The weather at Lime Rock Park cooperated this year, sunny but not extremely hot with temperatures only reaching the 80’s versus the high 90’s of last year. Lime Rock is the second of two Northeast races, Watkins Glen the other, bookending the Mobil1 Grand Prix at Bowmanville, Canada and the 24 hours of Le Mans.

This is one of only a few IMSA Weather Tech Series races where only GT cars compete, all the others have Prototype cars racing with the GT cars. After racing the 24 hours of Le Mans, were the track is 8.467 miles long, they come to “The Bull Ring”, Lime Rock Park is only 1.5 miles long, with lap times of 49 seconds common, they do many more laps.

Though considerably smaller, Lime rock is a famous track and one to be reckoned with. All drivers attempt to get their best time out of their race car and themselves for that illustrious “Pole Position” or the fastest lap time of this day. Porsche tried hard and one of the new drivers, Laureens Vanthoor in the #912 Porsche 911 grabbed second place only 0.166 seconds behind the Corvette of Antonio Garcia.

However in GTD the Porsche 911 GT3 R team of Wright Motorsports finally have some luck and took the “Pole Position” setting a record GTD lap of 51 :491 seconds with Patrick Long driving, with co-driver Christina Nielsen the team was seeking their first win this year. Patrick commented “We’ve had a slumpy season and it reminds everyone on the crew that winds change quickly in motorsports.”

During practice prior to qualifying, Patrick Pilet in the #911 Porsche RSR had an off at the downhill and was lucky to not have done much damage to the car, but with only 35 minutes left before qualifying, the Porsche crew had to work hard to replace the damaged parts. Luckily many were body parts, which the team was able to quickly change, however they were not able to check the setup of the car and the best he was able to qualify was 8th place out of 8 GTLM cars.

This event was different from most IMSA races as there is NO racing on Sunday, where normally practice is on Friday and Saturday and qualifying is on Saturday with the race on Sunday. That would have given the Porsche crew time to evaluate the damage and reset the car to setup specs to be more competive.

Because of the “No racing on Sunday” rule and also TV timing, following the pit lane spectator lineup the IMSA WeatherTech race starts 3:50pm at Lime Rock.

The two hour and forty minute race around this track is basically an all-out speed sprint race with very little room for error.Spectators have the opportunity to watch as the Corvette’s, Porsche’s, Ford GT’s and BMW’s compete in the GTLM class for the overall win.

Partick Pilet in the damaged #911 Porsche RSR struggled to pass on the narrow short track but when Pilet handed over the drive to Nick Tandy, thanks to Porsche Pit Strategy, Tandy was able to make up two positions and pass one more car with less than two minutes left to the race, salvaging a respectable fifth place for the team.

Laurens Vanthoor started the #912 Porsche RSR, with hill the hand injury that he suffered while riding his bicycle, which he likes to do to maintain stamina, and was able to hold on to the second place starting position before handing off to Earl Bamber. Bamber valiantly pushed hard to close the gap to the 1st place Ford GT and was within sight of taking over the lead, unfortunately during the last pit stop the tire changer on the right front had a problem with the gun and could not secure the wheel onto the car. With this 14 second error, which was the difference in time between his Porsche and the Ford GT, first place was relinquished to the Ford GT. Fortunately he was able to salvage third place and a podium for Porsche.

These positions were very positive for the team for manufacturer’s points. Laurens Vanthoor commented, “We could have won today. We had the pace to win, but unfortunately we only came in third.” Porsche is still in third place after this race.

So the teams now head to Road America, Virginia International Raceway, Monterey Laguna Seca, and lastly to Road Atlanta-Petit Le Mans which will be my last stop.

In comparing the Northeast Grand Prix to the 24 hours of Lemans, at Lime Rock the team did 178 laps in 2 hours and 40 minutes. At Le Mans the team did 344 laps in 24 hours and win. Either way the drivers need stamina and extreme concentration throughout each race.

Hope you enjoyed the Porsche Platz and the race at Lime Rock Park. Looking to see you at a CVR or Porsche event in the future.

Safe travels!