Hello, and welcome back to another edition of Steve’s SimRacing Zone! Today I’ll be updating my progress once again for the 2024 Season 4 IMSA Open Series Championship in the LMP2 class.
This week we headed to Monza. This is another track where I haven’t raced on in the LMP2 at all, so we were heading into unknown territory. Turns out, I was pretty quick around here.
I had a rather busy week, so my first race wasn’t until Friday after work, but during practice I was hitting some really good lap times on high fuel (matching guys my iR in qualifying trim). So I felt fairly decent going into the first race.
I qualified 4th in a really high top split (I just made the cut, I was dead last rated of 48 drivers in the split). However, my Q lap wasn’t a complete one, so my TB was 4 tenths short. Regardless I felt good for the race.
Once it started, the leader sailed off, but I kept within distance of P2 and P3 and started growing a gap to P5. However, there was a fast guy who messed up his qualifying lap and was charging up through the field, so it was unlikely I’d be able to keep him behind me.
The pit stop was dreadful, I lost 2 places in the pits and the car just didn’t seem to have the right balance afterwards, so I started losing time to P7 and made a minor mistake that allowed him to get alongside and the car just understeered like a pig and he got by. Unfortunately, that is where I stayed, and collected 98 points, which doesn’t increase my standings.
My final race I did was on Sunday Afternoon. Curiously it was a very low SoF race in LMP2 (~2900) despite it being in top split. I guess all the high rated drivers didn’t bother…
However, I improved my Q lap from Friday a little bit to a 1:36.1 but it again, wasn’t a complete lap, as my TB remained a 1:35.8. It was enough to put me on the front row, 2 tenths from pole. So I was feeling good I could keep it on the podium.
I kept the leader within drafting distance for the first handful of laps until I messed up one of the chicanes and lost his draft, and put me in the window of P3’s draft zone, so I was on the defensive for a little while. P3 eventually got up on my bumper after some unfortunate bits of GT traffic got in my way on successive laps. I was worried I’d lose the spot in the pits.
When I did eventually pit, I came out in P4, with P3 just ahead of me. However, a bit of traffic graciously played in my favour and I was able to out brake P3 going into Ascari and kept him behind me the rest of the race, and actually started reeling in P2 by a significant amount.
On the final lap two GT cars were battling in front of P2 and made contact with each other, which allowed me to catch right up to P2. Unfortunately for them, a GT car that was in that bit of contact cut across the track and forced P2 into the gravel and I sailed on through to take P2 in the end. This was a bit of an luck thrown my way, and I was able to collect 151 points, which ups my points total to within 46 points of P1 in the division 2 lead.
This coming week in the iRacing IMSA series is at Daytona to round out the final competitive week of the season! It should be fun, and hopefully I can claw enough points out of the hat to clinch the Division 2 lead, although it will be quite a challenge to do so. I will now have to score a minimum of 184 points in the final race count of the season in order to get the championship. Wish me luck!
Here are my full season stats below (As of Nov 30/2024 8pm EST (end of Week 12 of 13):
| Races Completed: | 34 |
| Pole Positions: | 4 |
| Class Wins: | 5 |
| Class Podiums: | 14 |
| Top 5 Finishes: | 18 |
| Championship Points: | 1364 |
| Championship Position (All Divisions): | 16th |
| Championship Position (Division #2): | 2nd |
Here is the tracker for my counted results from each week (Pos / Points), strikethru indicates drop score (doesn’t count):
| Week # (Track) | Split / Position Finished: | Points Awarded: |
| 1 | ||
| 2 (Fuji – No Chicane) | Split 1 / P1 | 137 |
| 3 (Mosport) | Split 1 / P2 | 159 |
| 4 (Spa) | Split 1 / P4 | 144 |
| 5 (Zolder – Alt) | Split 1 / P2 | 142 |
| 6 (Road Atlanta) | Split 2 / P1 | 194 |
| 7 (Silverstone) | Split 1 / P3 | 137 |
| 8 (Interlagos) | Split 1 / P2 | 140 |
| 1 | ||
| 11 (Road America) | Split 1 / P3 | 160 |
| 12 (Monza) | Split 1 / P2 | 151 |
| 13 (Daytona) |
Thank You again for taking time out of your day to read this. If you liked it, feel free to drop a comment, like and share within your circles! If you are a user on WordPress, also feel free to subscribe to get updates first!
Steve's Motorsport Blog 
0 comments on “SSZ: iRacing IMSA Open Series Update No.11”