The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship will be back racing this weekend, but there will be three fewer cars on the starting grid, compared to the original entry list for the Mid-Ohio race
Porsche has pulled out both their GTLM cars. The reasoning behind is three of their four IMSA drivers were present at Le Mans last weekend. Three members of the Porsche outfit was tested positive for COVID-19 following that event. Porsche haven’t revealed which of the Le Mans teams, nor if it was drivers, engineers or mechanics being tested positive. But the German brand has opted to isolate everybody who was present at Le Mans. Only Earl Bamber wasn’t present at Le Mans.
That will also have an influence on their Nürburgring 24 hours line-up, where a of their Le Mans drivers should have run another 24 hours. So there are some vacant seats on that list, and one of them will be filled by the beforementioned Bamber.
The two Porsche cars are currently 5th and 6th in the IMSA championship standings, in their final IMSA season for now. They announced their departure from GTLM following the 2020 season, earlier this year.
Photo Courtesy of IMSA / Michael L. Levitt
WeatherTech Racing has opted to pull their Ferrari 488 GT3 EVO from the GTD category, since Cooper MacNeil will do the Ferrari Challenge at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca instead of the IMSA race in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
It hasn’t been a good season for the team in IMSA this year. They got their best result at Road America, where they finished fourth in the rain. MacNeil and teammate Toni Vilander are just 9th in the standings, 31 points from the lead. A win gives them 32 points, and all cars starting the race, will score points. So that basically makes it impossible to catch up those 31 points. So the team, that is run by Scuderia Corsa, has chosen to skip this IMSA race.
It is kind of strange, that the title sponsor of the series, has chosen to pull their own entry – only to drive at the circuit, which they sponsor.
Both Porsche and WeatherTech Racing are expected to be back to the series once again, when they race at Charlotte Motor Speedway in two and a half weeks.
