Starworks Motorsport is currently one of the top teams in sportscars racing -maybe THE team of the year for many people-. The team, owned by Peter Baron, has accomplished an incredible string of wins of podiums in the Rolex Series, at Le Mans and in the World Endurance Championship as well on historic tracks such as Daytona (2nd of the Rolex 24), Sebring (winner of the LMP2 class and 2nd overall), Le Mans (winner of the LMP2 class in the 24 Hours of Le Mans), Watkins Glen (3rd overall of the Six Hours of Watkins Glen, Rolex Series) and Indianapolis (winner of the Three Hours of Indianapolis -the Brickyard Grand Prix, Rolex Series.
Starworks Motorsport has claimed at Indianapolis the title of the North American Endurance Championship (Rolex 24, Six Hours of Watkins Glen, Brickyard Grand Prix) and is currently in the lead of the standings of the LMP2 class of the World Endurance Championship.
Peter Baron has been kind enough to give us his comments about these races : “We still think we lost Daytona – but when you mention the string of podiums at this historic tracks, it makes you really appreciate it! ”
Daytona : “Daytona was amazing and a bit unexpected for the immediate result. We had run the gen 2 bodywork all the fall/winter testing and were pretty scared of the new Corvette bodywork. We literally finished building the car just in time to shut the door on the trailer and get it Daytona. There the first session we completely missed due to a motor issue. The only other session before qualifying , all we managed to do for set-up was get the aero settings down to series minimums and a little rub here and there. After this one hour session, it was qualifying. About halfway though qualifying, Ryan managed to put down a time that would be the pole time. When this happened, we thought, that was a good lap, now, we’ll see how fast the Corvette’s can go! Not fast enough it turned out. The race was amazing. We led the most laps, and had fastest lap and finished 2nd. We had an off-road excursion that damaged the rear bumper and took away top speed and rear end stability. We had nothing for the 60 car in the end, but it was a good start to the year.”
Sebring : “Sebring was the completely unexpected result. We knew how competitive the World Endurance Championship LMP2 series was, and all that all other teams had extensive experience with these cars. We literally finished building the car with parts arriving still at Sebring on Monday the week of the race. All Monday and Tuesday we were just able to address teething issues. We did not even get a chance to run a lap at speed until Thursday. This race was all credit to our Engineering crew and Wirth/HPD for providing a fantastic baseline for the car . We were instantly quick and the team did an amazing job putting together a bullet-proof car. To come home with the class win and sit on the overall podium was a absolute dream. We knew we had done something special.”
Le Mans : “Le Mans was a dream come true. After two WEC races, we knew we had a great platform. The HPD motor via the rules is choked down a bit and gives up quite a lot to the Nissans and Judds on the straights at LeMans. We had the unexpected set-back of Sarrizin getting poached by Toyota, which stung quite a lot. When looking for a driver for the season, we picked Sarrizin specifically to have the fastest French driver possible. Its always nice to have a local for that event! But when this went away, there were numerous others wanting to get the seat. We chose Tom Kimber-Smith, as he was the one we felt could be there for all our requirements (some could not make the test) and Tom showed the most speed, while understanding what 24 hour racing is about – no offs! No scratches! No risks at all! We made sure we had a comfortable car for the race. Would could have made it faster perhaps, but it might lead to driver stress and fatigue being on knife’s-edge for 24 hours. We employed the strategy of let the others run off and try to lead – and then old lesson from Alwin Springer of Porsche Motorsport taught me, push like crazy when it is dark, the let the others make mistakes chasing you in the morning. This strategy found us in the lead at 10 hours and we never looked back. All of us were a sobbing mess knowing we had just done an amazing performance and accomplished a dream millions have lusted for, but never achieved. We are LeMans winners and no one can ever take that away!”
Watkins Glen : ”Watkins Glen was a nice podium that has escaped me for over 15 years. We had two great cars for the race. Unfortunately we had a mechanical with one car that set it back immediately and lost 4 laps. The other car led a sizable amount of the race. Its almost impossible to pass at the Glen and strategy plays a huge part. You need speed to stay up front and If you don’t have it there, it a long 6 hours. We had come across an engineering change to the car that seems to work real well. We had struggled for years at this track and finally had good speed and good drivers. We had a shot to win, but it did not pan out in traffic. Our rookie Sebastien Bourdais learned a lot about hitting , banging , and blocking that would pay massive dividends at Indy.”
Indianapolis : “Indy was amazing for winning the first sports-car race at the sacred track, and winning the North American Endurance Championship (NAEC). For 2012, Grand Am created a new smaller championship, the NAEC comprised of a formula of points from Daytona 24, Watkins Glen 6 and Indy. The way the points were, It basically came down to whatever team won the race, won the championship. Our cars were amazingly fast there and we opted for a little more downforce than the competition. This paid massive rewards when the rain came. At the end of the race we had a nice 1-2 result going. But once the track dried the 8 car dropped back to 3rd – where it had its now famous tangle with Montoya under a local yellow in turns 1 and 2. The day was incredibly bittersweet. Had the race ended 15 minutes earlier ( or without Montoya), we would have left there not only with the NEAC and race win, but we would have left 1 point in the overall championship lead , but instead we are now 11 points back. Still it was an absolutely incredible day and we were able to proudly kiss the bricks.”
North American Endurance Championship : “The NAEC championship was what made Indy so special . For a team in it’s third year, to have all this success, and win an endurance championship against more experienced, better funded teams, really put us on the map. I’m pretty confident no one else has won at Indy, LeMans, and Sebring, nor taken podium finishes from these tracks plus Daytona and Watkins Glen – all the hallowed ground of Sports-car racing! Now we have to close out these championships. We have a deficit to overcome with the Daytona Prototype championship, but have a good lead in the World Endurance Championship. Symbolically I’m ecstatic about winning the NEAC, because how can we take over the World EC if we haven’t won North America yet! People are saying we are having the best year ever for a sports-car team. All i know is we are incredibly proud of what we have accomplished this year, and hope to improve on it for 2013!”
Claude Foubert