Simon Trummer: Switching to the Cadillac
DAYTONA TEST During the official tests at Daytona Speedway, Simon Trummer was able to get to grips with his new Cadillac sports car. His U.S. racing season begins in two weeks. "Roar before the Rolex 24" is what the Americans call the test drives at the Daytona International Speedway in Florida. In the process, the many sports car and GT teams prepared last weekend for the 24 [...]
"Roar before the Rolex 24" is what the Americans call the test drives at Daytona International Speedway in Florida. Last weekend, the many sports car and GT teams prepared for the 24 Hours of Daytona, which will kick off the 2019 IMSA Sports Car Championship in two weeks. The series sponsor has been the Swiss watch company Rolex for many years.
First Swiss in the DPi class
Simon Trummer will be the first Swiss ever to compete in IMSA's premier DPi class in a new generation Daytona Prototype. After initial testing in December at Sebring, where the 12-hour race will be held in March, this was JDC-Miller Motorsports' first major appearance with the two newly acquired Cadillac DPi-VRs. Their chassis comes from Dallara in Italy.
The test went interestingly for the driver from the Bernese Oberland. Not only was he the fastest of the four drivers on his car, but he was also only marginally slower than Tristan Vautier in the American team's second Cadillac. The Frenchman, who has been successful in many championships, knows the Cadillac DPi from last year with another team.
Conversion from LMP2 to DPi
The switch from the previous Oreca LMP2, which Trummer piloted in 2018 at JDC-Miller Motorsports (and previously in the World Endurance Championship), was bigger than expected for the former GP2 driver.
Simon Trummer: "The Cadillac is very nice to drive, but the handling is quite different from what I expected. It tends to have less downforce in the high-speed corners than an LMP2 car. The power delivery (from the tuned V8 turbo engine from the Cadillac Northstar, Red.) is impressive, torque is available from bottom to top. The way the car absorbs the bumps is impressive. The damping system is so good. But you have to approach the corners less aggressively and take more speed out of the corners."
Record times
Just how fast the current DPi cars have become was proven by the seven test sessions and the qualifying session for the allocation of pit positions. Trummer's best time of 1'35.066 would have been enough for pole position for the 24-hour race in 2018 with a one-second lead - but in the current timesheet from the "Roar" only for 10th place.
With 1'33.398 (220.8 km/h average!) Oliver Jarvis in Mazda Joest Racing's Mazda RT24-P beat the 26-year-old lap record by half a second. The official record, set in 1993 by P.J. Jones in a Toyota Eagle MkIII (1'33.875), is likely to be easily broken in two weeks' time if weather conditions are good.
Simon Trummer himself will not be able to get involved in the time chase.
Simon Trummer: "We still don't have enough experience with the car and will be looking at the race set-up. In free practice we were much closer to the top times, so we'll concentrate on the race."
The 24 Hours of Daytona will take place from January 24 to 27. The race will start on Saturday, January 26, at 2:35 p.m. local time (8:35 p.m. Swiss time).
sportscarchampionship.imsa.com
daytonainternationalspeedway.com
