Congrats to all around fast guy Mike Hedlund who gets his own ride this year with ESM in the 458 . Way to go Mike. You deserve it. http://sportscar365.com/gt/world-challenge/dragonspeed-partners-with-esm-fields-second-ferrari-for-hedlund/ Best of Luck Bob
very cool! congrats Mike accepting GT3 specs was a brilliant idea, PWC is going to be awesome this year.
I'm glad to see that this appears to be working out. I was really worried that the new class designations were going to be a mess and separate the world-class races from sports cars in the US.
We'll be watching you close Mike. Make sure you check in along the way. Would love to get your views on how the car is compared with the others you've raced. Bob
Hah, thanks again guys! It's amazing how much you need to compromise your driving when sharing the car, at least if you want to be a good teammate as I've been taught. You don't really take it easy while you're in the car, but when it's someone like me that is still trying to find the pace of the fastest guys, it's very hard. It takes a little bit of crazy to push through for that last little bit of speed... and at least for me, it's hard to do that when I need to give the car back to someone else who also needs practice time. -mike
Here's some photos of the car being converted to GT3 spec from the Grand-Am/GTD spec it ran in at Daytona (finished 4th!). The ESM guys move quick-- I tried to leave them alone to recover from Daytona and the crew was texting me these photos 48 hours later! Grand-Am cage gets to stay in the car, which makes me happy. It offers more protection than the factory GT3 specification cage albeit being a little heavier. -mike Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Just saw the article that has the initial 18 PWC entrants for the GP of Long Beach. http://www.world-challenge.com/images/events/Grand-Prix-of-Long-Beach-v1.pdf
I don't know for sure, but I keep hearing of an existing 2-car team that's purchased 2 McLaren MP4-12C's ... I'd put my money on K-Pax if the rumor is true. -mike
that would be cool, I wish there was more of a McLaren presence in US racing. or any, for that matter.
Agreed! GT3 is the way to go! Good luck Mike! Will be cheering from the FChallenge sidelines and maybe jump ship and join some day!
K-PAX Racing Will Run McLaren 12C GT3 Cars in 2014 Pirelli World Challenge | Pirelli World Challenge This is going to be one very exciting season!
Very Cool! As a GT3 you could race us at The 24 Hours of Nurburgring in 2015. We may be sharing garage/transporter/ etc. with at Ferrari GT3 Team.
Just a couple pics of the car, almost finished! Shaking it down at Sebring on Wednesday. Interested to see how it compares to the GTE/GTLM lap times.... -mike Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Had a great day at Sebring shaking the car down yesterday. No problems and we were able to try a bunch of things as well as get me plenty of laps to familiarize myself with the car. Here's an in-car lap if anyone's interested: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv7BnYWbJFE]Shaking down the new Ferrari 458 GT3 Italia at Sebring. - YouTube[/ame] Testing at Sonoma next... that should be fun. If anyone ever gets the chance to drive a proper GT3 spec car, you won't want to drive anything else again. They're that good. -mike
if you don't follow Mike on twitter, do it...a lot of great data today between GT3/GTC/GTD/DP cars at Sebring. damn those GT3 cars can stop!
Very nice Mike. What do you think of the car compared to your last. Maybe it's my imagination, but seems very smooth for Sebring.
Thanks guys! rcraig, compared to the Rolex GT/GTD car it's way easier to drive, more predictable and faster. The Rolex GT/GTD version of the car always felt like a hot rodded club race car, was very difficult to setup (very small window for it to work well), and very unforgiving. Compared to the GTC Porsche it's just a lot more advanced and easier to drive (and faster). Nice eye on the subtleness of the car. It was actually a little undersprung as we didn't have any spring options available for the test. Would have preferred to stiffen it up a bit. But overall, it was still very good over the bumps! -mike
