14 weeks have passed since the LMP3 class last raced at Sebring in March, with five events of the seven-race schedule remaining from June to October
JUPITER, Fla. (19 June 2023) – According to the calendar, the 2023 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship is more than halfway done. But for Sean Creech Motorsport (SCM) and the rest of the LMP3 class field, the season only now begins in earnest, with Sunday’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen at Watkins Glen International (10:40 a.m., Peacock/USA).
Lance Willsey and João Barbosa will pilot the No. 33 SCM Focal One Ligier JS P320, joined once again by Chilean Nico Pino – who at age 18, became the youngest driver to stand on the podium at the 24 Hours of Le Mans (earning a third-place finish with his Duqueine team). Pino will see WGI for the first time this week, but sim work has been as close to real life as possible now that the No. 33 SCM Ligier is on the iRacing program.
“I’ve been training, both physically and on the sim,” said Pino. “I’ve been looking at data, watching on-boards and doing sim racing – especially now that the car is on iRacing! It’s a great reference on how the track lays out and how the car behaves. It’s very cool, I’ve never been able to drive my exact car! It’s great that anyone in the world can race the exact same car I’ve driven.”
The LMP3 class has only run two race weekends in 2023 (Daytona and Sebring), with Sebring the only points paying race – though with 36 hours of racing completed, that’s more than some racing series contest in an entire season. It’s been 14 weeks since the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, nearly as long as the 16 weeks in between the 2022 season finale at Road Atlanta and the 2023 Roar Before the Rolex 24. The WeatherTech series will contest five races between now and Petit Le Mans in October, which will mark the finale for the LMP3 class in the premier IMSA series.
SCM team members have kept busy over the three months, working with teams competing in a myriad of sports car series – including the recent 24 Hours of Le Mans. The crew reunited two weeks ago at Watkins Glen to test the No. 30 VP Racing SportsCar Challenge and the No. 33 WeatherTech series cars, with Willsey and Barbosa sharing the wheel.
“It’s been a very long break!” said Barbosa. “It was nice to be back behind the wheel of the Ligier, it only took a couple of laps to get back into the groove. The crew did a great job at the test – the car is very good and it’s such a fun track to drive. It was uncharacteristically cold and cloudy at the test, and with the Canadian wildfire smoke, it made for very strange conditions. But we have plenty of options for this weekend. We didn’t do as many laps as we would have liked, with the third day ended early, but I feel as though we’re ready.”
The crew worked through several challenges at the test, including unseasonably cold temperatures and significant smoke from the Canadian wildfires. Fighting through the air quality issues, the team worked through a checklist of setup options – both for the cool conditions at the test, and for the far more likely warmer temperatures that would greet them later in the month.
“It was a good chance for everyone to get back in the swing of things,” said team principal Sean Creech. “For the crew, it was a chance to make sure everything was hooked up, refamiliarize themselves with setting up and tearing down, working on the car, making changes. Same for Lance and Joao – they haven’t been in the car since March, so it was good to have almost three days to bang the rust off.
“We have plenty of data coming out of the test,” continued Creech. “Like Joao said – we can race this car. We’ll tweak it in practice on the race weekend, especially since it was significantly colder at the test than it will be this week. But the car has good pace as it is now.”
SCM thanks team partner Focal One for its continued support.
The Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen takes the green flag Sunday at 10:40 a.m. Eastern. The race will be broadcast live in the U.S. on Peacock TV and the USA Network. International viewers can watch via IMSA.tv, with IMSA Radio also available at IMSA.com.
About SCM
Team leader Sean Creech has competed in a multitude of sports car series from 1990 until the present day, including Group C, IMSA GTP, WSC, Grand-Am, SRO World Challenge, and IMSA. SCM will contest the full WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in 2023 with João Barbosa and Lance Willsey. http://seancreechmotorsport.com/
About Focal One
One in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime in the United States. The Focal One® HIFU Prostate treatment offers patients a non-invasive outpatient procedure to target prostate tissue while avoiding the common side effects such as loss of urinary continence and sexual function. The Focal One treatment uses high-performance, high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) to precisely target and ablate the prostate, allowing patients to quickly return to normal activities. http://www.focalone.com
