LMP2 and GTLM Classes Will Be in Competition in the First of Three Virtual Races
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Can Bruno Spengler defend his 2020 championship, or will Scott Andrews and Robby Foley build on the momentum of their 2021 preseason result? Those questions and more will be answered tonight when the 2021 IMSA iRacing Pro Series Presented by SimCraft kicks off with the first of three virtual races on the schedule.
Tonight’s race streams live at 6:30 p.m. ET on the iRacing YouTube and Facebook pages. The setting is the virtual Sebring International Raceway, site of the historic real-life Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Presented by Advance Auto Parts.
IMSA iRacing Pro Series Presented by SimCraft: Sebring Entry List
Succeeding 2021 iRacing Pro Series races will be April 22 on the virtual WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca circuit and May 6 at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta. Season champions in the two competing classes – Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) and GT Le Mans (GTLM) – will be crowned based on cumulative points from the three events.
Spengler, co-driver of the No. 25 BMW Team RLL BMW M8 GTE in actual IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship competition, returns to defend the iRacing Pro Series title he won last year. He’s among 21 drivers on the GTLM entry list, with BMWs, Corvettes, Porsches and Ferraris all competing.
A late entry to the GTLM field is Tony Kanaan, the 2013 Indianapolis 500 winner who was part of the overall winning Chip Ganassi Racing team in the 2015 Rolex 24 At Daytona and co-drove the LMP2 winner at the 2007 Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring with Andretti Green Racing. Kanaan is expected to join the iRacing Pro Series fray tonight after completing a day of real IndyCar testing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The LMP2 class joins with GTLM in the iRacing Pro Series this year after making its debut with the Dallara P217 chassis in the iRacing Pro Series Preseason Invitational in January. Andrews and Foley finished 1-2 in that race. Andrews, winner of the real-life Rolex 24 Le Mans Prototype 3 (LMP3) class in January, will race in LMP2 tonight. Foley – co-driver of the GTD Daytona (GTD) class Turner Motorsport BMW in real-life competition – will race a virtual BMW in GTLM tonight. Fourteen drivers are entered in LMP2, including Matt McMurry, the real-life WeatherTech Championship LMP2 champion in 2019 and GT Daytona (GTD) champ in 2020.