Saturday, October 22, 2022

2022 IMSA Review By the Numbers - GTD

 

NOTE: IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY READ DPi, PLEASE GO BACK AND READ THAT ONE FIRST. IT GIVES IMPORTANT BACKGROUND ON THE NUMBERS.

GTD:

If ever there was an example of complete opposites, GTD Pro and GTD fit the bill for the 2022 championship. It wasn’t known that Roman De Angelis would be the victor of the season until the checkered flag fell on the GTD battle. However, that makes it sound a LOT more competitive than it actually was! Looking back on previous seasons, the average finish needed to take the championship was the worst for the class to date!


The most competitive year was 2018 where the average finish needed to take the title was 3. The previous record had been 5.09 in 2019 when Trent Hindman and Mario Farnbacher claimed the season with two DNFs and only one win. This year is directly comparable to last, and yet Roman’s record last year in 2021 was far better than his record this year in 2022 to become champion.

Okay, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, the positives! 8 different cars from 8 different teams won races this season! 46 drivers took home trophies, and the drivers who appeared most on the podium were champion Roman De Angelis and the Sprint Champions, the Paul Miller Racer duo of Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow, each of whom earned five podium spots over the year.

As far as qualifying was concerned, both the 57 Winward Mercedes and the 1 PMR BMW of Snow earned 3 poles a piece. It’s Snow’s 2nd consecutive season of earning 3 poles! Zacharie Robichon and Kyle Kirkwood both impressed as non-full season drivers getting a pole, and long time championship leader Stevan McAleer earned his first as well. Robby Foley got one, and Frankie Montecalvo earned a pair for himself and the 12 Lexus crew.

Qualifying points:        

 


GTD

Earned

W/O Q Pts

27

248

2650

16

225

2650

32

270

2590

96

235

2550

57

274

2440

1

259

2420

39

261

2390

12

252

2350

 

Manu

Earned

W/O Q Pts

BMW

307

3000

Merc

305

2930

Aston

273

2920

Porsche

254

2750

Lambo

281

2690

Lexus

269

2670

Acura

251

2510

 

 


These are the most interesting qualifying points of the season, for both Manufacturer and individual car results. Let’s start with the obvious. The car that scored the most points throughout all the races was the 57, polesitter three times. But look at the other car that took pole three times, the 1 PMR BMW. They didn’t run Daytona, thus missing out on all points from that race. Yet they still outscored the championship winning 27 Aston, the 96 Turner BMW, the 12 Lexus, and the 16 Porsche, all cars that competed in every race! For this points tally, I did not include either of the Sprint races since they didn’t count for the championship total, thus not including the pole from Long Beach or the third at CTMP, both of which would’ve vaulted the 1 even further in the qualifying points earned on the season. But I digress.

Let’s take a moment and focus on the other end of the spectrum. The car that finished 2nd in the championship, the 16 Wright Porsche, did get a pole on the season and scored maximum points at Sebring in the hands of 2021 GTD Champion Zacharie Robichon. This was by far their best outing of the season. Qualifying, in fact, nearly cost them the championship! They lost 23 points over the season to De Angelis in the 27 Aston, and 49 (!!!) to the Winward car. If you remove the qualifying points, the season would’ve ended in a tie between Roman De Angelis and the Wright pairing of Jan Heylen and Ryan Hardwick! This means it would’ve come to a tie break. They had the same number of wins, at two a piece (Daytona and Laguna Seca for Wright, Watkins Glen and CTMP for De Angelis), but the championship would NOT have changed hands because the Porsche didn’t get another podium on the season. Roman finished 2nd at VIR, Lime Rock, and Belle Isle. Crazy effect of qualifying points, eh?!

For the manufacturer championship battle, we see a similar result! BMW still takes the cake, with a two-point advantage over Mercedes for qualifying points. They would still have taken the championship, 3000-2930. The car that claimed the third highest number of points, Lamborghini, would still have been fifth in the championship. Porsche, interestingly, earned the second least number of points from full season entrants at 254, yet still would’ve finished 4th in the championship. The correlation between strong qualifying and strong races can’t be ignored in this category as far as the season end shows, so I wonder if maybe the manufacturers will put a little bit more importance into their teams’ qualifying next year.

 

Qualifying to Race:

As we’ve just discussed above, it’s easy to see who qualified well and who didn’t based on points earned. It comes as no surprise then that the Wright Porsche was the biggest mover of the season, gaining 38 spots on the year, due to mostly lacking performances on Saturdays. It went the other way, though, for the Winward Mercedes. The 57 qualified on pole three times, won two races and stood on the podium in one other, but lost a total of 30 spots across their 12 races, largely due to their three DNFs.


As done with GTD Pro, here’s the breakdown for the results by manufacturer in GTD, with the average pertaining to the best finishing car of each race.

Manufacturer     Wins  2nds  3rds  DNFs  Average    Best Finishing Team

Acura

1

1

1

3

8.1

Gradient 5x, Rick Ware 7x

Aston Martin

2

4

0

1

4.7

Heart 10x, Magnus 2x

BMW

3

1

5

3

4

Turner 7x, PMR 5x

Ferrari

1

0

1

1

4.3

AF Corsa 2x, Cetilar 2x

Lambo

0

2

1

7

6.9

Carbahn 9x, NTE 1x, T3 1x

Lexus

1

0

3

2

6.5

VasserSullivan 12x

McLaren

0

2

0

4

6.7

Inception 6x

Mercedes

2

2

1

5

3.6

Korthoff 8x, Winward 4x

Porsche

2

0

0

2

5.4

Wright 10x, Hardpoint 1x

 

Mercedes had the best average finish, but also the second highest number of DNFs, and the DNFs did not include any of the disqualifications that came across the season.

The Average Fast Lap by Manufacturer was interesting too. These numbers were a lot more varied than what we saw in GTD Pro.

Manu           Avg. FL Position     Fastest Driver (# of times)

Acura

10.9

Eversley (5)

Aston Martin

5.8

Martin (7)

BMW

9.8

Sellers (7, PMR 9)

Ferrari

2.3

Fuoco (2)

Lambo

10.4

Westphal (7)

Lexus

8.6

Telitz (6)

McLaren

4.6

Pepper (5)

Mercedes

4.8

Ellis (8)

Porsche

9.7

Heylen (11 and every)

 

The first takeaway is how fast the Ferraris were when they raced. We only were treated to the prancing horses in four events, (Daytona, Sebring, Watkins Glen, and Petit Le Mans), but the speed was undeniable. Twice, Antonio Fuoco was the fastest man in those cars, and helped move the average Fast Lap position of the brand to a stunning 2.3! To put this into context, the McLaren had Fast Lap of the class in 4 of the 7 races in which it competed, yet it’s average fast lap position was double that of the Ferrari! Now that’s some insanely impressive consistency!

What else do we glean from this information? Maxime Martin will be missed by his brand. He not only stretched a tank of fuel for what seemed like an eternity in two races, he set the fastest lap for the mark in seven different races. Paul Miller Racing showed up in their first year with the BMW roundel on their chests, as the fastest car for the mark in 9 of the 11 races they ran. Philip Ellis is a huge not so secret to Winward’s success in 2022, in IMSA and SRO! Take nothing away from the pace we saw from Russell Ward, who had a breakout year, but Phil deserves a lot of praise too! Also, and this comes into play later, the 2021 Porsche Cup winner showed why he earned that award and Jan Heylen was never out paced by another GTD Porsche or a teammate in 2022. That’s mega!

 

On Track by Driver Performances:

Alrighty, time to let the numbers speak for the individuals. I’ve previously praised Heylen, Pepper, and Ellis, but the numbers tell us it’s a different driver who is GTD MVP for the season. He was the only driver to compete in the majority of races and never set his fast lap outside of the top 10. While he didn’t set a Fast Lap during a race, he was among the top 5 drivers 6 times out of his 11 races. In terms of full season drivers, he was on average 0.511 seconds off the fastest lap, beaten only by Philip Ellis (0.475). When compared to his teammate, he was outpaced twice by Snow, but our MVP was on average 0.024 seconds off. This was only bettered by Pepper and Heylen (who were never slower than a teammate) and Toni Vilander (who only did 4 races). That’s right, Bryan Sellers was the most consistently fast driver and therefore the MVP for the GTD Class in 2022.

We can’t talk about the good without noting the bad too. The furthest driver off Fastest Lap pace over the season was the Sebring 12 Hours winner Roberto Lacorte, with an average of 47.25. The full season driver furthest off the pace was the 24 Hours of Daytona winner and championship runner up Ryan Hardwick on 32.27! Worth noting also, he was also the only full season Bronze driver. Ryan was also the full season driver who was furthest off Fast Lap (2.505) and off teammates (1.709), but it was John Potter who was most off both of those at 2.747 for Fast Lap and 2.161 off co drivers respectively.

Who to watch in 2023? Well, Kyffin Simpson demonstrated some serious speed at Petit Le Mans, a race he won, to wrap up the 2022 season. He didn’t have a great lap during the Rolex to start the season, and didn’t get a lap during the Watkins Glen round, but his pace was good enough cumulatively to put him amongst the most impressive drivers and only 0.662 of a second off Fast Lap on average! That young man has a bright future. Richard Heistand was the strongest of the Bronzes, but we know he’s going to be moved to Silver for the upcoming year. Brendan Iribe got 2 podium finishes and was a very consistent Bronze, proving he’s a very good candidate to claim the Bronze cup if he runs a full season!

 

By Avg. Pos FL

D24

S12

LB

LS

MO

BI

WG6

CTMP

LR

RAm

VIR

PLM

 

FL

Avg. P

1

Sellers

 

5

7

9

2

2

4

3

4

10

6

10

 

 

5.64

70

Pepper

1

6

 

 

7

 

15

 

 

 

 

1

 

2

6

21

Vilander

5

4

 

 

 

 

14

 

 

 

 

4

 

 

6.75

27

Martin

 

 

2

16

4

 

5

2

10

8

8

7

 

 

6.89

57

Ellis

9

15

19

 

1

 

6

1

8

2

2

8

 

2

7.1

51

Eversley

 

 

13

4

10

6

 

7

9

9

12

 

 

 

8.75

12

Telitz

19

 

5

5

13

1

12

12

2

3

7

28

 

1

9.73

1

Snow

 

16

10

12

12

9

3

6

5

18

16

5

 

 

10.18

16

Heylen

2

21

8

2

11

15

18

 

7

7

5

16

 

 

10.18

66

Farnbacher

24

17

4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2

 

 

11.75

51

Read

 

 

18

23

18

10

 

4

13

17

11

 

 

 

14.25

39

Westphal

50

37

3

3

5

8

24

 

3

5

9

 

 

 

14.7

96

Auberlen

68

2

9

7

16

14

8

5

 

4

13

18

 

 

14.91

27

De Angelis

40

20

12

6

14

11

11

10

14

19

20

13

 

 

15.83

12

Heistand

6

25

 

 

17

 

7

 

 

 

 

25

 

 

16

32

McAleer

31

23

6

18

9

13

17

 

16

16

4

23

 

 

16

44

Lally

28

27

 

 

 

 

2

 

 

 

10

 

 

 

16.75

96

Foley

66

7

14

17

3

18

21

9

19

13

1

17

 

1

17.08

66

Simpson

39

11

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3

 

 

17.67

47

Sernagiotto

13

12

 

 

 

 

33

 

 

 

 

14

 

 

18

32

Skeen

30

38

15

 

8

4

29

 

6

6

18

30

 

 

18.4

57

Ward

20

19

21

20

20

17

26

8

15

14

15

26

 

 

18.42

12

Montecalvo

42

29

20

10

15

12

22

11

12

20

19

33

 

 

20.42

42

Conwright

56

33

 

15

 

 

19

 

 

15

 

11

 

 

24.83

39

Megennis

63

44

23

24

19

16

31

 

11

12

17

15

 

 

25

99

Legge

23

46

24

19

 

 

25

 

 

 

14

38

 

 

27

59

Holton

32

30

17

 

 

 

32

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

27.75

59

Miller

26

35

11

 

 

 

42

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

28.5

70

Iribe

36

43

22

26

21

 

36

 

 

 

 

32

 

 

30.86

16

Hardwick

75

45

26

25

22

19

44

 

18

21

23

37

 

 

32.27

21

Mann

64

13

 

 

 

 

39

 

 

 

 

19

 

 

33.75

99

Ferriol

65

50

27

21

 

 

45

 

 

 

21

39

 

 

38.29

66

Bechtolsheimer

62

40

 

 

 

 

37

 

 

 

 

27

 

 

41.5

21

Perez-Companc

72

36

 

 

 

 

40

 

 

 

 

29

 

 

44.25

44

Potter

73

49

 

 

 

 

43

 

 

 

24

36

 

 

45

47

Lacorte

69

42

 

 

 

 

38

 

 

 

 

40

 

 

47.25

* Bold Denotes Slowest Driver of Class

 

 

By Avg Time Off FL

By Avg Time Off Co-driver

57

Ellis

0.475

16

Heylen

0

70

Pepper

0.482

70

Pepper

0

21

Vilander

0.495

21

Vilander

0.018

1

Sellers

0.511

1

Sellers

0.024

66

Farnbacher

0.578

57

Ellis

0.025

27

Martin

0.606

99

Legge

0.026

66

Simpson

0.662

27

Martin

0.028

12

Telitz

0.7

51

Eversley

0.03

16

Heylen

0.795

66

Farnbacher

0.035

39

Westphal

0.85

66

Simpson

0.074

51

Eversley

0.859

12

Telitz

0.081

44

Lally

0.889

39

Westphal

0.098

47

Sernagiotto

0.925

42

Conwright

0.114

1

Snow

0.93

44

Lally

0.134

96

Auberlen

0.973

59

Holton

0.141

12

Heistand

1.005

59

Miller

0.224

32

McAleer

1.065

96

Auberlen

0.234

96

Foley

1.094

96

Foley

0.24

32

Skeen

1.096

12

Heistand

0.296

27

De Angelis

1.134

32

McAleer

0.391

42

Conwright

1.203

51

Read

0.423

51

Read

1.251

32

Skeen

0.426

57

Ward

1.26

1

Snow

0.443

12

Montecalvo

1.321

27

De Angelis

0.553

59

Holton

1.324

12

Montecalvo

0.645

21

Mann

1.358

57

Ward

0.661

59

Miller

1.407

47

Sernagiotto

0.784

99

Legge

1.519

21

Mann

0.881

39

Megennis

1.582

39

Megennis

0.912

66

Bechtolsheimer

1.646

99

Ferriol

1.011

70

Iribe

1.754

66

Bechtolsheimer

1.016

21

Perez-Companc

1.839

21

Perez-Companc

1.362

47

Lacorte

2.178

70

Iribe

1.41

99

Ferriol

2.504

16

Hardwick

1.709

16

Hardwick

2.505

47

Lacorte

2.037

44

Potter

2.747

44

Potter

2.161

 

 

 

What does all this tell us? Why do I do it? Well, it gives credit where credit is due. That’s something that doesn’t always happen during the season. It allows us to reflect on what was another great year of sportscar racing while focusing on some of the brightest spots we couldn’t see at the time. It shows who should be strong in the future, where people can improve and where they already excel. Mostly, it allows me to get a good read on what happened and to get even more excited for the future! January is coming soon, and when it does, I’ll be standing on the pit lane in my happy place, ready to tell you even more stories about this series I love!