Cadillac Racing headed to Road America in Wisconsin with high hopes for both of its entries on the challenging road course, but circumstance stacked luck against the luxury marque during the IMSA SportsCar Weekend events on August 4th, 2024. Both V-Series.R race cars fought back through early incidents in a race riddled with caution flags and wayward race cars.
The No. 01 Cadillac V-Series.R was shared between Renger van der Zande and Sebastien Bourdais. The duo started third, but early race contact forced the No. 01 Caddy off course, sustaining damage in the process. After an unscheduled pit stop to change the nose assembly and right front tire, the No. 01 V-Series.R returned to track, but was only able to fight back to a ninth-place finish after a late-race stop for tires.
“I think today wasn’t our day,” van der Zande said. “We were in a great position after the first stop. It was one of those days in IMSA where there’s a lot of yellows, and a big lottery. But, obviously, we had a crash, which hurt the car quite a bit and that put us at the back of the field… But it’s not a good day, also hurts for the championship. The Porsche extended its lead with two of its cars. It’s one of those days that you want to forget quickly.”
The No. 31 V-Series.R of Jack Aitken and Pipo Derani took the green flag from fifth place. Unfortunately, Derani spun out on the opening lap after contact from a competitor, forcing the No. 31 Cadillac Racing team to the rear of the 10-car field. Derani fought back to eighth before swapping the controls to Aitken, who muscled his way out front, pressuring the leaders. Aitken ran out of time to make something stick and had to settle for a finish off the podium as he was passed by the No. 7 Porsche and the No. 10 Acura, dropping him to fourth place at the line.
“A tough Lap 1, but we did what we had to do to work our way back into it,” Derani said. “The race came to us a little bit with the way the cautions played out. For most of the races played it simple and worked our way through the pack by picking people off and with good strategy and found ourselves in position to win the race at the end.
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Cadillac; concentrate on building road vehicles instead of race cars. No one buys a Cadillac because of their race cars. With all the money you’ll save, you won’t have to charge extra for any color that’s not white.
The purpose of racing is to build credibility, sure, but also to develop components and materials and strategy to make reliable, high-performance cars that translate to your product on the street.