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 last week we headed to Daytona to round out the season. Daytona isn’t a track that suits my driving style. The unique layout with the banking means having to run a very stiff suspension setup, which makes the car extremely sensitive under the braking zones and locks up very easily.
I struggled all week trying to wrap my head around the car setup and figuring out the best lines through the corners. I buried my head in Garage61 data and watched other people’s fast laps. It was all for naught, as I had zero confidence in the car. I was incredibly frustrated and almost decided not to race. Turn 1 and the bus stop were my two Achilles heel’s, but ultimately I just had to buckle up and do my best.
I was only able to do a single race on Sunday morning, due to my busy personal holiday season schedule, and it didn’t go well. I qualified 11th of 13, 1s off pole and only 0.3s off my best time on a full tank. The race started well, I got up to 7th relatively early. However, a hard-charger coming back up through the field after spinning early gave me a shove in the esses after turn 1 and gave my car damage and I fell all the way to last place. I retired with 5mins to go after the tires had enough and I was losing too much time to think about gaining places back.
It was a very sour end to the championship, one where I can look back on and be proud of on the whole. My goal was to improve from my form last season and try to crack the top 5 in Division 2 standings, and perhaps maybe a top 20 or 25 overall. I did not expect to be fighting for the championship going into the drop rounds, so I am really happy with the result. I would have won with this seasons average points total if this was the previous season, so I can’t be too upset by not getting the P1 certificate this season.
Moving on to what the future holds, I generally know where I need to improve further, but it’ll be difficult to do that on my own. I almost feel like I need some level of driver coaching to take that next step up in performance. We’ll have to see once I start getting my head wrapped around the GTP car.
Speaking of which, I will be taking a break from making a full attack at the championship for a little while. I want to get comfortable with the GTP car before making any attempt at a full season go. I mentioned in the first post that I wanted to drive the 963, but with the Ferrari 499P coming next build, I might switch to that if it suits me better.
I’ll probably run some races in both the IMSA fixed and Open series championships to get my feet wet, but might also try my hand in this new Prototype Challenge series.
What I also want to do is run some oval races to get my license to at least a B class so I can run Indycar races on the side. So it’ll be going back to fully enjoying simracing, and not having to really concentrate and dedicate my time on a single car class; who knows, it might make me a better simracer!
That being said, here the final full season stats below!
| Races Completed: | 35 |
| Pole Positions: | 4 |
| Class Wins: | 5 |
| Class Podiums: | 14 |
| Top 5 Finishes: | 18 |
| Championship Points: | 1364 |
| Championship Position (All Divisions): | 18th |
| 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 |
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