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Championship-leading plaid Porsche grabs last-minute victory in VIR IMSA round

Photo: Motul Oil

The 2021 IMSA season is coming to a close, and it’s looking increasingly like the Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R has what it takes to secure the GTD championship this year. With three wins from the last four races, the team of Zacharie Robichon and Laurens Vanthoor has pushed its championship bid to a huge gap with just one race remaining in the season, the 10-hour Petit Le Mans race at Road Atlanta, going down in mid-November. It looked like the No. 16 Wright Motorsports Porsche would join the Pfaff team on the GTD podium, but were pushed down to fourth with a final lap hip-check from the Vasser-Sullivan Lexus team.

The Pfaff team had their work cut out for them on Saturday, as they had qualified fairly well, but were relegated down to 13th on the grid with a penalty for the crew between sessions. With a stout GT-only field to work through, nobody would have expected them to make the massive charge that they did. Robichon had a monster first stint and got the car up to fifth before passing off to Vanthoor. Around 11 minutes remaining in the race, the leading Turner Motorsports BMW was tipped into a spin by a GTLM-class Corvette, and the result was a flat tire and loss of a lap for the title contenders. By that point in the race, the Pfaff team had worked its way up to second on the road, and was gifted the win with the BMW’s poor luck. Vanthoor took the checkered flag by 2.755 seconds over the Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini with the Lexus rounding out the GTD podium.

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#9: Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R, GTD: Zacharie Robichon, Laurens Vanthoor

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Photo: IMSA

“I still don’t believe it,” Vanthoor admitted in victory lane. “This is one I’m probably happiest about because yesterday was just our mistake. A stupid mistake, but we win and lose together. Today, the guys made up for it with triple the (effort) because what got us in front was the pit stops – amazing what they did. And Zach, the overtakes (he completed) at the start and how quickly he got by and got up to the front, that’s probably those two things that gave us the race. I’m sorry what happened to [the BMW]. We were catching them, and I would’ve liked to see a battle at the end, but it went the way it went.”

Over in GTLM the WeatherTech racing Porsche 911 RSR of Kevin Estre and Cooper MacNeil could do no better than third in a three-car class, despite being easily the fastest car on the track. The factory-prepped Corvettes started the race from first and second, while MacNeil started the race in third and was mobbed at the start by the leading GTD cars. He managed to keep the car on the lead lap before handing off to Porsche factory ace Estre, who clawed the car back into contention with speed and consistency. Several bouts of contact with the grey number 4 Corvette, however, pushed the Porsche back.

Estre’s former teammate Nick Tandy, now driving for Corvette Racing, had this to say about the contact:

“Honestly, the Porsche should have won the race. But honestly, when you kind of lose your brain and start driving stupid, stuff happens. Luckily with our Corvettes, we kept them on the track and didn’t do too much damage to them.”

Harsh words from someone who should probably know what it’s like to drive a 911 RSR.

Photo: IMSA

Porsche Bets It All In Monaco Formula E And Loses Big

While Porsche joined the Formula E series last season, the Monaco E-Prix was not on the calendar during the 2019-20 season, so Porsche’s 99X Electric has never raced there. This was a new opportunity for the German team to learn another new track, and unfortunately lady luck was not on their side. After podium results in Rome and Valencia, Porsche netted zero points from the race in the principality. While Andre Lotterer managed to finish in 9th, he had a collision with another car on the final lap of the race and was awarded a time penalty, pushing him back to 17th. Teammate Pascal Wehrlein was caught up in a collision instigated by another competitor, and was forced to retire from the race shortly before the checkered flag. When you place a big bet, you have to be prepared to walk away from the table empty-handed, and that’s exactly what happened to Porsche.

During the race Pascal started in 8th after a tight qualifying which saw him off pole by only 0.05 of a second. Traffic piled up at the hairpin during the first lap of the race, however, and he was stuck behind stopped cars, dropping him to 15th in the blink of an eye. Because the circuit is so tight and passing is difficult in such closely matched cars, Wehrlein was not able to make up ground lost. In the closing laps of the race he was hit from behind by a competitor, and the resulting flat tire caused him to sit out the rest of the event.

Lotterer, meanwhile, started from 19th on the grid. With the benefit of starting near the back, he was able to miss the stoppage that caught up Pascal on lap one, gaining a handful of spots in one fell swoop. During his second use of attack mode, he made up a bit more ground, elevating himself to twelfth. In the closing stages, he made up more places to end the race in 9th. His avoidable contact penalty undid all of that work, unfortunately, knocking him out of the points once more.

Comments on the Monaco E-Prix, Race 7

Amiel Lindesay, Head of Operations Formula E: “Pascal did a good job in qualifying and only just missed out on Super Pole. The start wasn’t ideal. When he got stuck in the middle of traffic at the hairpin, a top placing was out of reach in this initial phase. The qualifying didn’t go well for André but he did a mega job coming from 19th to ninth in the race — not many manage that in Monaco. Unfortunately, the time penalty robbed him of the rewards he deserved. We have six weeks until the next races in Mexico. We’ll use this time to prepare for the challenges of the second half of the season.”

André Lotterer, Porsche works driver (#36): “Things didn’t really come together for me in qualifying, but it went much better in the race. At the start, I stayed out of any trouble and tried to conserve energy and get into a good rhythm. I succeeded. We really wanted to finish in the points, which is a pretty ambitious goal when you start from 19th on the grid, especially in Monaco. And we would’ve made it, too, had it not been for the time penalty at the end. Hopefully, things will go better for us in Mexico.

Pascal Wehrlein, Porsche works driver (#99): “It was a disappointing weekend all in all, at least in view of the result, but once again we underlined our potential. Our speed was pretty good, especially in qualifying. My start wasn’t great. I was shunted from behind in the hairpin. As a result, my car sustained quite a few damages. I’m now looking forward to the two new opportunities that are coming up at the doubleheader in Puebla.”

It Was 2 A.M. And George Russell Was In The Bathroom When He Got The Call From Mercedes F1

If you’re in the bathroom at 2 a.m. that usually doesn’t signify good things. For George Russell, though, that happened to be the right place and the right time, as that’s when he got the call to drive for the Mercedes-AMG F1 team at this weekend’s Sakhir Grand Prix. Russell, a driver for Williams Racing most weekends, will replace Lewis Hamilton, who’s tested positive for COVID-19.

Here’s how Russell said the call went down, via Formula1.com:

“I got a phone call from Toto [Wolff, Mercedes Team Principal] at 2am on Tuesday morning,” said Russell. “I was actually in the bathroom at that moment, which was slightly awkward. He answered the phone and said, ‘George, are you in the bathroom?’ and I said, ‘Sorry, I am in the bathroom’.

“And he said ‘unfortunately Lewis has caught Covid, he’s doing well, he’s healthy and feels fine which is the most important, but we want you to drive’. And then [I had] a bit of a sleepless night and we made it happen throughout the following day.

We can all admire the quick, professional transition from acknowledging that Russell was in the bathroom to the news that Hamilton has COVID and Russell would be needed to drive. But the unexplained thing here, of course, is what sound Wolff heard that led him to intuit that Russell was in a bathroom in the first place. The sound of a fluid in the background would not lead me to immediately question whether my fellow interlocutor was in the can but, uh, other sounds might.

Getting on to the more practical bits of actual racing while also keeping this post bodily themed, Russell also said today that he it is a bit tight in the Mercedes seat. Russell is just over 6 feet tall; Hamilton is 5-foot-9.

“It definitely was a tight squeeze,” said Russell, who’s one of the taller drivers on the grid. “Also my size 11 feet were a struggle, some I’m having to wear a size smaller shoe than would be ideal, so that’s slightly uncomfortable. But I’m sure I can endure the pain to get this opportunity.”

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This has been your George Russell body and bathroom update.

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What’s Going On With Pirelli’s Tires For The 2021 Formula One Season?

Pirelli is struggling. Formula One drivers had a chance to test the different compounds for the 2021 tires during the Bahrain Grand Prix practice sessions, and, at the moment, the prognosis is not good. In fact, it seems like we have a redux of the 2020 placeholder compound, which was almost universally hated. What the hell is going on?

Pirelli is making a pretty big change as we head into F1. Next season’s tires will be 18 inches, but it was supposed to be be accompanied by a pretty significant amount of testing. We’re talking 25 days of testing just to make sure these bad boys are ready to go for next year.

As with most things, though, that plan was put on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic. Which means teams were pretty much rolling blind into the Bahrain practice sessions.

Some of the sport’s key drivers are unimpressed, though. Lewis Hamilton had a hell of a lot to say, even though he tried to bite his tongue:

We’ve had the same tire for the last two years. At the end of 2019 they brought a new tire, which they normally do. And it was quite a bit worse. So then they just said, ‘Okay, well now we just keep the tire that we had from last year.’

So they’ve had two years now to develop a better tire. And we’ve arrived with a tire that’s three kilos heavier. And it’s like a second worse per lap.

And I know for the fans, that doesn’t really make any difference. From a driver point of view, we’re working with brands and partners who are at the forefront of technology, and elevating and moving forwards.

And if you’re going back after two years of development, I mean, I don’t know what’s happening. So it definitely doesn’t feel good out there. And it’s a worry.

I prefer to just stay on these tires. If that’s all they’ve got, and that’s the best they can do, which it clearly is, we’d be better just to stay with this tire.

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Red Bull Racing driver Alex Albon agreed but had less to say: “They’re slow, and they’re not really very grippy. I reckon they were over a second off what we have now, which doesn’t bode too well. We’ll see how it goes.”

Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo noted that he thinks Pirelli is trying to make the tire structurally safer but that they felt “weaker so there is a bit less grip.”

Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari was another driver with some harsh words. “They were not a step forward,” he said. “The opposite pretty much. Probably worth a shot, but I hope we don’t see these tires again. They are quite a lot worse compared to the tires that we currently run.”

When asked whether he’d rather stick with the 2019 tires or upgrade, he added the following:

If that one is the only option for ‘21, then absolutely, I would love to stick with the ‘19 tires.

I think as long as we don’t have a tires that gives us anything that the current one doesn’t give, such as less overheating, or a better chance to fight each other, we shouldn’t get onto a different tyre.

This one is worse for sure, and it will make all the problems that we struggle with already only worse.

Pirelli is defending the tires, with its head of racing Mario Isola noting that teams were given fair warning that the new compounds weren’t going to be perfect right from the get-go:

I can understand [the frustration] because consider that they are running cars that are optimized on the current tire, for two years now. They are the same tires we used in 2019. So they have a level of confidence, of preparation, they are able to set up the current tire that obviously is at the end of the life cycle.

Every time you propose a new tire, there are some criticisms, there is a change in balance. I heard a comment — I believe it was a team radio from (Max) Verstappen—saying that he was feeling some understeer. We warned the teams that with the new construction, they could have more understeer. We invited the teams to correct the setups in order to re-balance the car.

Basically, Isola’s argument is that this was merely a test session for the tire construction, to make sure that the compound was working. The whole goal was to collect data. The teams could collect data on the handling of the tires which can then be applied to the development of next year’s car. Pirelli could collect data about tire wear, temperature, and more.

It’s fair of him to note that the 2020 cars feel strange on the 2021 tires because the cars aren’t optimized for that equipment. It’s also pretty reasonable to expect teams will make some design changes to accommodate the new compound.

It sounds like the big issue here is the fact that teams got very little say in the overall development process due to COVID-19. Their first real test session came on the finalized compound just days before December and about three months out from pre-season testing. At this point in the year, most teams will have a strong 2021 prototype developed. Throwing in some brand new, differently-functioning tires messes with the data that’s already been collected.

Basically, it just sounds like both parties got the short end of the stick, and neither is happy about it.

TikTok Is Sponsoring The Coolest Looking Car In The NASCAR Xfinity Field

Beginning at the Talladega race on Oct. 3, 2020, TikTok will be officially sponsoring a NASCAR Xfinity Series team. Driver Ryan Vargas will pilot the No. 6 machine for the final six races of the year, and even if he doesn’t finish at the front of the field, he does have one big advantage: His car looks damn good.

TikTok has been at the forefront of international news lately, as the US Justice Department looks to ban the program from app stores. Basically, TikTok is a platform for amateur video sharing popular among teens and younger audiences. It’s become a hot topic lately because TikTok is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, which has sparked the fear that the app is farming data on its users.

Whatever your feelings on the TikTok debate, the app filled the short video market left by the demise of Vine, and it’s become a popular social media site with an estimated 800 million users (that’s about 500 million more than Twitter). Securing it as a sponsor is a pretty big deal for NASCAR, which has struggled to attract younger audiences.

And it’s a big deal for 20-year-old driver Ryan Vargas. He’s a graduate of both the Drive for Diversity and NASCAR Next programs, but he’s he hasn’t had much luck trying to cobble together a stock car racing program despite a successful 2018 season in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East (now known as the ARCA Menards Series East). But he was only able to secure three of 2019’s 33 Xfinity Series races.

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With three races already under his belt in 2020, Vargas will have a great opportunity to showcase his skills in a well-sponsored car. He has a best finish of 13th despite only racing sporadically, so he has what it takes to race. He’s just needed a consistent platform on which to show what he can do.

The sponsorship is part of TikTok’s Latinx Heritage Month celebrations, which looks to highlight its content creators that are able to trace their roots back to Latin America. Vargas, who has a 40,000 user following on the site, qualifies as one of those creators. TikTok is also seeking to use its platform to highlight Vargas’ story.

Vargas was born with craniosynostosis, a condition in which a baby’s skull fuses together too quickly, before the brain has had an opportunity to fully develop. According to Vargas, TikTok has allowed him to open up on social media and tell his story.

“If you can take a moment to joke about yourself or joke about what you do, it brings you down to earth a little more and helps you relate with those who are watching,” he said.

Vargas will contest races at Talladega, the Charlotte ROVAL, Kansas, Texas, Martinsville, and Phoenix.

IndyCar’s Nashville Street Course Crosses A Huge Bridge And Looks Like It Might Be A Lot Of Fun

On Wednesday Indycar dropped the news that it was planning a new event in Nashville, Tenn. for next August, a street course that crosses the famed Korean War Veterans Memorial Bridge twice on a weird soup-ladle-shaped track. This is an interesting development as part of Roger Penske’s push for new exciting tracks since purchasing the series last year, and marks the first new street course on the Indycar calendar since 2013’s Belle Isle Grand Prix revival.

The southern loop of the track will be run around the outside of the Tennessee Titans stadium parking lot before turning to cross the massive bridge across the Cumberland River, navigating a short and tight circuit on the north side of the bridge, then coming back across that bridge for a long curving start-finish “straight” that isn’t straight.

I am something of a skeptic of this layout, as it introduces a potentially very unsafe zone to crash. It seems incredibly unlikely that a crash would occur on the bridge causing an airborne car to land and become submerged in the river, and I’m sure Penske would have quick recovery boats and emergency divers on scene for such an eventuality, but I’d still hate to imagine such a scenario unfolding. The long braking zones and a lot of 90 degree corners might make for some interesting passing zones, however.

Interestingly, the long bridge double-straight has a pedestrian bridge for fans to cross over, or perhaps even watch the race unfold from. You can see the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge here on Google Maps.

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The deal with the city of Nashville and the owners of the Titans stadium is guaranteed for at least three years, allowing some date equity and calendar stability to be built up.

I’m not sure that I have confidence that we’ll be feasibly attending motorsport events in large crowds by next summer, but we can always remain optimistic, I suppose. I do hope that this event, and Indycar in general, succeeds. I hope this takes off and becomes one of the all-time racing events. And more than anything, I hope it’s not as shitty as the infamous Baltimore Grand Prix track.

IMSA History Made as BMW Driver Scores Most Wins Ever

Bill Auberlen made IMSA history on Saturday by becoming the winningest driver in the history of the series. With 61 victories to his name, Auberlen surpassed former record holder Scott Pruett in his No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M6 GT3. Competing in the GTD class, Auberlen was paired with teammate Robby Foley for the two hour and 40 minute race at Virginia International Speedway.

Auberlen’s 61st win comes 27 years after his first at Road America, and it was done in style. The driver led the GTD race for the last 53 minutes, noting that it was “the most nerve-racking hour of my life. When I got to about 35 minutes, every little calculated mistake or whatever I was making, I would talk to myself: ‘Don’t blow this!’ This time it was all in my head, trying not to screw up, get this monkey off my back. Now we can put our head down for the season and try to win this championship.”

Marc Marquez Almost Completed An Unreal Comeback Before His Horrific Crash

Marc Marquez is the reigning MotoGP world champion and one of the greatest motorcycle road racers of all-time, but even by his standards Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix was dramatic.

Marquez started the race in third after qualifying, quickly working his way up to first before, on the fourth lap, he ended up off the track and dropped all the way to 18th. He was lucky to not have completely wiped out.

From there, Marquez methodically cut his way through the field and worked his way back to third. You can view video of that on MotoGP’s website, but suffice to say it was one of the more amazing comebacks of Marquez’s career, in a career full of a few good ones.

Which was how things stood with four laps to go, when it looked pretty much inevitable that Marquez would at least finish second, with Fabio Quartararo leading by several seconds. Marquez looked pissed off, determined, and possibly could have even made a run at Quartararo before disaster struck in the form of a nasty highside crash.

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Marquez suffered a broken arm in the crash, though it sounds like there could also be nerve damage. It also sounds like Marquez is itching to get back on the saddle, possibly as soon as a few weeks from now. Via Autosport:

Marquez hopes to be able to return for the Czech Grand Prix at the start of August, though Marquez’s doctor, Xavier Mir, admits his recovery could be delayed by a further three to four weeks if he has damaged the radial nerve.

Speaking to Radio Catalunya, Mir said: “Marc won’t be at Jerez and the goal is for him to be able to run again at Brno.

“It is an injury of some importance. If the nerve is not affected, we will be able to stabilise the fracture and reduce the deadlines [for recovery].”

Marquez is certain to miss this weekend’s Andalusian Grand Prix, but if he comes back at Brno, that will be the only race he’ll miss. With his victory, meanwhile, Quartararo became the first Frenchman to win a top division race in 21 years, since Regis Laconi at Valencia in 1999 before MotoGP was named as such.

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You’re probably pretty cool [I mean, you’re reading Jalopnik Dot Com after all] but I am 100 percent

Image: Chevrolet

You’re probably pretty cool [I mean, you’re reading Jalopnik Dot Com after all] but I am 100 percent certain that you will never be as cool as Brigadier General Chuck Yeager driving the C4 Corvette convertible pace car for the Indianapolis 500 cool. There’s no Indy 500 this Sunday, but that doesn’t mean you can’t just look at this picture for three-ish hours and feel just as excited about life. Godspeed into the weekend, folks!

This Early Formula Drift Porsche 993 Is Shredding Tires In My Dreams

I didn’t expect when I went to sleep last night to wake up with a nostalgia for 2008, but somehow—thanks to this incredible Porsche drift car—that’s exactly what happened. Back then I was still in college and was consuming possibly even more automotive media than I do now, and I was absolutely enamored with Formula Drift and Tyler McQuarrie’s JIC-Magic Hankook Porsche 993 GT2 drift car. Last night it was doing delicate pirouettes in my dreams.

This all started a few days ago when pro-drifter-turned-2019-IMSA-GS-Champion Tyler McQuarrie posted about his old Porsche on Instagram. He was prompted to do so because an account called Porsche Club Russia ripped a Speedhunters video off of YouTube and posted it to IG. It’s weird how the world works, we’re all intertwined. The actions of a Russian content aggregator clickfarm trickled down to affect my dreams last night and inspired this here post.

McQuarrie never won a round of the Formula D in this car, but he knew from the outset that it could have been a real contender. Unfortunately the turbocharged 3.8-liter flat six slung out back kept eating valve springs through the season. If it didn’t eat its engine, the Porsche was fast and easily dialed, taking a podium at the revered Englishtown round that year. Because it had a ton of weight slung out back the team installed a massive fuel cell which they could fill or empty depending on how McQuarrie wanted the car to handle. That’s genius, if I’m quite honest.

In the Instagram thread Tyler mentions that this video was the first time he’d ever driven the car, and knew it had potential. Allegedly the car was built from a real Porsche 993 GT2. In 2008 that was just a used race car from two generations of 911 ago, and could be had for relatively little money. These days a 993 GT2 can bring close to a million dollars.

Sadly the JIC-Magic car was lost to time and was probably restored back to whatever it was before it began drifting. It’s likely sitting in some private Porsche collection somewhere in a climate controlled bubble, dreaming, just like me, of its former 315mm section width Hankook-melting glory.

It’s a shame that it’s gone, but it will always be remembered.