Lexus Racing and the Vasser Sullivan number 14 Lexus RC F GT3 took home the coveted GTD Pro Championship trophy, showing hard work, teamwork, and determination. Drivers Ben Barnicoat and Jack Hawksworth sat on the podium for 9 of the season’s 11 races, including at the Long Beach street circuit and Watkins Glen International, both famed racing tracks with very rich history. Kyle Kirkwood and Mike Conway also contributed to the team by being extra endurance drivers for the team during the season.
WHAT IS GTD PRO?
The International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) is the sanctioning body of the Weathertech Sportscar Championship, in which there are multiple different classes of racing. One of those is the GTD Pro, a class made up of race cars that are purpose built GT3-style racing cars that allow manufacturers to compete against one another. These high performance brands include Lexus, Aston Martin, Corvette, Lamborghini, Mercedes-AMG, and Porsche.
MAXIM EMBEDDED
Racing against some of the absolute best factory teams in the world means you need to be on top of your game. To showcase the hardfought season, Maxim embedded with the Lexus factory team for GTD Pro to understand and see what it takes to put together a winning team.
PETIT LE MANS
At the final race of the season, the 10-hour Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia, Maxim talked about being taken for a simple hot lap saying, “We did a hot lap at Daytona with a professional driver in the Lexus IS 500, and it was intense as hell. But in the same car at Road Atlanta, the hot lap rearranged internal organs for everyone except for our driver, Johannes. He was calm as a surgeon and chatting nonchalantly while we gasped and grabbed at anything solid within reach. The track has 12 turns over 2.54 miles, with an 80-foot drop between the 11th and the 12th turns. After just one lap on the track, I wasn’t surprised at all when car after car had to be towed off for crashes on race day.”
PROGRESS SINCE 2016
One of the factory drivers, Jack Hawsworth, has been with this Lexus team since 2016 and has worked hard with engineers and other drivers to keep the team a championship caliber team. Hawsworth said to Maxim, “To see the progress of where it’s come from to where we are today is the highlight of my career.”
WINNING IS IN THE DETAILS
In racing, every little detail matters, from the weight of a driver, the thickness of a brake rotor, all the way to the amount of fuel in the car. If the tires aren’t warmed up, then you can completely forget about a good lap, or even have a crash. Everything revolves around each person doing their job to the absolute best standard on race weekends.
Each member has to trust that the others are doing their best for the team as a whole. For this season, the team was able to scrub 5 seconds from their tire changes during a race, going from 20 seconds down to 15. That may not seem like a lot, but if you are behind 2 or 3 cars and fighting for a lead, 5 seconds can mean first or third place at the end.
CONSISTENCY ALL YEAR
“The championship had already been secured. And as soon as the podium ceremony for the race concluded, the team took the stage to hoist their trophies as the 2023 champions. They did it little by little with consistency all year—one millimeter, one second, and one race at a time.”
2024 SEASON STARTS IN JANUARY
In January, Lexus and the Vasser Sullivan team will be back to race in the GTD Pro class at the 24 Hours of Daytona. Hopefully, with that, comes another successful season.
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