54 cars are expected to take part in next weekends Watkins Glen 6 Hours.
Bumper grid in series' return to all four classes, third leg of IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup...
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Laurin Heinrich will be taking part in this race, after originally being scheduled to run the Spa 24 Hours that's also running next weekend. To my personal surprise, he'll still be in the JDC-Miller 963. I was under the impression that he would still run with Porsche Penske in the remaining MEC races, but evidently that's not the case.
Along with the return of the LMP2 category (sans the JDC-Miller Oreca), the MEC-only entries will once again compete, including Manthey Racing returning with "Grello" in the GTD Pro category, and the 1st Phorm car in GTD. AF Corse, Risi and Triasi Competizione will bring their Ferraris to once again race in their respective classes, and Magnus Racing's Vantage GT3 will also compete in the GTD category for the first time since the Rolex 24.
The BoP table for Watkins Glen has also been released, which once again has got me scratching my head a bit.
The big talking point here imo is the Valkyrie, as it gets its first BoP adjustment in quite some time...in the form of
losing weight and having it come in at 1020kg, 10kg bellow the weight baseline in the GTP ruleset.
Now, as much as I personally love the Valkyrie and its noises, I think this is a decision that doesn't
really do the Valkyrie, or IMSA any favors in the grand scheme of things. Outside of its awesome podium finish last year at Petit, the Valkyrie has yet to really challenge the top of the grid despite almost always running at the baseline BoP, so this almost feels like IMSA bending their own rules to help them out. I also feel like this puts even more scrutiny on how IMSA does its BoP, which has been a consistent talking point this year.
For the Porsches, both specs of the 963 get a significant weight break, with the 2025 and 2026 cars weighing in at 1058 kg and 1073 kg, respectively, resulting in a 20+ kilo loss of balance for both cars after Detroit. Granted, the Porsches still weigh a good bit more than the rest of their rivals, in particular Cadillac, who go into this round with a small weight loss
and an increase in Stage 2 Power after finishing 1st and 3rd in Detroit.
In the GT3 classes, the Porsche GT3 R loses 10kg, but is still the heaviest GT3 car at 1374kg, ~90kg heavier than the lightest car in-class, the Aston Martin Vantage (granted, the Astons will also be running at less than 90% power in both stages). However, the 911 is the only GT3 to have 100% Stage 2 Power. Corvette is in a somewhat similar boat, weighing only 1KG less than the 911, while having a similar average power allocation percentage to the 911 and the Mustang, albeit with the latter having a major weight advantage at 1332 kg.
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BoP of course doesn't always tell the whole story, but from what's been shown on paper, it feels like Cadillac and BMW will be fighting each other for the overall win in GTP, though I expect at least one of the 963s to complicate things. No telling if the Valkyrie's weight break is enough to make it a threat to the championship leaders. In GTD Pro, I think we could potentially see a 3-way fight between Porsche, Corvette and Ford, and while GTD is for me a more difficult class to judge, I think it's safe to say that the likes of THOR, Turner and Winward will be favorites to grab a good result.
