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Payne: Walking the Belle Isle race track with Cadillac’s ace drivers
Posted by Talbot Payne on June 13, 2021
Belle Isle — You have to walk before you can run.
Before an engine was started at the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix presented by Lear, drivers took to the track Thursday afternoon by foot for their ritual “track walk “ahead of the June 11-13 race weekend. Accompanied by team engineers, strategists, managers and crew, they walked the 2.35-mile circuit on foot, in golf carts, on bicycles — scouring the surface for imperfections, changes, and generally re-familiarizing themselves with one of the most demanding circuits in auto racing.
But first, a little fun. Driving onto the track in golf carts for the first time in two years (the Grand Prix weekend was canceled in 2020 due to COVID concerns), Whelen Engineering Cadillac DPi-V.R team drivers Felipe “Pipo” Derani and Felipe Nasr floor their carts in a mock drag race. “My cart’s slow,” laughs Derani as Nasr opens a gap. Boys will be boys.
Team manager Chris Mitchum, 44, calls after his hot shoes, noting the “blend line” at Turn 2’s exit where race cars leaving the pits rejoin the hot track. “Remember to keep to the right of the line,” he says, lest the team be disastrously penalized in Saturday’s short, 100-minute race.
Derani, 27, and fellow Brazilian Nasr, 28, pilot the #31 Cadillac and are strong contenders to win the IMSA Weathertech sportscar race. IMSA Weathertech is one of two support races — the other is Indy Lights — to the main feature Dual in Detroit IndyCar doubleheader.
The Brazilians just missed out on a win in 2019, falling 0.8 seconds short to Dane Cameron and Juan Pablo Montoya in an Acura DPi prototype.
The Whelen Enginering-sponsored team, managed by Action Express Racing out of North Carolina, has been a fixture at the front of the sportscar series, winning four championships since 2014 — including in 2018 with their current weapon, the wicked-looking, 580-horsepower, V-8-powered Cadillac.
With a carbon-fiber chassis, slick tires, and high-downforce, the state-of-the-art, 2,050-pound Cadillac sports similar technology to open-wheel, 1,700-pound IndyCars. In 2019, Derani qualified the DPi-V.R at 1 minute, 19.9 seconds — just five seconds slower than Josef Newgarden’s IndyCar pole that weekend.
Turn 3’s 90-degree right-hander at the end of a long straight is the circuit’s first passing opportunity. It’s also the likeliest place racers will go down an escape road if they leave their braking maneuver too late.
“Check out the escape road to make sure you can get turned around,” says Whelen team strategist Tim Keene as Derani and Nasr explored the run-off area. Back on the main track, IndyCar racer James Hinchcliffe and his crew race by in a golf cart on their own track tour.
Keene, Mitchum and Chief Engineer Iain Watt from Scotland are racing veterans with years of top-shelf racing experience. Watt has been stateside for 25 years applying his engineering expertise in IndyCar, NASCAR and other series. The 56-year old Keene has collected five Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona wins in his storied career.
Keene will be the voice in the ear of Derani and Nasr as they negotiate this very physical race track. The race is the shortest on the IMSA calendar and will require quick-thinking by strategist Keene to keep his charges in position to tin. The race requires only two pit stops — perhaps only one if there is a long yellow flag period — so timing is crucial. Any delay could be disastrous, since opportunities to make up lost time are few compared to longer, 24-hour races like Daytona.
The pace will be relentless — a 100-minute sprint to the finish — and the drivers say there’s an urgency to be perfect every lap that is different from other races.
“You don’t want to touch this curb,” says Nasr, walking around the steep, candy-striped blue curb on the inside of Turn 5. “It can unsettle the car.”
The Turn 4-6 complex are Derani’s favorite turns on Belle Isle. The highly-technical, 100-mph section is crucial to carrying speed out on to the back straight (which parallels the Detroit River) where the Cadillac will hit top speeds of 170 mph before braking hard into Turn 7 — another key passing opportunity before the track narrows into the spectator-friendly “Carousel” complex behind Scott Fountain.
Narrow is a relative term because the entire course is encased in concrete walls that anchor safety fencing. There is no room for error. The crowned, concrete public road (normal peed limit: 35) makes for tricky traction as the cars wash out in some turns, coming perilously close to the barriers at 100 mph.
On higher-speed turns — think, ahem, 130 mph through Turns 1-2 — the walls have been “softened” with tire barriers wrapped by conveyer belts.
The Whelen team is satisfied that much of the track has remained unchanged since 2019. There are new patches here and there — a concrete strip to cover new timing cables on the back straight, for example — but there is only so much you can do to an undulating public road.
“The track is very green because this is the only race on it all year,” says Derani, pointing to the clean asphalt surface. “It will change a lot over the race weekend as it gets sticky with black rubber. Lap times could come down as much as 2-3 seconds.”
He and Nasr planned to spend a lot of time together during Friday practice and qualifying discussing how they want to set the car’s handling so it’s to both of their liking.
The team has war-gamed much of the Belle Isle race on simulators. Derani and Nasr spent a day on a simulator in Indianapolis this month — racing laps in dry and wet conditions, passing GT-class backmarkers, executing pit stops.
But there is nothing like being back at Belle Isle. In June. In Cadillac’s home city.
“I won this race in 2018,” says Nasr, whose co-pilot then was Eric Curran. “If we win again, maybe we’ll all jump in the fountain.”