Once again, Marshall Pruett is a journalistic machine. He continues to turn out high quality pieces on open wheel and sportscar topics. The latest is a rewind on the IMSA test at Daytona posted on Racer.com. Marshall has lots of goodies about people, tires, testing, Balance of Performance and development.
Perhaps the most potentially disappointing tidbit is the note that a deal between IMSA and either Aston Martin or Mercedes is unlikely which means no customer GT cars on the IMSA grid in 2016.
DragonSpeed brought two SLS models to the test and TRG had an Aston Martin in action as well. (Incidentally, the Sportscar365 team posted several reports on the test. If you haven’t read the Tuesday notebook or the Wednesday notebook, they are both worth a read. The site also features photo galleries like this. Dailysportscar also has posted a photo gallery from the test.)
AMG has said that their order books for the new GT3 are busy and existing customers are first in line, so they weren’t expecting to have cars available – at least early in the season.
It could still be an interesting IMSA season with a new Audi, a gaggle of Lamborghinis, a new BMW M6 platform, a new Porsche 911, a new Ford GT, the new Ferrari 488, the return of the Viper, and other news, but hopefully the Aston Martin and Mercedes can find their way to the grid at some point. The more the merrier…