Installation Challenges, Media Center Data Dives, and Top-Eight Qualifying
By David Phillips
LONG BEACH, Calif. – Robert Wickens experienced a bit of a roller coaster day in his GTD debut in the No. 36 DXDT Racing Corvette Z06 GT3.R. His day got off to a difficult start as mechanical gremlins kept Wickens’ Bosch electronic braking system-equipped ‘Vette stationary on pit lane for some 20 minutes of the hour-long morning practice session before the issues were resolved. Even then Wickens found himself sharing the track with drivers, cars and – most of all – tires that had fully warmed to the task.
Later, Wickens yielded to co-driver Tommy Milner who posted one of the fastest laps of the session – one that gave Wickens a target to shoot for when he got back in the car with about 15 minutes left in the practice session.
“I felt like I was just kind of flustered the whole session,” he said. “With our issues that we had at the start of the session, when I finally went out for my installation lap, I felt like everyone else had already had hot tires and I was just a nuisance on the track … I had a hard time kind of just settling down and finding a rhythm. But Tommy drove the car, put in a great lap. And then when I got in at the end of the session, I had a great reference lap on the dash to understand how to extract lap time from this Corvette Z06 GT3.R around Long Beach.
“It’s kind of the exact reason why I was so happy to have a teammate like Tommy here this weekend. I know after this practice we can look at some data and calm down and come up with a strong approach to try and find time to improve.”
If only it was so easy as all that. Given the complications of getting Wickens to the IMSA paddock on the outside of the track between Turns 10 and 11 what followed was a rather unique debrief post-press conference, as the DXDT engineering group huddled with Wickens and Milner outside of the press room in the bowels of the Long Beach Convention Center to go over the data from the practice and prepare for the second practice and, later qualifying.
The debrief must have worked as come the second practice session in the afternoon and who should top the timesheets, but Robert Wickens. The Canadian shaved the best part of three seconds off his morning’s best to turn a lap of 1:18.157, followed immediately by a lap at 1:17.897.
So much for the good news. The bad news is that during the session Wickens slid down the escape road in Turn 1 and was unable to get the DXDT Corvette turned around to rejoin the track, thus triggering a red flag. And according to IMSA rules, anyone causing a red flag in practice automatically forfeits their fastest lap in qualifying.
Knowing he needed not one but two quick laps to qualify at or near the front of the GTD field, Wickens posted a flyer at 1:18.411 and quickly followed that with an even quicker lap at 1:18.239, the latter of which would have put him fifth on the GTD grid. As it was, the 1:18.411 was good enough for eighth spot in the 16-car GTD field.