ROAD AMERICA

Frederik Vesti's first attempt at Road America in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship with Whelen Cadillac Racing turned into a rollercoaster weekend. Unpredictable weather severely limited the team's preparation ahead of Sunday's race.

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We completed FP1 on Friday, and I only managed seven laps. The plan was to make up for that during the second practice session, but unfortunately those seven laps ended up being all I got before Sunday's race. Saturday's second practice was hit by heavy rain and the team chose not to take any risks. It was quite a cool challenge jumping into the car at a track where I'd never raced before, with so few laps behind the wheel.

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The lack of experience, combined with the fact that Vesti had never before raced on track with 54 GT cars at the same time, only added to the challenge.

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We qualified P6, which was below our expectations, but we knew we had a strong race car for Sunday. Because of that, we went into the race with high expectations. A podium would have been a solid result for me. A win would have been absolutely crazy considering the level of competition.

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During one of my stints I moved from P7 to P3. Everything just clicked. That's how it felt from inside the car, and apparently the team saw it the same way. They told me afterward they were really impressed with how I handled both of my stints.

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When Vesti handed the car back over in the pits, the team encountered a technical issue with the pit-speed limiter. The system simply failed to engage quickly enough, resulting in a pit lane speeding penalty and a drive-through. The No. 31 Whelen Cadillac dropped back to eighth place, effectively resetting the race with three hours still remaining.

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When we pitted, we were hoping for a Full Course Yellow to bunch the field back up. It actually came just a couple of laps after our stop, which moved us right back into contention, so the strategy worked exactly as we had hoped. But by then the racing had become incredibly intense—door-to-door and right on the edge of what you'd call fair. At the same time, that's IMSA at its very best. Everyone was pushing the limits.

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With 11 minutes to go we were running P3. We had the pace to challenge for P2, but the No. 6 Porsche defended very aggressively. When my teammate Jack Aitken pulled alongside, he was forced straight onto the grass, spun, and crashed. The Porsche ended up crashing as well.

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It's an incredibly frustrating way to end the race after fighting our way back into podium contention. That's the risk you accept when you're overtaking and racing at the highest level. We're not happy with the way some of our competitors raced, and we take that very seriously. At the same time, Jack showed that you don't mess with the No. 31 car—we're not backing down for a second. We race to win. We expect to win. That's the standard we set for ourselves every time we hit the track.

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Despite the bitter disappointment, the incident has done nothing to diminish the team's determination for the remainder of the season.

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The fighting spirit is still incredibly high, and so is our motivation heading into the next race and the season finale at Petit Le Mans, which we won last year. We'll give absolutely everything we've got to beat the competition. Overall, it was a good weekend, but obviously a frustrating finish. We were classified P9 despite not ending our race in the wall with just five minutes remaining. We still scored valuable championship points, and we're still leading the championship, but it was definitely a frustrating setback,Vesti concluded.

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An 11-day, well-earned summer break now awaits Vesti before he returns to Europe to begin preparations for the final stretch of the season.