Following the controversy during the season-opening Rolex 24 at Daytona, where Montaplast by Land Motorsport were handed the first-ever in-race Balance of Performance penalty, minimum refuelling times for all three classes within the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship have been introduced.
Land Motorsport held almost a two-lap advantage during the race at the Daytona International Speedway, only to be pegged back by a five-minute stop and hold penalty that ultimately resulted in the Audi R8 LMS of Kelvin and Sheldon van der Linde, Christopher Mies and Jeffrey Schmidt finishing down in seventh position in the GT Daytona class after officials deemed that they had a ‘consistent and beneficial’ advantage in refuelling during the event.
As a result of what transpired at Daytona, IMSA has brought in minimum refuelling times for all three classes for full-fills, starting with the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring next month, with Prototypes set at a minimum of thirty seconds, GT Le Mans at thirty-four seconds, and GT Daytona at forty seconds.
The minimum times are set to overall the regulations that affect the refuelling restrictor sizes, with updated Balance of Performance charts for all three classes set to be released before the race at Sebring on 17 March.
