By Tony DiZinno
IMSA Wire Service
Proton Competition’s presence in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship paddock has existed for the last few years, but largely hidden beneath its primary livery.
Christian Ried’s long-standing, successful German squad fielded the WeatherTech Racing-flagged program from 2021 to 2023 with a pair of German brands featuring the traditional white-and-black livery. The team ran a Porsche 911 RSR in the final season of GT Le Mans (GTLM) in 2021, winning three races (Sebring, Road America and Petit).
A shift to GT Daytona (GTD) and GT Daytona PRO (GTD PRO) followed in 2022, first running the GT3 specification Porsche 911 GT3 R and then shifting to a Mercedes-AMG GT3 later in the season. Results failed to match the success of the previous year.
Armed with a singular, full-time, focused GTD PRO program in 2023, the No. 79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 captured the Rolex 24 At Daytona win last year with the factory Mercedes-AMG trio of Jules Gounon, Daniel Juncadella and Maro Engel, with Cooper MacNeil signing off his driving career on top. Gounon and Juncadella added three more wins (WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Motul Petit Le Mans) and secured the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup class title.
Meanwhile in its lone Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class start of the year at Daytona, Proton’s James Allen edged Crowdstrike by APR’s Ben Hanley by just 0.016 seconds at the Rolex 24 finish line. Allen shared the winning No. 55 ORECA 07 with Gianmaria Bruni, Francesco Pizzi and Fred Poordad.
That LMP2 experience at the front end of the year served as a quick introduction to prototype racing for the team, prior to taking delivery of two customer Porsche 963 chassis to run the second half of 2023 and split between IMSA and the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Without much testing, the No. 59 Porsche 963 featured the same WeatherTech livery but was entered as a Proton Competition car. The team progressed quickly and the trio of Bruni, Neel Jani and Harry Tincknell capped off 2023 in Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) with a podium at Petit Le Mans, the first Porsche customer LMDh entry to do so.
Flash forward to the 2024 Rolex 24 and once again, Proton has shifted things up a bit, as it pursues two more class wins to match the two achieved in 2023.
There’s a substantial difference, though. Whereas last year Proton raced in LMP2 and GTD PRO, this year its two entries are in GTP and GTD. Hypothetically, Proton could sweep all four classes at the Rolex 24 within two years.
Armed for the challenge are Bruni and Jani, the two full-season drivers in the team’s Porsche 963 prototype, with Romain Dumas in for Michelin Endurance Cup rounds and Alessio Picariello, a Proton GT veteran, on for the Rolex 24.
They’ll drive a revised looking and numbered entry; gone is the white-and-black No. 59 fielded in the handful of 2023 races, and in is the black-and-gold No. 5 with new partner Mustang Sampling. This marks Mustang Sampling’s third different IMSA program, having previously adorned Action Express and JDC-Miller cars.
Meanwhile, a new GTD program has come together in only the last few months, with a handful of IMSA veterans in one of the WeatherTech Championship’s two newest cars.
Past Rolex 24 GTD winners Corey Lewis and Ryan Hardwick are part of the No. 55 Proton Competition brand new Ford Mustang GT3, joined by Lewis’ full-season co-driver Giammarco Levorato and Rolex 24 fourth driver Dennis Olsen, a single-race IMSA winner. Hardwick will be the team’s third driver for the balance of the Michelin Endurance Cup season.
As Paul Miller Racing’s relationship with BMW evolved for 2024 to where more BMW-supported drivers entered that fold, the team ensured its long-standing third driver Lewis had enough time to sort out future options. Lewis reconnected with Hardwick, for whom he filled in during the 2019 season at PMR.
Through a series of constant communication and shifting fortunes behind the scenes, Lewis secured the full-season ride in early January after anticipating a year on the sidelines.
“You worry when you’re waking up with nothing of how you move forward, and then all of a sudden it can flip thanks to so many people,” said Lewis, a five-time WeatherTech Championship race winner who will embark on his first full season in IMSA since 2017.
“To have a chance to build a relationship with Proton, Ford and the new Mustang, and Multimatic, there’s something to grow. Now instead of late nights stressing about what’s going on, now it’s late nights because I’m excited to get to the track.”
Lewis and the rest of the Proton two-car team hit the track this weekend for testing during the Roar Before the Rolex 24 at Daytona International. The three on-track days conclude Sunday with Rolex 24 qualifying (1:25 p.m. ET livestream on Peacock).
The 62nd Rolex 24 starts Saturday, Jan. 27, with NBC network kicking off the broadcast at 1:30 p.m. The entire race streams live on Peacock, with the race conclusion also on NBC from noon-2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 28.
