Why a Mazda IMSA Prototype title would bring bitter joy

Can Mazda win this year’s IMSA Prototype championship? Undoubtedly. But it will be the culmination of an achingly hard struggle, after which the brand has decided to quit. David Malsher-Lopez tells the story of a bizarre blend of heartache and positivity.

Nine months ago, some were optimistic that Mazda would give the green light to a new prototype and thereby enter the hybrid (LMDh) era of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. The logical extension of that was that the marque might even go transatlantic to try and recapture the 24 Hours of Le Mans crown it earned in 1991 with that shrill thriller, the rotary-engined 787B.

Said one optimistic observer within the IMSA paddock: “Mazda has been about innovation and technical challenges. And marketing-wise, every manufacturer should like the idea of Prototypes that are eligible for IMSA and WEC, so they get to be in all the big sportscar races.”

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Author David Malsher-Lopez

David Malsher-Lopez is Motorsport.com’s U.S. editor, covering the NTT IndyCar Series and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Since completing journalism college in 1994, he has worked for Autosport, TRMG, Motor Sport, Autosport (again) and Racer, before joining Motorsport.com in 2015… where he has found himself enjoying a third spell writing for Autosport. Over the course of those 27 years, he has served as a journalist, sub-editor, features editor, deputy editor and editor. In 2015, he also wrote Will Power’s biography. David lives with his wife Sophia in California and when not writing about racing, he will be found reading about planes and classic cars, attending airshows, listening to a wide variety of music or watching cop shows from the ’70s. He intends to one day own a grand piano, an Airedale terrier and a vintage Pontiac. He doesn’t do Facebook and doesn’t understand Instagram but can be found @DavidMalsher on Twitter.