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Cadillac Racing’s Laura Wontrop Klauser on Cadillac V-LMDh Development

Cadillac Racing's Laura Wontrop Klauser on Cadillac V-LMDh Development

GM sports car racing program manager Laura Wontrop Klauser participated in a media conference hosted by IMSA with the three other manufacturer LMDh project leads. After nearly two years of preparation, including five months of on-track development encompassing more than 20,000 kilometers, three Cadillac V-LMDh race cars will debut on Jan. 28-29 in the Rolex 24 At Daytona.

YOU’VE BROUGHT THE CHIP GANASSI RACING, AND ACTION EXPRESS RACING TEAMS UNDER ONE UMBRELLA AS CADILLAC RACING. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT HOW THAT PROCESS HAS GONE?
“This program, in general, has really rallied all of us to work together – even across the OEs. We had such compressed timelines. We have a brand-new hybrid spec system in the car. The chassis are all new for all of us, so we had to pull resources together to get to the point where we had running cars at Daytona last week and as we prepare for the Rolex. So, it’s the same approach for the teams. If we try to be off on different islands, we would be unable to compete once we got to the Rolex. We had to work together. We had to swap parts back and forth to make sure cars were running. We had to share learnings, and, I think, necessity can be the best tool that you can have in your toolbox because there really was no other option to get this program done than to collaborate. That has driven the message, and what I think has been great is seeing the results of the collaboration, seeing the ability to get the test program more done by having the two teams helping us and running two cars instead of running one car. The benefits are coming in. We still have a huge mountain to climb and constantly pushing that rock up the hill. Thankfully, we’re all rallying behind the rock together – depending on which rock we’re pushing that day. So, it’s nice to have people standing next to your right and left while you’re trying to do something incredible.”

WHAT DO YOU THINK THE PRINCIPAL CHALLENGE IS AHEAD OF THE ROLEX 24?
“Parts management has been a struggle; to get enough parts and to make sure that the quality is what we need. Especially with fielding three cars, we want to make sure we have everything for primaries, we have spares, and then, God forbid something happens in the Roar, we have backups for backups. Some of it we’re probably going to get just before, and some we might not have backups for backups. Really, just having enough parts to field the cars successfully and working with the supply chain. Of course,…

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