While the Grand Prix of Long Beach is the third round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, the 100-minute event is the first “sprint” race of the season. It is also the first of the year outside of the state of Florida, beginning a two-race swing on the West Coast for North America’s top sports car racing series.
The shortest event of the season, the April 9 race on the 1.968-mile, 11-turn temporary course laid out on the streets of Long Beach, California, features four Porsche customer teams campaigning the 911 GT3 R race car. Porsche is tied for most sports car wins by a manufacturer on the Southern California circuit with nine victories, the most recent in 2019.
WeatherTech, GTD Pro Class.
One Porsche customer team is entered in the six-car GTD Pro class for the 47th annual Grand Prix of Long Beach weekend. Pfaff Motorsports fields the No. 9 for Porsche factory drivers Matt Campbell (Australia) and Mathieu Jaminet (France) in the all-pro class. The Canadian-based team opened the year with a victory in the prestigious Rolex 24 At Daytona and finished in second-place of the GTD class here last season. Pfaff currently leads both Team and Driver (Campbell/Jaminet/Felipe Nasr (Brazil)) point standings. Porsche sits atop the Manufacturer boards after the first two rounds as well.
WeatherTech, GTD Class.
Identical in car regulations to the GTD Pro class, the GTD class is a mix of professional and amateur drivers teamed together in a Pro-Am format. Customer programs have entered three of the 510+ horsepower, rear-engined Porsche race cars in this class. Led by Rolex 24 At Daytona class-winning Wright Motorsports, full-season regular Hardpoint and California-based GMG Racing each have the naturally-aspirated, flat-six engine-powered backbone of international GT3-spec racing entered. Wright Motorsports has the No. 16 Porsche readied for Ryan Hardwick (Atlanta, Georgia) and Jan Heylen (Belgium now living in Florida). Rob Ferriol (Fayetteville, North Carolina) and Katherine Legge (Great Britain) will challenge with Hardpoint’s No. 99 Porsche 911 GT3 R while James Sofronas (Villa Park, California) and Kyle Washington (Indio, California) bring the No. 34 GMG Racing machine from their Santa Ana, California shop. Washington will double his seat time over the weekend with a GMG Racing-prepared Porsche 911 GT3 Cup race car in the Pro-Am class of the Porsche Carrera Cup North America Presented by the Cayman Islands support series event. Wright Motorsports also has three of the Porsche 911 GT3 road car-based race cars in the one-make support series.
Timing
IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Track time on the tricky Long Beach street circuit is always at a premium. The WeatherTech Championship will only have two practice sessions, both on Friday, April 8, to prepare. Practice One will give all classes one-hour, starting at 9:15 a.m. PT (12:15 p.m. ET), to establish a baseline. Practice Two will be a partially split session with the GTD class drivers taking to the track from 1:15 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. local time – the first 15-minutes will be exclusive to the Pro-Am style class. The GTD Pro teams will join the group, along with the prototypes – at 1:30 p.m. and run until 3:00 p.m. The final 15-minutes will be for GTD Pro and DPi prototypes only. A 15-minute qualifying session – 5:15 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. local time – will set the grid and be the final time on track before the 100-minute race. The Grand Prix of Long Beach will take the green flag for Round Three of the 2022 season of the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship at 2:05 p.m. PT (5:05 p.m. ET) on Saturday, April 9.
The race can be viewed live, flag-to-flag, on USA Network as well as the Peacock Streaming App beginning at 5:00 p.m. ET/2:00 p.m. PT. IMSA Radio will have live coverage on SiriusXM (XM 207, Internet/App 992).
Porsche Carrera Cup North America Presented by the Cayman Islands.
Saturday, April 9, Round 3: 1:45 – 2:25 p.m. ET
Sunday, April 10, Round 4: 7:20 – 8:00 p.m. ET
All Porsche Carrera Cup North America sessions can be viewed live at www.PorscheCarreraCup.us and on the Peacock Streaming App.
