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The 55 was rear-ended at some point, which caused a fuel leak and eventual loss of fuel pressure. It may be more of a durability thing, and less of a reliability thing.
ASSUMING Mazda has sorted out the reliability stuff, they could have a great season (also assuming they can overcome this early points deficit). Both cars looked great for as long as they were in there.
On another note, I absolutely cannot believe they restarted that race twice in those conditions. I wonder how many millions of dollars were wasted in destroying fine race cars for no particular purpose? I get that people want to see racing and it sucks to end a 24 hour race that way, but it was still pointless. They aren't driving boats.
actually Team Joest did 3 tests in recent months, all 12 hours.
sometimes you just can't plan for this.
This. Sometimes endurance racing just comes down to plain luck. With the caliber of Team Joest and their success with Audi, I am confident they did everything in their power to prepare for this race. Also, I assume Mazda is pouring funds into this program because one can easily sense the PR desperation from Doonan.
Did the race restart after the second red? I lost my enthusiasm and decided to make my Sunday productive instead.
If anyone has technical updates from Joest in regards to their cars and plan moving forward, please post it! I've been looking out for news (excluding John Doonan's marketing spiel).
After teasing us with an “unofficial” track record during the Roar Before the Rolex 24 At Daytona, Mazda Team Joest and driver Oliver Jarvis delivered officially during qualifying when the Englishman scored the Motul Pole Award in the No. 77 Mazda RT24-P DPi with a lap of 1:33.685 (136.792 mph) besting PJ Jones’ 26-year-old record of 1:33.875.
Both Mazda DPis – the No. 77 shared by Jarvis, Tristan Nunez, Timo Bernhard and Rene Rast and the No. 55 co-driven by Jonathan Bomarito, Harry Tincknell and Olivier Pla – were quick at the Roar, quick in qualifying (Bomarito qualified fourth) and quick in the early stages of the Rolex 24. Sadly, however, neither was around for daybreak Sunday morning.
After leading at different times throughout the first six hours, the No. 77 was forced to retire with a mechanical problem. The No. 55 lost three laps in the first quarter of the race before battling back, only to have an incident take them out in the 14th hour.
Despite the disappointment, it was clear that both Mazda Team Joest entries now have plenty of speed. Add to that a strong performance for the team in the 2018 Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Presented by Advance Auto Parts and there’s plenty of reason to be optimistic about their chances for a breakthrough victory to come soon.
“While it is disappointing that we didn’t see the checkered flag, our Mazda Team Joest crew and drivers can leave with their heads held high that they had put together an effort that ran at the front and was a contender for the victory at Daytona,” said Mazda Motorsports Director John Doonan. “Our Mazda employees, partners, owners and fans deserve to enjoy success, and our approach was to race from the front and push ourselves and the competition as hard as we could. We’ll learn everything we can, put a plan into place to address the issues we had here and go for it again at Sebring. Racers are optimistic, and we are already looking ahead to Sebring to show what we can do.”
for 12 years i have been going to the friday gs/st event. every time it is nice on friday, then the weather goes to crap for the 24hr race. well i sucked a friend into the friday event about 4 years ago. we planned to do the friday event as usual. got a text from him at 3am thur night.
thanks SNTP, been so busy hadn't had time to really post updates here.
It's been pretty mellow since Daytona with the only real news coming out that Joest feels confident they've addressd the issues. I know that sounds like standard PR BS you'd say before a race but the fact that they didn't even leave Daytona till they got to the root cause of the failures really tells you the mindset of this team.
I think they'll still be fast this weekend, questions will be what the latest BoP changes will have on their top speed. Did I post the BoP changes?
hmmm.
I think they'll still be fast this weekend, questions will be what the latest BoP changes will have on their top speed. Did I post the BoP changes?
hmmm.
aannnnnnd, just like that....
(and yes, I do feel a little douchey quoting myself but just had to considering I JUST posted that)
Pla Leads Practice 2 by Eight-Tenths
Olivier Pla leads second practice for 12H Sebring by significant margin…
Mazda Team Joest finished the second IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship practice session on Thursday at Sebring over eight-tenths up following a flying lap from Olivier Pla.
The Frenchman posted a best time of 1:46.834 early in the hour-long session and remained on top despite a stop on track.
He ran out of fuel midway through the session, prompting the second red flag period, but the team was later able to get its No. 55 Mazda RT24-P back out on track with Jonathan Bomarito at the wheel.
Pipo Derani was second quickest in his Whelen Engineering Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R which was quickest earlier in the day during opening practice.
His best lap time was 0.815 seconds down on Pla, while Jordan Taylor put the Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac a further 0.002 seconds back in third.
Acura Team Penske’s Helio Castroneves made it three manufacturers in the top four positions, meanwhile.
Mazda leads the charts again in night practice and then this morning teams stopped sandbagging and Acura takes 1-2, Cadillac in 3rd and Mazda running 4th and 5th.
Qualifying is coming up later this morning so curious to see how that shakes out
Dane Cameron secures pole for Acura Team Penske ahead of 12H Sebring…
Dane Cameron gave Acura Team Penske overall pole position for the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring in Friday morning’s qualifying session.
He posted a best time of 1:45.865 after also going quickest in Practice 4 earlier in the day driving the No. 6 Acura ARX-05 that he shares with Juan Pablo Montoya and Simon Pagenaud.
Tristan Nunez placed second in the No. 77 Mazda RT24-P which he co-drives with Oliver Jarvis and Timo Bernhard.
Helio Castroneves set exactly the same lap time as Nunez, both 0.146 seconds slower than Cameron, but had to settle for third having logged his time later in the session than the Mazda Team Joest driver.
This meant Penske wasn’t able to lock out the front row with its pair of Acura DPis
Mazda still showing great speed!
not sure what happened to the #55 as it was a full second off the pace but in such a long race I don't put as much emphasis on the starting position.
Either way, I'm looking forward to tomorrow's race.
anyone else watching the race?
woke up this morning to news that the race had actually started under a caution flag. After the Rolex 24, I can see why IMSA decided to play it safe as I think they let that race go too long before bringing out the yellow flag. That track was completely undriveable towards the end.
anyways, with that much water on the track several team's game plans went RIGHT OUT THE WINDOW. (Looking at you Team Penske). Their setup was not ideal for the rain and Mazda pounced the second they went green overtaking the Penske on pretty much the very first turn.
Mustang Sampling Cadillacs seemed to have the right setup for the wet and quickly moved their way up the leader board and were running 1 and 2.
as the track slowly started drying off though, here came the #31 roaring to the top.
Acura continued to have issues with tire pressures, their rear suspension couldn't hold power and even their pit crew who is usually exceptional messed up and dropped the car on one of their guy's hands. OUCH.
First 2 hours and change had really good racing despite the tricky weather conditions with minimal contact and most of the cars playing it somewhat safe.
the broadcast switched to the IMSA app and it appears that's when it all wen to ****.
Not only because I can't get the app to actually load the live feed but because once again the electrical gremlins have struck Team Joest.
not sure the extent of the issues as I haven't been able to follow the race for 90 minutes but we're getting ready to go back to the TV broadcast so I'm hoping to see the #77 back out on track.
The 55 was showing good speed earlier so hopefully Mazda is still in contention.
Lots of time to go still so we'll see what happens.
yeah, another rough weekend for Mazda.
the one that really sucked was that spin by Bomarito only a few laps before they were scheduled to come in and pit.
That cost them a few laps and they were never able to recover after that.
They had the pace to compete but when you make mistakes like that, it'll cost you a race.
I was hoping their bad luck was depleted after the 77 was out and the 55 was running strong into the latter half of the race against the army of Caddies.
Once again, hoping this is the last of their bad luck.
More talk about what the next generation of DPi cars could look like.
It's still a few years out before they're launched but it seems we're starting to see some direction. I think it's good for IMSA to stick with a similar approach as the have now when it comes to chassis manufacturers but I'm sure those who want to see a global platform with FIA & ACO might not like this.
got my tickets ready for the Long Beach Grand Prix!
Looks like we've got some slight BoP updates:
The Acura ARX-05 is among the cars that have been given breaks in Balance of Performance ahead of next weekend’s Bubba Burger Grand Prix of Long Beach.
The latest BoP tables confirm the ORECA-chassised DPi will run 20kg lighter and with an increased turbo boost across mid-to-high ranges.
The Nissan DPi has also been handed increased boost in similar levels. while the Mazda RT24-P has been pegged back in turbo boost across the same RPM ranges, although receives a 5kg reduction in minimum weight.
Cadillac’s DPi-V.R., which won the first two races of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season, meanwhile, has been handed a 10kg increase in minimum weight.
It brings the Dallara-chassied DPi up to 960kg, 25kg more than its nearest competitor.
01-27-2019, 05:58 PM
