We normally know B1 and B2 from a famous kids show, but they will now enter the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship – or at least sort of.
JDC Miller Motorsport has run the IMSA series with car #85, which throughout the paddock has been known as the Banana Boat due to it’s yellow and black livery, but will now get a sister – or perhaps we should call it a brother, to stay in the B1 and B2 terminology.
The team has participated with two ORECA LMP2 cars throughout the 2018 season, with #85 running in yellow and black colours, while #99 ran the red Gainsco colours. Gainsco has opted to step away from their long time involvement in motorsport, but JDC Miller Motorsport will keep running with two cars.
They will run very some interesting driver line-ups for the Daytona 24 hours race.
Stephen Simpson will move into #84, while Simon Trummer from 2018 #85 will be his co-driver throughout the full season. For the four Michelin Endurance Cup races, which Daytona is one of, they will be joined by Chris Miller. The fourth driver at the Daytona race will be Juan Piedrahita, who has been racing in Indy Lights lately, and actually ran for JDC in 2010-2013 in the Star Mazda Championship.
Photo Courtesy of IMSA / Jake Galstad
Misha Goikhberg will stay in #85, and will team up with former Spirit of Daytona driver Tristan Vautier as teammate throughout the season. Vautier has raced for the team in the past, before he got the chance at a different Cadillac DPi V.R team. He didn’t show off his best side throughout the season, resulting in a lot of damaged bodywork. If he can reduce those errors, while still keeping up the speed, we might be up for a very interesting combo. They will be joined by Devlin DeFrancesco, who did a few races for the team in 2018 too. Fourth driver will be Rubens Barrichello, who returns to Daytona for the 5th time. His latest race was for Konica Minolta Wayne Taylor Racing back in 2016, and knows the Cadillac chassis from its European sister, in the shape of the Dallara LMP2 car, from when he raced at Racing Team Nederland at Le Mans 2016. The Cadillac car is built on the Dallara chassis, but with a completely different aerodynamic.
Piedrahita will move into #84 for the three remaining MEC races, since DeFrancesco and Barrichello only will do the Daytona race,.
The two brand new Cadillac DPi V.R cars will be shown at the ROAR before the 24 test at the start of January, before the 57th edition of the Rolex 24 at Daytona being run on 26-27 January 2019.
We still await the final confirmation, if the race suits will be designed like pyjamas…
