In last month’s article about race strategy and preparation, Jeff Braun, race engineer with decades of experience and with victories in every major race in North America, illustrated the importance of understanding the rules, and helped put into context some specific features of endurance racing within the IMSA Weather Tech Championship, such as how neutralisations are handled, how teams can regain laps and how tyre management is regulated and can be managed to gain an advantage.
In this second instalment, he focuses on how racecar set-up can be adapted to the specific needs of long duration endurance races, where sometimes professional and non-professional drivers share the same car.
‘I always try to do my strategy backwards,’ explains Braun. ‘First points I consider are how long is the race? And how long is a stint, in normal conditions? Based on these bits of information, I know already when I should do the last pit stop, to have enough fuel to finish the race without a splash. So I look to the end of the race and figure out where I want to be, and then go backward to the race start.’
Flexible variables
It often happens that, depending on the length of the race, not all stints will have the same length. This introduces a further variable, which can offer more flexibility in deciding which stint could be cut short, for example, to account for safety cars or load less fuel into the car.
‘Ideally, you want to be the first car to make your last pit stop. This would put you in a better position, should a yellow flag come out. In such a situation, if all the other cars pitted already but you still need to do that, you would be forced to stop during the neutralisation, while the others would stay out. After the pit stop, you would then be last, with just one stint left to run.
‘The minute you know you
