Derani: “Argy-bargy is necessary” to win Long Beach IMSA race

The third round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season sees eight cars competing in the GTP class – two Cadillac V-Series.Rs of Chip Ganassi Racing and AXR, two Acura ARX-06s of Wayne Taylor Racing and Meyer Shank Racing, two Porsche Penske Motorsport 963s and two BMW M Hybrid V8s run by Rahal Letterman Lanigan. And from the two longest races on the IMSA calendar, the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring, the teams find themselves tackling one of the shortest races, at 1h40m.

Derani and Nasr on their way to Long Beach victory in 2021 in the predecessor to the Cadillac V-Series.R, the DPi-V.R

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

Derani, who last month shared his fourth Sebring win with full-time teammate Alex Sims and endurance teammate Jack Aitken, said that in some ways Long Beach requires a different approach, but that he would tackle it as if AXR wasn’t leading the championship.

“It’s one of those races where qualifying matters more than others because it’s just hard to pass, like any other street track,” said the Brazilian ace who won the race with Felipe Nasr in AXR’s Cadillac DPi-V.R in 2021. “We’re getting there with a win already under our belts this season, a pole position and the championship lead, but we’re going to attack the weekend the same way as if we had not won the last race or were not leading the championship.

“It’s still early days; we know how long this championship is and every point counts. Every point counts and attacking is the name of the game. We’re going to try to put it on pole again, of course, and make our lives a little bit easier for the race. If you put it on pole in Long Beach, it makes your life a lot easier.”

If that isn’t possible, however, Derani said he expects everyone will be getting their elbows out.

He said: “There are expectations for great racing and therefore if the cars are really running close to each other, especially at a place like Long Beach, you expect to have to muscle your way around some of your competition to try and have an edge. That’s all good for the sport.

“Long Beach being one of our shorter races that we have all year makes for a different dynamic, so everyone coming from a long race like Sebring has to quickly switch and go for a completely different strategy in order to achieve a good result. Therefore, a little bit of argy bargy is necessary.

“I think tight racing and competition like that brings more fans, which is what we need, and the more we have, the more success everyone will have. GTP cars are a bit bigger than DPis, so muscling your way around will be a little bit trickier than it was before.”

Given this is the first year of the LMDh cars that populate the GTP class, Derani admitted that there are unknowns regarding tire strategy on a track where teams are unable to test.

“I think [strategy] depends on how the weekend evolves,” he said. “It’s the kind of thing that you see as you go. If you start up front, it’s definitely going to be one way. If you’re at the back, you might want to gamble a bit.

“It really depends car by car as well because one car might react differently to the tires than the other, depending on setup. We also have different chassis, so that has an influence.

“We’re still all learning the cars. There are so many things we wish we knew already, but we don’t and tire is one of them. I’m hoping that it’s an easy decision instead of trying to make something out of the blue. I would like for it to be a simple decision instead of a gamble.”