Cadillac DPi-V.R team Wayne Taylor Racing has won the opening three rounds of the 2017 IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship and is looking to continue its string of wins at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas this weekend.
The stiffest competition for WTR at COTA will likely be fellow Cadillac team Action Express Racing. The AXR crew has shown good pace with their two DPi-V.Rs so far this year but haven’t been able to capitalize on the potential. The team’s two entries were 2nd and sixth at Daytona, 2nd and 3rd at Sebring and seventh and eighth in Long Beach.
IMSA officials  slowed the Cadillac DPi-V.R with Balance of Performance changes after WTR’s consecutive wins at Daytona and Sebring. The changes, which included longer gearing, are meant to negate the large amounts of low-end torque provided by the Cadillac’s huge 6.2-liter V8 and slow the prototype down on longer straights. Despite these changes, the WTR team won at Long Beach anyway, however the long straights of COTA may prove to be more of  a challenge.
“The Cadillac 6.2L V8 makes good power, but when the air is restricted there isn’t much you can do,” said AXR’s Erica Curran. “The back straight is really long at COTA. That could be a problem for us and the other cars have shown really high top speed.”
The two Cadillac teams will take to the track for the  Advanced Auto Parts SportsCar Showdown from COTA on Saturday, May 6 at 7:00 p.m. ET. You can catch coverage on FOX Sports 11 starting at 7:00.
Comment
I understand that this Cadillac race car is a prototype according to to Le Mans specifications, or at least close to those.
I wonder why GM does not enter this car in the 24 hours Le Mans race.
That would be a major step to introduce Cadillac in Europe.
One might remember that when VW in 1998 acquired the Rolls Royce Motorcar company for 1.400 million DM (corr. to 736 million €), the rights to the brand Rolls Royce were sold to BMW. VW started to build up the Bentley brand, entering a Bentley EXP Speed 8 in the 24 hours Le Mans races 2001, winning the first two places in 2003.
The Cadillac brand is well known in Europe, but — in my mind at least — it is still thought of as a “US car”, i.e. imaged as one of those huge barges with a wobbly suspension and lots of wasted space. Participating in a prototype class in a 24 hours Le Mans race could change that.