- Short, Narrow Circuit: Traffic
- Right-handed Turns: Asymmetric Setup
- Highly Changeable Weather
- Recent Track Repaving
It's always a bit of a jolt coming off of the 24 Heures du Mans in France to Lime Rock - from the longest circuit to the shortest. There are some advantages to being back on a shorter circuit with a short lap, as it's easier for the engineers to make and evaluate setup changes. There are also some disadvantages: for the crew and the strategists, the sub-minute lap times make it a very hectic race.
The quantity of right handed turns Lime Rock requires an asymmetric setup; the most extreme of any other track we run on. We also need to run a lot of downforce here, especially in comparison to the setup at Le Mans. This is a short race weekend, so the challenge for the engineers will be to get to a race setup quickly in the two hours of practice on Friday.
Lime Rock is in the foothills of the Berkshire mountains and the weather is very changeable: just like in Le Mans, it can get very wet, very fast! This time of year, it can also be extremely hot and humid which makes for some tough racing conditions. We'll need to be prepared for rain and be able to make the right timing call on rain tires."
Johannes van Overbeek
"The track was recently repaved. This ALMS race is the first major event
that has been run since the repaving, so it will be interesting to see how
this will affect us.
It's effectively a new track at an old venue. When major changes are made to a circuit (like repaving), it significantly changes the experience for the driver. One of the things that made Lime Rock so challenging was the bumps and the corners; with the repaving, we expect many of the bumps to be gone, which is good, but we'll need to start from square one in terms of setup and getting the car dialed in for this new track. Of course, the number one thing here as a driver is managing the traffic. Coming from Le Mans to Lime Rock is always a bit of a shock. We have a large field here for this race and the prototypes have a tough time passing the GT2 cars here.
As a team, we've had some good success at Lime Rock. Joerg Bergmeister and I won here last year; the team has had four podiums in the four years we've run here. I'm excited to be back with Patrick again after the break for Le Mans."
Craig Watkins, Chief Engineer
"Lime Rock has always been a challenging course to engineer for - this year
will be even more so. There are all those right hand turns, but also some
left hand turns, so the trick is to get to the right compromise that will
let you take advantage of both. The fact that there is new track paving and
configuration, that's a huge change right there - we won't know how to tune
the car aerodynamically until we get there and see the speeds and try it
out. I estimate it will be a high downforce track, but again we need to
really test it out during Friday's practice sessions before we'll know for
sure. Once we have a better handle on the track configuration and the role
that the left hand turns play, then we can determine the camber and toe
angle that the car needs to get maximum grip with the new pavement. It's
about tuning the tires to the new surface. We have two hours to do it so we'll
need to work fast!"