Bentley Team Dyson: Change the Game

Bentley Team Dyson Racing’s illustrious background in prototype sports cars hasn’t proved a hindrance in its switch to GT3 and the sprint-based Pirelli World Challenge.

It’s almost becoming cliché…actually, forget almost. The widely-held view that endurance racing is now a series of sprints interrupted by pit stops and driver changes has passed the point of cliché. But that’s probably because it’s true.

And because it’s true, that makes the transition a bit easier when a team like Dyson Racing goes from fielding P1 prototypes in the American Le Mans Series to competing with Bentley Continental GT3s in the Pirelli World Challenge GT class.

The two-time Rolex 24 at Daytona-winning team entered PWC halfway through the 2014 season, and its experience and expertise translated well to the 50-minute sprint format, with Guy Smith taking Bentley Team Dyson Racing’s first win in the Miller Motorsports Park finale.

The momentum continued into 2015, with a victory by Chris Dyson a year after the Continental GT3’s PWC debut at the place where the program began, Road America. So, clearly, the two forms of racing aren’t so different as to warrant wholesale changes in approach.

The biggest shift in mindset isn’t down to the change in race format, but in going from a prototype, such as the P1 Lola-Mazda B12/60 fielded by Dyson in 2013, to a GT machine – especially in the current era of GT3, where a car’s specifications are defined with great precision in order to level the playing field as much as possible.

“It’s interesting. GT3, by nature, is set up largely to make the cars as equal as possible and to eliminate to the greatest possible extent any unnecessary expense and investment,” says Chris Dyson, who in addition to his driving duties also serves as Dyson Racing’s vice president and sporting director. “Prototype racing, on the contrary, is the sky’s the limit, and development is essential – whether that be tire, aero, suspension…these are things that you change on the fly with a prototype.”

It’s a different game, he says, and as long as the team understands that, it’s easier to play it. In fact, switching to something so far removed from a prototype was probably a help, not a hindrance.

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