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Le Mans / ALMS
IN THE COCKPIT: Jeff Segal, Sebring ALMS
At the end of the day, the ESM team provided a quick and reliable car, as well as some stellar pit work in what was a very difficult endurance race...
Jeff Segal joined Extreme Speed Motorsports for the 60th Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, teaming with Anthony Lazzaro and Ed Brown. (Photo: John Dagys)
Not too long ago, I wrote about my experience in the 50th anniversary of the Rolex 24 at Daytona, and I can't help but notice that I could probably just substitute a few names and locations and voila, you would have a pretty accurate commentary of my more recent experience in the 60th anniversary Twelve Hours of Sebring!
Here’s a look at the past 2 months, by the numbers:
- 2 major American endurance racing classics: Twelve Hours of Sebring, Rolex 24 at Daytona
- 2 milestone anniversaries of these great races: 60th anniversary, 50th anniversary
- 2 Ferrari 458 Italia racecars: 458 Italia GT2, 458 Italia GT Grand-Am
- 2 talented teams, poised to deliver big results this year: Extreme Speed Motorsports, AIM Autosport Team FXDD
- 2 top-10 finishes in class: 7th in ALMS GT, 8th in Rolex GT
- 2 races which showed plenty of promise but left us disappointed at the finish-- but more on that below...
For the Twelve Hours of Sebring I was fortunate to join Scott Sharp's Extreme Speed Motorsports team (ESM) and drive their No. 02 Tequila Patrón sponsored Ferrari 458 GT along with Ed Brown and Anthony Lazzaro. ESM is starting their third season as a full-time American Le Mans Series participant, and their second season campaigning Ferrari 458s in the GT class.
This year, they are the only team campaigning the Ferrari 458 in the American Le Mans Series, and it seemed fitting that they decided to race with an all-American driver lineup to kickoff the season and wave the flag for Ferrari in North America.
I was immediately incredibly impressed by the entire ESM operation, and moreover by everyone I met on the team. The amount of sports car racing knowledge and experience contained within this fairly new team is enormous, and it shows in the way that the cars are prepared and presented at the racetrack.
All of the procedures and session plans are well thought out; there is an incredible amount of data being gathered and processed each time the car returns to the pit lane. The engineers are constantly monitoring all different aspects of the car's performance and closely scrutinizing the various adjustments made to create the ideal setup for the car.
I got behind the wheel of ESM's Ferrari 458 GT2 at Sebring in early February to sample the car for the first time, and I can tell you that not only is the team very impressive, but the performance of the car itself is extremely impressive as well. While I raced at this year's Rolex 24 in a Ferrari 458 Italia GT Grand-Am, ESM's ALMS cars are the GT2-variant of the 458 instead of the GT3-based car in the GRAND-AM series.
The may look similar from the outside, but under the skin there are certainly more differences than similarities, and the driving experience is vastly different as a result. While the GT3-based 458 retains many of the stock suspension and driveline pieces, the GT2 car is a purpose built racecar and the majority of the parts are bespoke racing-only design. The motor, the suspension, the aerodynamics-- everything on the GT2 car has been massaged to wring out every ounce of performance within the more open GT2 rule set. It is a more uncompromising car, and as a result it delivers a higher level of performance on the racetrack when compared with the GT3 car.
The GT3-based car requires finesse and a delicate touch to drive it quickly-- at the risk of sounding cliché it is a car that you need to dance with when you drive. The GT2 car, on the other hand, is a brutal and intense experience-- your senses are bombarded with feedback from the fierce shriek of the unmuffled exhaust, to the G-forces generated by the ultra-sticky tires, and the appearance of the cockpit layout with more knobs and switches than you could ever possibly memorize. The GT2 car wants to be driven hard, and rewards an aggressive technique and a high level of commitment from the driver.
With several days of private testing behind us, we all felt very confident heading into the Twelve Hours of Sebring, and we felt well prepared to get the most out of the car. The ESM team elected not to run on the Monday open test day on race week, and we rolled out on Tuesday for a shakedown run in order to break-in many of the new parts on the car for this grueling endurance race.
We tried to limit the mileage on the car in order to keep things as fresh as possible for the race, as Sebring's surface is incredibly bumpy and very punishing on all of the components of the car. Wednesday was a media day with no on-track running for the ALMS cars, but we had an opportunity to practice driver changes and also discuss a bit of strategy for the race.
Thursday brought another day of practice for the race, and it was at this point that we started to work on the setup of the car a bit. With 64 cars entered for the race, this practice also provided a glimpse at some of the traffic that we would face throughout the race, and I've got to admit that I've never in my life experienced anything like it before! There were so many cars of varying speeds and drivers of different skill levels circulating on the track, my eyes were glued to the mirrors and it took a lot of adjusting to get in a rhythm of fast driving while dodging errant prototypes and weaving around slower GT and GTC cars.
Trying to work on the setup of the car only added to the complexity of the day's activities, and I realized that the race was going to be even tougher than I had anticipated. Night practice further compounded the intensity level, as Sebring features very little ambient lighting and you really end up driving mostly from memory when the sun goes down.
- 2 major American endurance racing classics: Twelve Hours of Sebring, Rolex 24 at Daytona
- 2 milestone anniversaries of these great races: 60th anniversary, 50th anniversary
- 2 Ferrari 458 Italia racecars: 458 Italia GT2, 458 Italia GT Grand-Am
- 2 talented teams, poised to deliver big results this year: Extreme Speed Motorsports, AIM Autosport Team FXDD
- 2 top-10 finishes in class: 7th in ALMS GT, 8th in Rolex GT
- 2 races which showed plenty of promise but left us disappointed at the finish-- but more on that below...
For the Twelve Hours of Sebring I was fortunate to join Scott Sharp's Extreme Speed Motorsports team (ESM) and drive their No. 02 Tequila Patrón sponsored Ferrari 458 GT along with Ed Brown and Anthony Lazzaro. ESM is starting their third season as a full-time American Le Mans Series participant, and their second season campaigning Ferrari 458s in the GT class.
This year, they are the only team campaigning the Ferrari 458 in the American Le Mans Series, and it seemed fitting that they decided to race with an all-American driver lineup to kickoff the season and wave the flag for Ferrari in North America.
I was immediately incredibly impressed by the entire ESM operation, and moreover by everyone I met on the team. The amount of sports car racing knowledge and experience contained within this fairly new team is enormous, and it shows in the way that the cars are prepared and presented at the racetrack.
All of the procedures and session plans are well thought out; there is an incredible amount of data being gathered and processed each time the car returns to the pit lane. The engineers are constantly monitoring all different aspects of the car's performance and closely scrutinizing the various adjustments made to create the ideal setup for the car.
I got behind the wheel of ESM's Ferrari 458 GT2 at Sebring in early February to sample the car for the first time, and I can tell you that not only is the team very impressive, but the performance of the car itself is extremely impressive as well. While I raced at this year's Rolex 24 in a Ferrari 458 Italia GT Grand-Am, ESM's ALMS cars are the GT2-variant of the 458 instead of the GT3-based car in the GRAND-AM series.
The may look similar from the outside, but under the skin there are certainly more differences than similarities, and the driving experience is vastly different as a result. While the GT3-based 458 retains many of the stock suspension and driveline pieces, the GT2 car is a purpose built racecar and the majority of the parts are bespoke racing-only design. The motor, the suspension, the aerodynamics-- everything on the GT2 car has been massaged to wring out every ounce of performance within the more open GT2 rule set. It is a more uncompromising car, and as a result it delivers a higher level of performance on the racetrack when compared with the GT3 car.
The GT3-based car requires finesse and a delicate touch to drive it quickly-- at the risk of sounding cliché it is a car that you need to dance with when you drive. The GT2 car, on the other hand, is a brutal and intense experience-- your senses are bombarded with feedback from the fierce shriek of the unmuffled exhaust, to the G-forces generated by the ultra-sticky tires, and the appearance of the cockpit layout with more knobs and switches than you could ever possibly memorize. The GT2 car wants to be driven hard, and rewards an aggressive technique and a high level of commitment from the driver.
With several days of private testing behind us, we all felt very confident heading into the Twelve Hours of Sebring, and we felt well prepared to get the most out of the car. The ESM team elected not to run on the Monday open test day on race week, and we rolled out on Tuesday for a shakedown run in order to break-in many of the new parts on the car for this grueling endurance race.
We tried to limit the mileage on the car in order to keep things as fresh as possible for the race, as Sebring's surface is incredibly bumpy and very punishing on all of the components of the car. Wednesday was a media day with no on-track running for the ALMS cars, but we had an opportunity to practice driver changes and also discuss a bit of strategy for the race.
Thursday brought another day of practice for the race, and it was at this point that we started to work on the setup of the car a bit. With 64 cars entered for the race, this practice also provided a glimpse at some of the traffic that we would face throughout the race, and I've got to admit that I've never in my life experienced anything like it before! There were so many cars of varying speeds and drivers of different skill levels circulating on the track, my eyes were glued to the mirrors and it took a lot of adjusting to get in a rhythm of fast driving while dodging errant prototypes and weaving around slower GT and GTC cars.
Trying to work on the setup of the car only added to the complexity of the day's activities, and I realized that the race was going to be even tougher than I had anticipated. Night practice further compounded the intensity level, as Sebring features very little ambient lighting and you really end up driving mostly from memory when the sun goes down.
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