IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, Round 8, Elkhart Lake, USA
With the Road America race on 5 August, the IMSA SportsCar Championship takes a short trip into the past. The storied 6.515-kilometre circuit close to Elkhart Lake in the US state of Wisconsin is regarded as the birthplace of American sports car racing. The Porsche GT Team fields two 911 RSR in the GTLM class against strong opposition from BMW, Ford and Chevrolet. In its second season, the 510 hp 911 RSR has won two races so far in North America’s premier sports car race series: the 12 Hours of Sebring and at Mid-Ohio. In the GTD class, Porsche’s customer teams Wright Motorsports and Park Place Motorsports compete with the 911 GT3 R.
The race
Road America, which was opened in 1955, is the longest circuit on the IMSA SportsCar Championship calendar and is one of the few courses to have retained its original layout. Sports fans regard the storied racetrack, on which Porsche celebrated a double GTLM class victory in 2015, as “America’s National Park of Speed”. They make their way to Elkhart Lake from all corners of the country. The historic course is two hours by car north of Chicago on Highway 67.
The Porsche drivers
The cockpit of the #911 Porsche 911 RSR is shared by the 2015 Road America winners, Patrick Pilet (France) and Nick Tandy (Great Britain). This season, the pair won the 12 Hours of Sebring. The winners of the Mid-Ohio race, Laurens Vanthoor (Belgium) and Earl Bamber (New Zealand), who recently climbed the podium in third at Lime Rock, share driving duties in the second 911 RSR (#912). In the GTD class, the Porsche customer team Wright Motorsports competes with the 911 GT3 R. In the cockpit of the #58 car are the works driver Patrick Long (USA) and Porsche Selected Driver Christina Nielsen (Denmark). Park Place Motorsports (#73) tackles the race with factory driver Jörg Bergmeister (Germany) and Patrick Lindsey (USA).
The schedule
The race takes off on Saturday, 5 August, at 13.35 hrs local time (20.35 hrs CEST) and runs over 2:40 hours. The race can be viewed live outside the USA and Canada on www.imsa.com.
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