WeatherTech Racing is aiming big at the Rolex 24 at Daytona in January 2022.
The team will run two cars at the opening round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship 2022, and will be going with two different cars.
They raced in the GTLM category in 2021, claiming two wins, despite Cooper MacNeil being Silver ranked driver only, against all the Platinum drivers at Corvette Racing.
While the team ran two Porsche 911 RSR GTLM/GTE cars at the 2021 season finale at Petit Le Mans, they will go with two different brands this time.
Car #79 will once again be a Porsche, but of the 911 GT3 R type, that the new GT3 based GTD Pro requires. Porsche will send three of their best drivers along. Julien Andlauer, Matteo Cairoli and Alessio Picariello will be sharing the car with Cooper MacNeil.
Car #97 will be a Mercedes-AMG GT3, with three of the best Mercedes drivers. Maro Engel, Jules Gounon and Daniel Juncadella are amongst the most experienced drivers in GT3 racing, and in the case of Engel and Juncadella, almost synonymous with Mercedes, and has been part of developing this car. And Cooper MacNeil will also do some hours in this car.
The rest of the IMSA season will be onboard the Porsche, with Julien Andlauer as a full-season partner for MacNeil.
The team has opted to run two different brands, to avoid any potential BOP challenges – plus it’s an advantage to have two cars in the field, as we previously have seen at teams like Level 5, where Scott Tucker also used to run in both cars. The 24 hours race in Daytona is one of the races that MacNeil still needs to win, so he is going really hard into that quest in 2022.
Proton Competition will be running both cars at Daytona, which is something brand new for the German team, in regards to the Mercedes. Proton is a very accomplished Porsche team throughout many years, but will most likely get a helping hand from various Mercedes experts, even if they show up wearing Proton shirts.
The 24 hours race at Daytona International Speedway will be run on 29-30 January 2022, with three test days on the weekend prior.
