A Race Engineers' PerspectiveRick Mayer, race engineer of the Risi Competizione No. 62 Ferrari 488 GTLM team, gives us a preview of this year's Northeast Grand Prix Prix race, July 23, 2016, at Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, Conn.Giancarlo Fisichella (Italy) and Toni Vilander (Finland) will drive the Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTLM at Round 8 for the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) WeatherTech SportsCar Championship series, Round 7 for the GTLM class. They recently finished sixth at the Mobil 1 Sportscar Grand Prix race in Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada.General: We'll have 31 cars at this small 1.47 mile 7-turn track, making practice and the race a bit congested. Clear laps will be few and far between with a quick GTLM lap of just over 50 seconds. Traffic is always a big issue here, especially in the chicane which has been a major source of full course cautions since we changed to this configuration. The faster cars don't want to be stuck behind the slower cars through the chicane and occasionally make risky moves entering that corner.Track particulars: We'll run the same circuit configuration as we did in 2013, which was the last time the GTLMs were here. Lime Rock had a recent re-pave so we're not sure how the surface is now that it's seen a couple winters. It will still be all right turns with one left plus the chicane. The chicane curbs are important for a quick lap time. Turn 1 will be the biggest passing opportunity, and the hill leading down onto the front straight will be important for a good run onto the straight. This corner was not flat (full throttle) for GT cars in 2013.
Rick Mayer, Risi Competizione race engineerSetup: We'll try and run as low as possible. We may have to add tilt (left side of the car higher than the right side) if we touch too much on the downhill Turn 7. Depending on the car and driver requirements, you'll also run some cross weight; normally more right front weight will let you trail brake longer (or more aggressively) into Turn 1 without inside front wheel lockup, and it also helps reduce the mid to exit under-steer on right hand corners. We'll run the cars a bit asymmetric as there's only one left hand turn. Think of this track as a right turn oval. We'll spend some time optimizing the chicane as its important for lap time. It goes without saying you run maximum down force here, top speed is quite low, about 150 mph. For GT cars that means running as much wing (rear down force) as you can balance with the front downforce. More downforce at Lime Rock increases the exit speed in the last corner and actually increases the front straight top speed. Trimming aero actually reduces top speed here. The two key corners are the first and last; you need a good exit off the last for maximum speed on the straight and good braking and entrance stability into Turn 1 to overtake.Competition: Any of the five makes could win here: Ferrari, Corvette, Porsche, Ford or BMW. The recent Balance of Performance (BoP) change will still have the Ford ahead, closely followed by the Corvettes. The BMWs are always fast here and still have a favorable BoP. Porsche is changing dry tires; they will have their tire choices from 2015. This tire range seemed to suit them better than the 2016 Michelin tires that Porsche developed and tested specifically for their car. The rest of the GTLM field will be using the 2016 tires that we starting using at Laguna. Top speed doesn't come into play here as the track is so small and the straights short; it's all about getting the setup right with the limited test time. The teams will only have two one-hour sessions to sort out the setup, which is 60 minutes less than a normal sprint race practice time. And practice stoppages are common here, particularly with 31 cars and 22 being Pro-Am.The race: Calling the race (race strategy) with the cautions is tricky here. The green lap is so short that the caution laps are only ~100 seconds. It takes roughly 30 seconds to traverse pit lane, 28 seconds for a full stop. Depending on your position in the queue behind the pace car, there won't be a lot of change left from the 100 seconds. You can easily go down a lap if you get it wrong, even on a good stop. A green flag stop will put you a lap down.We'll start with a setup based on our previous Lime Rock notes and hope its close. It's a new track for Giancarlo and Toni's last visit here was 2011. But it's a very short lap and a relatively easy track to learn. It's hard to pass here and hopefully the Risi crews' quick pit work can push the Risi Ferrari forward or if you're an optimist, keep it up front!
Tune-In Information:The Northeast Grand Prix race is available live in the U.S. on Saturday, July 23 on FOX Sports 1 and on the FOX Sports GO! mobile app at 3:00 p.m. EDT. The race will be streamed live in its entirety for international audiences on IMSA.tv and the IMSA Mobile App.
