Check out the entry list for the Rolex 24 at Daytona and you may see a few unfamiliar terms. Here’s how to make them familiar.
• Driver ratings: Beside the name of a driver, you will see an initial – P, G, S or B.
That’s Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze.
This essentially tells you the experience level and degree of career success a race driver has achieved,
Platinum drivers are usually the most experienced and the most successful, having won a championship or a major race like the 24 Hours of Le Mans. But you don’t have to be a veteran—Chase Elliott is just 25, but his NASCAR Cup championship ranks him as Platinum. The majority of the drivers in the two professional factory-backed series, DPi and GT Le Mans, are Platinum, with a few Gold drivers sprinkled in.
The other three classes, which encourage Pro-Am fields, require a certain number of silver or bronze drivers. Bronze is the lowest classification, and is often very young racers, or gentleman drivers who don’t race for a living. As you get older, your rankings, despite your accomplishments, will eventually be reduced to Bronze.
But don’t feel sorry for those drivers—experienced, but older, Bronze drivers can be in high demand.
• Car type: After you see the country the driver hails from, and then the name of the team, you’ll see “type of car.” For the GT classes, that’s simple—a Corvette C8.R or a Ferrari 488 GTE. But in the Prototype classes, you are looking at the chassis manufacturer, such as Oreca, Ligier or Dallara. The exception is in the DPi class—though it says “Cadillac,” it’s really a chassis made by an outside vendor like Dallara.
• Tires: Everybody runs Michelins since Continental lost the contract a couple of years ago.
• Engine is self-explanatory, except for the LMP3 class, which says VK. That’s a type of Nissan V-8, but since Nissan doesn’t pay the six- or seven-figure premium to be an official partner of IMSA, we’ll just call the engine a VK.
• Fuel: Also self-explanatory as the number is the percentage of ethanol in the fuel, such as E20.
That clears things up, we hope. What about the Rolex 24 has you excited this week? Let us know in the comments below.
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