and wanting to maneuver ahead.”
