Daytona/Bathurst 36hrs Nay/YAY

Hello All! 🙂

It’s been an exciting week to officially kick off the 2018 Motorsports calendar, to say the least.

—-Wait, I was joking…..ok only the Daytona part.

Having watched 18 of the 24hrs of Daytona as it happened, I can confidently say it was extremely disappointing. I mean, at what point do we finally say IMSA is super biased towards American OEM’s? Seriously though, Cadillac ran away with the trophy yet again (surprising, right?) and Ford was untouchable in GTLM. GTD was where the fun was at the whole race. It arguably could have been much better if teams weren’t so greedy this year with rear camber, resulting in a record number of blowouts (or at least it felt like it). That, and the 2017 Le Mans level of retirements for leading contenders in most of the classes.

I was half right in what IMSA ended up doing with the Cadillac DPI’s. They dialed the hp back (which I predicted), but went and added fuel capacity and opened up the refueling restrictor (which I was hoping they wouldn’t do but they did anyway), and it clearly wasn’t enough. The Oreca/Ligier P2’s were crazy good on fuel mileage, but were too slow on race pace to make up any ground. Acura and Mazda both had problems (unsurprisingly for both since they have either new or heavily updated cars) as well as the Nissans. Thank god the Cadillacs ALSO had problems with their new engine, but that only made the show even sadder. IMSA GET YOUR DUCKS IN A ROW FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. When the lead cars are 5 laps ahead of everybody else, it’s just sad. Nobody wants to see a 1-2-3-4 for the same car. NOBODY!

Meanwhile in GTLM, Ford played the BoP game perfectly again, as they were above average in qualifying trim but were on another continent with their race pace. Corvette were the only ones who could relatively keep up in the end, but it was another disappointing show. GTLM is usually the best racing on the Western Hemisphere, but that honour went to GTD this time around. Really close racing and a fuel gamble for Keating & Co nearly won them the race. That’s the racing EVERYBODY wants to see.

Let’s just hope Sebring is better.

Luckily, we had the SRO run (BoP Kings) Bathurst 12hr kicking things off for the Intercontinental GT Championship. Audi had the raw pace, Mercedes had the race pace and Porsche had the fuel mileage, so it was a great recipe the whole race. Lots of safety cars and huge crashes in this year’s race, restricting overall mileage. However, the WRT Audi team ended up winning after officials called the race off early to deal with the most massive accident in the last few years with under 20mins left.

Every year I get reminded about how bonkers crazy Mount Panorama Circuit is. It’s incredibly intense to watch; whether it be onboards of single laps or the regular race broadcast. I’d be way too scared to race in anything faster than a TCR car, but that’s why I’m not making a living racing (apart from the obvious haha).

Can’t wait for Sebring in March, and we will catch some F1 testing before then, so watch this space!

On a personal note, I’m happy to announce I will be getting my helmet painted in the spring. I will share photos with everybody when it’s all done!

Until next time, thank you for reading and if you like my content, give me a like/share and feel free to comment below!