Motorsport Week had the chance to sit down for an exclusive chat with 2023 LMP2 champion Rui Andrade ahead of his switch to GT racing in 2024 in three different competitions and as many different cars, including a Michelin Endurance Cup campaign in IMSA with Lone Star Racing beginning with this weekend’s Daytona 24 Hours.
Andrade returns to IMSA for the first time since his 2022 Endurance Cup campaign with Tower Motorsports in LMP2 where he finished third in class on his Daytona debut, second at Watkins Glen and then first in the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta.
His three-year endurance career thus far has been exclusively in prototype machinery but in 2024 he will campaign in the #80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 in IMSA, the #81 Corvette Z06 GT3.R with TF Sport in FIA WEC and he’ll also compete in a Ferrari 296 GT3 machine in ALMS (Asian Le Mans Series) with Dragon Racing.
Both IMSA and FIA WEC have experienced a surge in popularity at late and are widely regarded as two of the biggest series in endurance racing.
Having had success in both championships, Andrade was the perfect candidate to compare and contrast IMSA and FIA WEC ahead of his second Daytona start.
“Although they are quite similar on paper, they’re very different,” he said. “Obviously, you have more or less the same cars. You have the GT3s and the Hypercars/LMDh situation.
“But they’re very different just because of the safety car and the full course yellow rules in IMSA. In WEC you can have a full course yellow, which basically stalls everybody down to a pace of 60 kilometres an hour, but you maintain your place on track. Whenever there is anything that happens on track in IMSA, it’s basically a safety car and you restart the race again. And what happens is this basically always lets you stay in the race.
“It kind of changes the way your race goes because you’re trying to survive essentially for 23 hours and staying in the lead lap because you always know there’s going to be a safety car or a full course yellow and you always know you’re coming back.
“I think for a racing driver, it can be frustrating at points because obviously, what happened to us in Daytona, we were leading by 45 seconds and then there was a safety car with four or five hours to go and obviously when this happens, it’s frustrating.
“But on the other hand, if you’re the car in P2 or P3 or P4 and you had a big issue and you’re far away and you have a safety car, it does bring you right back, which is cool. And for the fans watching, I think watching the races is incredible because there’s always so much action, there’s always so much going on and it doesn’t stop until the last hour.
“Whereas WEC, I would say as a driver, it’s more purely performance related. Usually the fastest, more consistent car wins. And you do have sometimes some big winning margins just because you have to really push and fight for the full 8, 12, 24 hours. Le Mans is now considered to be, as many people say, a 24-hour sprint because you are pushing flat out the whole time and you have no time to let up because if you do, you might get unlucky with the full course yellow or Slowzone and then you’re super far away and you never recover the time you lost.
“So yeah, different aspects of racing but I thoroughly enjoy both. The fans in IMSA are incredible, they always follow the racetracks and WEC as well, you know, now with the Hypercars and the prestige of the racetracks like Monza, Spa, Fuji even, completely full racetracks. So yeah, I really enjoy both.”
Andrade will compete at Daytona, Sebring, Watkins Glen, Indianapolis and Road Atlanta for his IMSA Endurance Cup campaign alongside teammates Salih Yoluc, Scott Andrews and Adam Christodoulou (Daytona only).
Last weekend’s Roar Before the 24 warm-up event was Andrade’s first taste of the Mercedes AMG-GT3 – the three-day session culminated in Qualifying for this weekend’s Daytona 24 Hours, with Christodoulou qualifying the car 55th overall and 20th in GTD.
