BoP: A Necessary Evil
One of IMSA’s largest and most difficult tasks is balancing the performance in the GT category. GT3 cars are homologated worldwide and regulated through BoP so one manufacturer doesn’t dominate. However, this process can be difficult, particularly with new models.
Ferrari, Porsche and Lamborghini each released a new GT3 model for the 2023 season. Ferrari’s 296 GT3 and Porsche’s 911 GT3 R (992) are completely new cars, while the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 is an upgraded model of its prior generation Huracan. Teams can purchase an upgrade kit to bring their Huracans up to the new model’s specifications. These new cars did not have a good showing at the Rolex 24.
Daytona showed there was a rather large difference between the new cars and older cars from other manufacturers in the field. For Ferrari, Triarsi Competizione led two laps in GTD while Risi Competizione performed admirably in GTD Pro before retiring its car due to damage.
The GTD Pro Iron Lynx Lamborghini was the only Lamborghini to lead the race, spending seven laps on the point. However, Porsche had a nightmare of a race. Noticeably down on top speed, the new Porsche’s fastest race lap in GTD Pro was just over 2.6 seconds slower than the fastest GTD Pro lap from the No. 79 Mercedes.
The No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche led one lap en route to a fifth-place finish in GTD Pro, which was perhaps a minor miracle. The defending GTD Pro class champions kept out of trouble, finishing only one lap down to the class winner.
The disparity between Porsche and the other manufacturers though is more apparent when looking at the average fastest lap charts constructed by B Pillar Data Visualization and Analytics.
In GTD, no Porsche driver was in the top 40 on the driver performance report (LINK HERE) despite having five of the class’s 23 entries. On the GTD Pro chart, the fastest Porsche driver out of the 36 competitors was Laurens Vanthoor in the No. 9 Porsche, slotting in at 28th (LINK HERE).
There are other complications with BoP as well. The Corvette C8.R is not a pure-bred GT3 car, as it began life as a GTE-spec machine built to run at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and in the former IMSA GT Le Mans class. That class shut down after a 2021 season with only three cars contesting every race in the class.
Corvette Racing committed to building a GT3-spec machine, so they were granted a waiver to compete in GTD Pro with a heavily modified C8.R.
Corvette Racing unveiled its 2024 GT3-spec machine at Daytona the day before the Rolex 24. The Corvette Z06 GT3.R will compete in IMSA, the FIA World Endurance Championship and maybe the Intercontinental GT Challenge.
A lot of work still has to be done to figure out the BoP situation, but IMSA and the teams have nearly two months to iron out the kinks before the season resumes at Florida’s Sebring Int’l Raceway.
This story appeared in the March 1, 2023 edition of the SPEED SPORT Insider.
