Ganassi will run two of Cadillac’s all-new prototypes for the GTP class at the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona, before the program splits to run one car full time in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and the other to campaign in the FIA World Endurance Championship. Meanwhile, Action Express Racing will campaign one car throughout the IMSA schedule.
“The more you add, it’s not easy,” said Klauser. “It usually means your spares bucket is a little bit less than you would hope for. But our goal is to be there with three, I foresee us meeting that goal and then we’ll go from there.”
Asked if running three cars at Daytona compromises Cadillac’s plans to test in Europe before the start of the WEC season, given that the first round of the WEC is at Sebring, Klauser responded: “When we made the decision to go forward with that, we were confident that was the right move for us, and I don’t believe any of that confidence has changed. So I don’t see a huge impact…
“Whenever we turn these cars on, whenever they’re driving, we’re learning. So yeah, it would be good to get over on some tracks in Europe as soon as we can, but even as we drive around the tracks in the U.S., we’re enhancing the program, we’re making the cars better. All of that is all good.
“I’m glad that we have the three at Daytona because it forces us to have three cars race-ready in January and we can go from there.”
Klauser conceded that the schedule does mean the V-LMDh may not test in Europe until after the Sebring 1000km on March 17, but that the GM racing program’s test schedule for 2023 has not yet been finalized.
Regarding IMSA competition, Klauser stated firmly that Ganassi and AXR would be working together even after the brunt of the initial V-LMDh development work had concluded. In this way, the relationship between teams who ran Cadillacs will be shift substantially from how it was in the 2017-’22 DPi era.
“Both teams represent Cadillac Racing, that will not change going forward,” she said. “It’s very different [from how it was]. The DPi was more of your traditional customer program, from our perspective, where we had various teams with different levels of sponsorship, either through us or through other entities they were working with.
“Versus moving into LMDh, especially in the first couple of years, given the complexity of this car, and what it’s taken to get this car ready to race, we need both teams to be in lockstep with us and with each other. And we’re finding that relationship is a huge asset to the program, so we would like to carry that forward.”
