Richard Westbrook, who topped the second practice session for the 24 Hours of Daytona in the #02 Cadillac V-LMDh, told reporters that he is enjoying driving the car now, compared to when they were testing a month agvo.
“The car is really enjoyable to drive now, and I definitely wasn’t saying that a month ago – I can be honest about that,” said the Briton as he spoke to reporters after the session at Daytona.
“It really does feel good now, finally working on performance, it just gives us some more confidence going into the race,” he added.
Westbrook topped the session with a 1:35.185, almost two and a half tenths faster than his nearest challenger, Louis Deletraz in the Wayne Taylor Acura.
Westbrook continued, speaking about Cadillac’s prospects for the race, saying, “it’s going to be super, super tight. Obviously there’s been no BoP [Balance of Performance] adjustments, so everyone’s got the same power, the same downforce, the same drag levels. So let’s just go and race – that’s what IMSA has said and I think everyone’s really excited.”
The Cadillac V-LMDh had an extensive testing programme in the hands of both Chip Ganassi Racing and Action Express, Cadillac’s partner teams for the V-LMDh programme, with Westbrook heavily involved in that process to get the new car fully up to speed.
When asked about the specifics of how the car’s better, Westbrook said it was just handing and performance. “Just handling. These cars are so complicated to run, and you’re just running it for the sake of running it in the beginning. There’s so much going on that you don’t really have time to focus on performance,” he said.
“Obviously, there’s a lot of emphasis on durability in the beginning and rightly so, but now, finally, we can work on performance. And that’s the same for other manufacturers as well, not just Cadillac, but we’re worried about ourselves and we’re improving every run. I think everyone’s pretty happy in the Cadillac campright now,” he concluded.
In terms of the practice session, which saw a total of five red flags, Westbrook said it was a tough session. “It was really tough today. I think we saw more red flags than we saw at the whole of the Roar. Obviously teams are going through engine changes, that sort of thing, and drivers are probablya bit more excited now we’re at race weekend. Yeah, it was annoying, but it was the same for everyone,” he said when asked if the stoppage periods affected his team’s programme.
Mikael Grenier, fastest in the GTD category in the second practice session, had similar thoughts. “Yes, for sure, a bit annoying because it interrupts the run plan, but I also think it’s something we can expect when there’s 61 cars on track,” said the Canadian. “During the night session I think there’ll be a lot of full course yellow, hopefully not too many, but I think we’ll have to get used to it,” he added.
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