Bold strategy almost pays off at Road America

Ben Barnicoat returned to Road America over the weekend as the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship returned to action. An incident-filled race offered the #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 the opportunity to run a different strategy to the competition, which almost came to fruition, but Ben and his teammate Aaron Telitz were unlucky with how the caution periods played out. After moving into the lead of the race, with the strategy playing out in the early stages, at the chequered flag, the pair scored P9 in GTD Pro.

Ben was back in IMSA action looking for a strong result to kickstart the latter half of the season, having claimed his, and Vasser Sullivan’s, first ever IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship victory in 2022. Early pace looked strong, but qualifying saw the #14 end the session out of position, in P9.

The Sportscar Grand Prix got underway in warm, dry conditions, but only very briefly before the first of multiple cautions were thrown. A first lap incident brought the race almost immediately under Full Course Yellow. After an extended caution, a second incident shortly after the restart saw much of the GTD Pro field opt to pit. The #14 crew rolled the first strategy call of the race, choosing for Ben’s teammate, Aaron, to take track position and not stop for fuel or tyres, climbing up to P3. The restart, with just over two hours remaining, saw the #14 in the thick of a battle for the final podium position, before eventually gaining a further position just 15 minutes later.

Another bold move from the pitwall would see the fluro yellow and black Lexus take the race lead as yet another Full Course Yellow was thrown. With Aaron still to make a first stop, compared the field which had made several stops at this point, an impressive fuel save strategy had given the team significant gains in track position. However, running on aging tyres meant a tough defense on the restart against the competition, and another full course caution followed shortly after. A huge fuel save effort in the opening stint took the #14 to mid-distance, before stopping with only 27 green flag laps completed.

With 1 hour 15 minutes remaining, and the race back to green flag running, Ben took over the Lexus RC F GT3 and joined the race just inside the top 10. Running a very different pitstop cycle to the rest of the field, the team now had a chance to climb up the order as cars ahead pitted. Further incidents and committed driving would bring Ben more in to play as he hustled his way up the order, moving quickly up to P5 with just over 40 minutes remaining. On the restart, with little more than half an hour on the clock, Ben was just four seconds off the race lead again. A possible result was on the cards, but would be dependent on if any further caution periods played out. However, lacking some pace to the leading group, and a final quick stop for a splash of fuel in the last 10 minutes would drop the #14 back down the order, eventually crossing the line P9.

Ben explained:

“We came into race day with a plan to run an aggressive race strategy which almost worked out. Aaron did an amazing job during the first half of the race to keep our Lexus RC F GT3 clean, and get us to the lead of the race. So, up until the halfway line, everything was looking perfect. The engineers were doing a great job, but then we didn’t quite catch the yellows at the right time or have quite enough pace in the second half of the race to make it count to get the win. It was a tough pill to swallow for what was looking to be a very good race at one point but, I felt like the Vasser Sullivan team executed really well which is a nice position to be in. We’ll reset and try again at VIR.”

The IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Challenge resumes for Ben over the weekend 22-24 August, at VIRginia International Raceway.