Dane Cameron said he felt like being in a “paint shaker” due to the “incredibly violent” nature of his damaged Acura ARX-05 at times during the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

Cameron and fellow defending IMSA DPi champion Juan Pablo Montoya and reigning Indianapolis 500 winner Simon Pagenaud soldiered home to a fourth place finish in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season-opener as the highest-placed Acura Team Penske entry.

It came after an overnight incident by Montoya, which damaged the right-front of the car and led to the ORECA-built prototype “bouncing up and down like a pogo stick” according to Cameron.

The contact and subsequent handling issues led to the No. 6 Acura DPi finishing five laps down to the race-winning No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R.

“Juan had a little bit of contact at one point in the night, which we can now see,” Cameron told Sportscar365.

“We just did a little bit of damage around the right front aero-wise and suspension-wise a little bit.

“It didn’t drive the same after that and it was just beating itself up pretty badly on the banking.

Racing Team Nederland could make the switch to the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship next year, with an end-of-season debut not ruled out according to team principal Frits van Eerd.

The Dutch squad, which currently competes in the FIA World Endurance Championship, has eyed up a potential move largely due to the new-for-2020 IMSA regulations that mandate a Bronze-rated driver in each LMP2 car.

High Class Racing is “already working” on a plan to join the LMDh top formula of sports car racing, according to team principal Peter Utoft.

The Danish squad, which currently competes in the FIA World Endurance Championship and European Le Mans Series LMP2 categories with Oreca 07 Gibsons, has expressed a clear interest in the new global prototype platform.

Utoft told Sportscar365 that the team has been lining up talks with prospective LMDh car brands in a bid to expand its racing program to the leading prototype class.

“We’re already working on it,” he said.

“We have a lot of meetings planned around Sebring [next month] with different manufacturers about it. We have several options

The FIA has approved the “general principles” of prototype convergence between the World Endurance Championship and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship that’s set to take effect beginning in 2021.

Confirmed in Friday’s World Motor Sport Council meeting in Geneva, the FIA has rubber stamped plans for the Le Mans Hypercar platform and newly announced LMDh formula to race together under a “single and unique” top category in the WEC.

“The platform will maintain the existing FIA WEC Technical Regulations, including the Le Mans Hypercar,” a statement from the FIA read.

“The Le Mans Hypercar and LMDh cars would be brought together under a single and unique FIA WEC top category.

“The LMDh cars would be based on a new chassis, common to both WEC and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship top class.”

The FIA stated that parameters such as power, aero and weight will be aligned for the two platforms in order ensure both cars will operate in the same performance window.

The alignment could potentially result in slight changes to the LMH technical regulations, which are due to debut in September’s 2020-21 WEC season-opener at Silverstone.

WEC CEO Gerard Neveu declined to comment on such claims when asked by Sportscar365 last month at Circuit of The Americas.

No word has been given if the production-based LMH platform, which Aston Martin was set to utilize for its canceled Valkyrie LMH project, has been dropped.

The ACO and IMSA are scheduled to present further technical details on LMDh during the ‘Super Sebring’ event later this month.

It comes after what Sportscar365 understands to have been a “successful” technical working group meeting at IMSA’s headquarters in Daytona Beach, Fla, following the WEC COTA event last month.

The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship is set to face an even longer delayed return to racing following confirmation on Tuesday that the Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio has been postponed.

The event at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, which was to be the fourth round of the WeatherTech Championship season, had been scheduled to take place on May 1-3.

A replacement date has not yet been announced although Acura, IMSA and Mid-Ohio are “in discussions” to identify a new date for later in the year, according to a statement from the track.

The postponement comes in the wake of NASCAR calling off all of its races through the same weekend, amid increased travel restrictions and U.S. government recommendations to avoid all public gatherings of more than 50 people due to the coronavirus epidemic.

IMSA announced the latest postponement in a letter to fans by IMSA President John Doonan.

“Guidelines from the Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and safety protocols have led IMSA to postpone all events through May 3,” Doonan said in the letter.

“We continue to work with our promoter partners to reschedule other affected events, and more information will be provided as soon as it is available.

“Our goal is to conduct complete seasons for all of our sanctioned series.”

The postponement also affects the Michelin Pilot Challenge, Prototype Challenge and Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge by Yokohama races that were due to take place over that weekend.

As of Tuesday, more than 3,400 cases of the COVID-19 virus have been reported in the U.S., including 37 in Ohio, which has seen a state-wide closure of gyms, movie theaters and indoor parks.

The Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring was due to take part this weekend, followed by the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, which both have been postponed.

Sebring is now set to serve as the IMSA season finale on Nov. 12-14, while a new date for Long Beach has not yet been determined but could be rescheduled for September.

IMSA’s next event still currently on its schedule is the Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix on May 30, an event shared with IndyCar.

Announced at Daytona in January, plans were in place to reveal the draft set of regulations for global prototype convergence last weekend at the ‘Super Sebring’ event, which was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

While having led to delays in the finalization of the regulations, progress has continued to be made in the form of video teleconferences between the involved parties.

According to IMSA’s VP of Competition Simon Hodgson, who spoke during Tuesday’s WeatherTech SportsCar Championship stakeholder teleconference, IMSA and the ACO have maintained their target of releasing the draft set of regulations as soon as possible.

“There’s been ongoing work with regard to the LMDh technical regulations,” Hodgson said.

“Both ourselves and the ACO have continued to hold a couple of constructor WebEx meetings. We’ve done two evaluations in weeks with the draft regulations.

“The first meeting [was] with the constructors. We took their feedback and then we amended the regulations and had another review.

“Our next step will be to re-engage with them one more time and then provide the manufacturers with an update.”

Hodgson wouldn’t be drawn on an exact timeframe for the publishing of the regs, amid concerns from ORECA President Hugues de Chaunac, who stressed that the ruleset must be finalized within the next ten days in order to not face further delays.

“First of all, we need to complete them, which we’re very close to doing,” Hodgson said. “Then there’ll be a further update from the ACO into the steering committee and details will be provided at that time.”

The handover of the Mazda DPi program from Joest Racing to Multimatic Motorsports has been “very seamless” according to Harry Tincknell.

Mazda confirmed earlier this month that Multimatic would assume control of its two-car factory IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship DPi program from Joest, which had been running the Japanese manufacturer’s IMSA operation since mid-2017.

Although Multimatic has always been involved in a technical capacity, including developing the Mazda RT24-P, the Canadian-based organization will now take full charge of the operation.

Multimatic staff entirely ran the No. 55 Mazda DPi in last year’s Rolex 24 at Daytona, with the squad also present at most of the team’s 24-hour tests.

Tincknell asserted that changes within the team are minimal aside from a relocation of the workshop, with the engineering personnel remaining the same.

“I know it’s a change of workshop, a change of some staff, but the engineering side hasn’t changed at all,” he told Sportscar365.

“We still use the Multimatic simulator. We still have Leena Gade and Vince Libertucci as the race engineers and all the data support engineers are all Multimatic.

“Obviously the AER staff will be there on the engine side and we move forward.

“It’s not going to be a huge change in terms of people you see at the track but I think it’s a new shop and a few new people behind the scenes.

“It’s been very seamless. Multimatic has been very involved as a constructor right from the very start and had a huge presence in the engineering all the way through until the last 18 months or so where they’ve been fully engineering all the cars.

“Obviously there are some great guys from Joest and some of them are probably going to stay on as well.

“I think we’re ready to go on whenever we can go racing again and I think we’re in the best position we’ve ever been in to win races and win the championship.”

Joest Handing Program Over in “Strong Position”

Having experienced a breakthrough year for the Mazda DPi program last year in which the team scored a hat-trick of victories, Tincknell believes Joest is handing over a winning formula to Multimatic.

“From the Joest side of things everyone is very thankful for everything they’ve done for us and it was clearly getting pretty strong by the middle part of [2018] onwards,” he said.

“There’s a lot of good guys in that team so it will be interesting to see how that all shakes out.

“That first race win at Watkins [Glen] was a special moment for everyone and I won’t forget the handshake and the smile on Mr. Joest’s face in victory lane afterward. That will go down for a long time in my memories.

“They’re handing the program over in a strong position and we’re in a position to be even stronger and get even more wins going forward 2020 and beyond.”

Multimatic Brings “Top Level Sports Car” Experience

Multimatic has a wealth of experience in the sports car racing scene after running the factory Ford GT effort in the FIA World Endurance Championship for four years, in which Tincknell also drove.

Many of the staff have worked on both projects, something that Tincknell says will only help the Mazda DPi team’s cause when the IMSA season resumes amid the current COVID-19 pandemic.

“I know the guys and girls inside out,” he said. “They all obviously come from top-level programs with the Ford GT program but a lot of them have also been very hands-on with the Mazda program for a long time.

“They’ve done all the 24-hour testing and some of the staff come across to help out at big races like Daytona and Petit Le Mans.

“It’s a high-level program in terms of pit stops and stuff like that.

“We know how successful the Ford GT program was and it’s only going to make the Mazda Motorsports program stronger, so it’s very exciting times. I feel like we’ve never been in a stronger position than we are now.”

The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship will not restart until late June at the earliest, following confirmation that the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix at Belle Isle has been canceled.

Announced on Monday, the May 29-31 event, which was to also feature the NTT IndyCar Series, will not happen this year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

While having worked with local authorities, the City of Detroit, Michigan Department of National Resources and the Belle Isle Conservancy in recent weeks, an alternative date was not able to be reached due to “logistical and scheduling challenges” according to a statement from event promoters Penske Corporation.

Sportscar365 understands at least three possible dates were on the table, although two would have been on existing WeatherTech Championship weekends, thus ruling out IMSA’s participation.

“We looked at every possible scenario to reschedule the race, but all of them would have been too disruptive to the hundreds of fall events that will take place on Belle Isle,” said event chairman Bud Denker.

The field for Round 2 of the IMSA iRacing Pro Series is set, as 50 drivers are scheduled to take the green flag in the invitational event at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca on Thursday at 6 p.m. ET.

Following a successful inaugural round three weeks ago at Sebring International Raceway, the drivers will be firing up their simulators again Thursday night for a 90-minute round presented by Motul.

The race is available on the iRacing YouTube and Twitch channels, as well as the iRacing Facebook page, with IMSA Radio’s John Hindhaugh again anchoring the commentary team.

A special edition of The Torque Show with Justin Bell and Tommy Kendall will be streamed live starting at 5:30 p.m. ET on the Torque Show’s Facebook page.

IMSA-Wide Representation

Fans will find a mix of IMSA talent throughout the field this Thursday on iRacing.

While the majority of drivers compete in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, there’s representation from the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge, IMSA Prototype Challenge and Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge USA by Yokohama.

Names from the WeatherTech Championship include DPi class drivers Filipe Albuquerque and Harry Tincknell; LMP2 drivers Colin Braun and Cameron Cassels; GTLM class drivers Jesse Krohn and Laurens Vanthoor; and GTD class drivers Jack Hawksworth, Ryan Hardwick and Jeroen Bleekemolen, among others.

From Michelin Pilot Challenge, regulars in the field include Sebastian Priaulx, Gabby Chaves and Gavin Ernstone – who scored his first IMSA victory at WeatherTech Raceway last September.

Riley Dickinson, the 2020 recipient of the IMSA Hurley Haywood GT3 Cup Scholarship will trade his Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car for a Porsche 911 RSR on Thursday.

Additionally, the 2019 IMSA Prototype Challenge co-champion, Rodrigo Pflucker – who is poised to make his real-life WeatherTech Championship debut later this year – is entered, in addition to the series’ 2015 champion, Kenton Koch.

Real-Life IMSA Winners at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in the Field?

Eight WeatherTech Championship drivers with previous wins at picturesque WeatherTech Raceway are on the entry list for Thursday’s race.

John Edwards and Connor De Phillippi, winners in the GTLM class in 2017 and 2018, respectively, will look to make BMW Team RLL undefeated in IMSA iRacing after teammate Bruno Spengler won at Sebring in March.

Edwards also has a WeatherTech Raceway win from 2015.

A trio of Porsche winners at WeatherTech Raceway include Bleekemolen (2010, 2012 GTC) and Nick Tandy (2013 GTC). Meanwhile, Patrick Long is tied for the second-winningest driver at the track with five wins, the most recent in 2011 in the GT class.

Additional winners include Colin Braun (2012 PC), Alessandro Balzan (2017 GTD) and three-time victor Richard Westbrook. Colton Herta, winner of the 2019 IndyCar Series race at WeatherTech Raceway, also is in the field.

Racing Around the World

There is a definite international feel to the race as the entry list features drivers from 15 different countries spanning four continents (North America, South America, Europe and Asia).

That number increases to five if you include New Zealand which is part of the Oceanian sub-region that includes various island nations around Australia.

With the race being held at 6 p.m. ET, it’ll be a three-hour shift back in time for those drivers on the West Coast of the U.S. like NBC commentator Townsend Bell.

Those drivers based in Europe will be racing at or around midnight, with Turkish and Porsche Junior driver Ayhancan Guven taking the late shift in Istanbul at 1 a.m. local time.

Meanwhile, halfway across the world in New Zealand, Shane van Gisbergen will be kicking off his Friday morning at WeatherTech Raceway at 10 a.m. local time.

IMSA has not ruled out the possibility of having combined events with IndyCar or SRO America should it need to reschedule additional races later in the year, according to series president John Doonan.

While currently reduced to ten events following the cancelation of both the street races in Long Beach and Detroit, which had been with the NTT IndyCar Series, the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship is slated to return to action in late June for the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen.

However, Sportscar365 understands that contingency plans are being considered should additional events be postponed or rescheduled that could see IMSA double-up with other North American sanctioning bodies.

Speaking with John Hindhaugh in an exclusive interview on Wednesday’s Midweek Motorsport on RS1, Doonan confirmed such possibilities, although stressed that the next 15 days will dictate if any changes will be made to its current schedule.

“We’ve had conversations,” Doonan said. “With a lot of drivers doing both multiple championships and any three of those, SRO, IndyCar and IMSA, so we’ve had a lot of those types of discussions.”

When asked by Sportscar365 in a media teleconference Thursday ahead of this evening’s IMSA iRacing Pro Series event, Doonan expanded on the possible contingency plans the sanctioning body is working on.

“We tried to put some gaps into our season, open weekends,” he said. “I think there are opportunities to share weekends, as we have typically done at Long Beach or Belle Isle with IndyCar.

“I would certainly hope that we can all work together, in what will go down in history as one of the most unique seasons ever.

“It is realistic to think there’s possibilities. I know IndyCar’s got their weekend in early October that they’ve identified as an additional Grand Prix.

“But our hope is to certainly try to stick with what we have currently published and if we need to add things in we’ll look at any and all alternatives to be able to provide the right value and content for our partners and our fans.”

Sportscar365 understands there had been an offer from SRO America for the WeatherTech Championship to join the Indianapolis 8 Hour Intercontinental GT Challenge powered by Pirelli weekend prior to IndyCar taking the slot for its Harvest GP.

Doonan, however, said that “anything is on the table” in terms of race options and acknowledged discussions of adding the DPi class to the existing GT-only weekends at Lime Rock Park and Virginia International Raceway as another possibility.

“We’ve looked at every option,” he said. “We’re trying to find places that make sense for teams. I think that’s another huge factor to make sure they have proper timings between events.

“We’ve got a big old whiteboard with post-it notes everywhere and lots of spreadsheets and we got a bunch of different scenarios.”

Any decision on possible further calendar adjustments is not expected to be made until the end of the month, when the U.S. government’s shelter-in-place guidelines are currently set to expire, which Doonan said would be IMSA’s “window to reopen discussions” on what may need to be adjusted on the schedule front.

He said they are still planning for a return to racing at Watkins Glen on June 26-28, although stressed the desire of retaining ten races “at the very least” in the WeatherTech Championship season this year.

“We’ve lost a couple so we won’t have a full 12, but all the other promoters and all teams are really anxious to get back going and I feel like we’ve got ourselves in a decent place right now if we need to move anything else around,” Doonan said.

“Sensitivity is still there and we have to be socially responsible when we go back to racing.”

IMSA Could “Take a Look At” Racing Behind Closed Doors

Doonan said that IMSA could look at having races without spectators although indicated that it would not likely be their first choice.

“It really starts with our medical professionals,” he said. “We’ve got great medical liaisons on the IMSA and NASCAR side. There’s obviously many experts out there that first and foremost, need to be the gauge.

“Our business model is also focused on our promoters.

“I would always want our races to be successful for our teams, our stakeholders and our promoters. We do count on the folks that, for so many years, have sat on the hills of the race track and watched us compete in IMSA.

“Hopefully we can do that but we certainly can do that via television.

“I want to get back to racing as normal. If we could go back without fans, we’d have to take a look at that.”