With the Cadillac V-Series.R GTP introduced with the recent Season 3 update, joining the BMW M Hybrid V8 LMDh from 2022, it seems the 2023 field could be completed soon with two new IMSA GTP cars confirmed for iRacing.
While iRacing hasn’t confirmed the models which will be released, it seems likely to be the Porsche 963 and Acura ARX-06 currently racing in the IMSA GTP series. While other cars run in the LMDh class in the FIA World Endurance Championship, they don’t currently run in the American sportscar series. The other possibility could be the Lamborghini SC63 LMDh unveiled at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, but while racing sims do feature cars before they compete in the real world, on-track testing hadn’t been started for the car as recently as the middle of June. So there won’t be much data available yet.
The Porsche 963 debuted at the opening round of the 2023 IMSA SportsCar championship for the 24 Hours of Daytona. It’s already been confirmed as featuring in both Rennsport and Le Mans Ultimate, so it’ll be interesting to see which platform releases it first to the public. And obviously plenty of cars from the German manufacturer have already been including in iRacing, so presumably there’s a fairly established working relationship there.
The Acura ARX-06 also appeared for the first time at Daytona, being designed by Honda Performance Development and built by Oreca. And while the luxury and performance brand used by Honda primarily in the US, Canada and Mexico has appeared in a variety of racing games in the past, the ARX 01c appeared in iRacing badged under Honda Performance Development. So this could be a sim racing debut for the Acura badge, as it also hasn’t been officially included in any other simulator title car list as yet.
All of the competitors in the series put out 671hp via both internal combustion and electric power, with a mandatory weight of 1,030kg. At the time of writing, there are three rounds left of the 2023 season at Virginia, Indianapolis and Road Atlanta, and the driver standings are led by Filipe Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor, driving the Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport Acura ARX-06, followed by Pipo Derani and Alexander Sims in the Whelen Engineering Racing Cadillac V-Series R, and then Connor De Phillippi and Nick Yelloly in their BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8.
The most likely release date for the cars will be the iRacing 2023 Season 4 update, which should become available in September.
You can sign up to iRacing, here (and credit your referral to ORD, which we’d appreciate!). And see all vehicles included in your basic subscription, or what you can access by paying more, in our full official iRacing car list, here. Or check out all of the included circuits, and the others you can buy, in our full official iRacing track list, here.
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