Back in 2023 Season 1, iRacing introduced their member base to the BMW M Hybrid V8, the first LMDh / GTP car that would run in endurance races on the 2023 motorsports calendar, such as the Rolex 24 at Daytona as well as the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The BMW is but one of the cars competing in this LMDh or GTP class, depending if we’re talking WEC or IMSA. There are many more OEMs that compete at this level, and on Friday (12th May), we may have been teased with another that is coming to the iRacing service… maybe as soon as this June’s build for 2023 Season 3?
Given the clues of the footage being taken at Belle Isle in Detroit, a brief glimpse of the top of the car, a brief view of the shadow of the rear end and of course, the noise we hear in the short clip, we have our suspicions that this might be the Cadillac GTP. That’s not exactly any confirmation by any means, but it sure does sound like this is it.
The Cadillac V-Series.R LMDh / GTP is General Motors’ solution to the new LMDh / GTP classification in place for 2023 and beyond. It competes in IMSA competition against the BMW, as well as the Acura ARX-06 and the Porsche 963. Over at the upcoming Le Mans event, Cadillac will have three spots on the grid among two teams.
For fans of endurance racing and these new Hypercars, it seems to be a solid consensus among them online that this is going to be a Caddy. There were rumors earlier this year, from Chip Ganassi Racing’s Renger van der Zande that iRacing was “pretty close” in some regards of having or scanning the car.
In IMSA and WEC competition, Chip Ganassi Racing (Cadillac Racing) and Action Express (Whelen Engineering) field the Cadillac GTPs, so this could possibly be a scan of either of their cars. I’m leaning towards Chip Ganassi Racing based on van der Zande’s comment, however.
There has been no formal announcement and nothing posted on the iRacing forums as of yet. If or when this car drops is to be determined as well. We were right about Willow Springs last week, and while there hasn’t been a formal post about it yet, it was mentioned in today’s iRacing Downshift episode.
My fingers are crossed that we find out that this is exactly what we think it is sooner than later.
