ROCK HILL, S.C. (May 30, 2018) – CORE autosport heads to Detroit for the second temporary street circuit on the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship calendar: the Chevrolet Sports Car Classic at Belle Isle.
Compared to Long Beach, the Detroit street circuit is longer and faster, something drivers Jon Bennett and Colin Braun enjoy and think the ORECA 07 LM P2 will adapt well to.
Similar to Long Beach, the race is one hour and 40 minutes in length, but instead of sharing the track with the GTLM cars, the Prototype field will race alongside the GTD category. Two two classes combine for a total of 25 cars on the Detroit entry list.
Noteworthy
- CORE’s best finish at Detroit is second in 2016, driving in the Prototype Challenge category.
- Jon Bennett and Colin Braun finished eighth last year at Detroit in a Porsche 911 GT3 R.
- Bennett recently announced he will drive in the Road to Le Mans support series at this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. He will team with Nic Jönsson in a YMR Motorsport Ligier LMP3.
JON BENNETT
Driver: No. 54 ORECA 07 LM P2
“Street courses are difficult tracks to properly set up a race car since testing is not possible and track time is scarce. We did learn a few things at Long Beach that will give us a great start point for optimizing the car for Detroit.
“Both tracks share many traits. The first sessions of the event tend to be low grip until the race cars add rubber to the surface and clean the dust and marbles from the racing line. Detroit tends to be a faster circuit overall that flows a bit better than Long Beach.
“Passing is always a challenge at a street circuit. With 25 cars entered, traffic should be reasonable. The GTD cars have high top speeds and good low speed grip in braking and cornering. Controlled aggression will be key in getting through the traffic.”
COLIN BRAUN
Driver: ORECA 07 LM P2“Long Beach has quite a few slow corners. Detroit, for a street course, is pretty quick. I think Jon and I both enjoy Detroit because of the fast nature of the track. It’s neat to find a street course that has some fast, flowing corners. That makes it a fun challenge for drivers and engineers, because you want a good platform for the fast corners, but you want to make good grip in the slower corners.
“We’re still learning a lot about how the ORECA works. The first session at Long Beach was our first time on a street course with the car and it demands a totally different set up from anything else. We’re excited to go to Detroit because we felt like we learned a lot at Long Beach that will apply to Detroit.
“I think traffic with the class mix that we have in Detroit is going to be more of a situation to work through than Long Beach with the GTLM cars. We’ll be lapping the GTD cars more often and there are more of them. It’s going to be an issue depending on how many yellows we get.”