How a team with no testing is fighting for an IMSA title

With three races to go, David has a good chance of beating Goliath in one of IMSA’s typical stories of human intuition, perseverance and work ethic.

The DragonSpeed team is in its first full season of GTD Pro and is the only full-time Ferrari squad in the class. It doesn’t boast the massive manufacturer backing of many of its rivals, but it has three poles with an average start of 5.71, and has earned a win and three further podiums. It’s only 30 points out of the class lead behind the No.3 Corvette.

The team will be familiar to many readers, set-up by former driver Elton Julian – who his driver Albert Costa calls ‘Elton John’! – and has found most of its success in LMP2 racing in recent years while trying to break into things like IndyCar, too.

GTD Pro is the latest avenue of attack for DragonSpeed, and for good reason. It's part of a longer and larger plan.

“You always try to find ways to advance the team's status and position in the paddock,” Julian tells RACER.

“So hopefully one day, catch one of the big programs and be in the position to operate something for somebody.

“Building relationships with OEMs, I think, is the number one target. There's a few teams in the paddock every year that probably are logical choices for a new OEM, whether it be in GT or whatever, to pick from. It's a competitive field.

“It's a tough conversation, but to be in that conversation, you have to be doing what we're doing [running at the front]. So let's see where that goes. That does not happen in LMP2. So if you just look at it, you're like, well, where are we supposed to go? The choices are few and far between.

“It's been an adjustment for me, personally, to race in a BOP category – not since the 'Super Season' with the LMP1 car [WEC in 2018-19] have I lost this much hair!”

Julian has assembled a crack squad to take on GTD Pro this year. Costa and Giacomo Altoe are the main drivers, with Davide Rigon filling in at the endurance races, among a few other enforced changes. The team gets support from Risi Competizione, so Rick Mayer is the team’s engineer and he gets universal praise from within the team for the job he’s doing to get the Ferrari in the right window.

That’s all the more important, because without the level of manufacturer backing of the likes of Ford and Corvette to name a few, DragonSpeed hasn’t tested once this year.

Costa laughs with RACER, explaining that he and Altoe have a DM exchange on Instagram where they share posts of other teams testing between them while they sit at home and race on iRacing instead.

A bold strategy paid off with the team's first win of the season at CTMP. Brandon Badraoui/IMSA

“It's painful on one hand, because we also want to test to be more ready,” says Costa.

“But once we go to the race and we are performing straight away, like in FP1 Road America, most of the cars were testing, less us. And we went there and I think we were top three in the first free practice. But this is the power of DragonSpeed, Risi.”

He says the atmosphere in the team is “amazing” thanks to Julian, and while they may be at a deficit when it comes to testing, and that many of the other teams have two cars which they can deploy strategically to cover off DragonSpeed, the latter can still apply its experience as LMP2 frontrunners when it comes to executing a race.

Julian reckons the team “definitely shouldn't have won on pace” in its only victory of the year so far at CTMP, “but we were clever enough and brave enough” to make a one-stop work that proved to be the key moment. Costa says its the best team he has ever worked for in executing strategy.

It’s even more important when the Ferrari’s biggest weakness is turbulence in dirty air behind other cars, and such is the nature of an endurance race, you’re going to have spells in a pack. The drivers have excelled here making headway even when the car isn’t perhaps as compliant as they’d like in traffic.

Altoe has an interesting part to play as he hasn’t done all the races this year, which means even if he helps Costa and the team to overcome its 30-point deficit, he’ll purely be doing it for the team’s benefit and he can’t win the championship. He says he's having to work harder than in any other series before to match his teammates.

“It feels a bit weird to be out of the championship standings,” he admits, but “I will do everything to help Albert to get the championship, of course, because I would be just incredibly happy for him if he can do it”.

Costa, like Altoe, doesn't have a deep well of IMSA experience, but has taken to the series like a duck to water, and has a very pragmatic approach to his title chances.

"I know I can win it because I have the team, I have the teammates," he says.

"I know I have all the tools to win it, but we just need to let it flow and go weekend by weekend. I don't want to put pressure to my team, because we are in a good mood. We are in a good momentum.

"Going race by race is the best mentality, I think, that's the most important thing, to be consistent, no mistakes."

This against-the-odds group led by ‘Elton John’ and supported by a really strong group of individuals – albeit fewer than would be ideal to fight the more well-supported, factory-backed teams – has already shown what it can do, even if it can’t overcome the Corvette team for the GTD Pro title.

Given all the adversity it has faced, it is well ahead of some teams with more cash and human resources to boot. IMSA can still produce these overcoming adversity stories despite the competitive level seemingly rising higher each year.