OFFICIAL: Fernando Alonso will race the 24 hours of Daytona 2019 with Cadillac

Fernando Alonso has already published a enigmatic tweet in which he set his career for 2019 after his period in F1 where his appointments for the WEC 2018-2019 appeared in the super season he was doing and also the 500 miles of Indianapolis as we know he will compete with McLaren. But he put some ellipses making it clear that there would be more dates and more mythic races that would arrive next year. In fact, there could still be more appointments for later in the calendar or agenda that Alonso will have ...

Today it has become official that the first race to be played in 2019 will be at the beginning of the year, and it will repeat at 24 hours at Daytona at the legendary US event sponsored by the luxury watch brand Rolex. But this time he will not be at United Autosport, the team of his boss Zak Brown at McLaren. Last year he had no chance to win with the problems he had with the LMP2 of the Zak team. The Ligier that we analyzed in this blog was not for the victory and the mechanical problems during the 24 hours of the appointment did not help either.

This time Fernando Alonso is going to be in a team with the possibility of opting for victory. It is a DPi Cadillac . The American firm will be the one to give a car to the Spanish that will join the team Konica Minolta strong>. (Japanese technology company of office equipment and doctor). A good enough team to do a good performance, and with a bit of luck to win the race in this category, because as in the WEC and 24 hours of Le Mans, here also compete several categories of cars at once./p>

So you know, Fernando Alonso will compete with the prototype Daytona Prototype international (DPi) that prepares Konica Minolta Cadillac that was released in 2017 and that arises from IMSA (International MotorSport Association) giving a series of guidelines for the engine and chassis of the what would these prototypes be It is really about some cars inspired by the LMP1 but somewhat modified to reduce costs and specially designed for the endurance races of the United States.

What will Fernando Alonso's car be like?

Well, as we did with the Daytona car last year , and also with the WEC and the Indy 500, now we are going to see how this Cadillac DPi of the Konica Minolta team will be.

Prototype : DPi (equivalent to the European LMP for the American series)

Chassis : developed by Dallara, as well as the Indy cars and those of many other categories, and even the HRT of the F1 or the current Haas itself ... Only a certain number of chassis are allowed to reduce costs and must pass the GARRA tests. The material is carbon fiber with a certain aerodynamics similar to the LMP.

Motor : Pontiac 5.0 L V8 labeled in this case as Cadillac (or Chevrolet according to equipment) of 500 HP (370kW). The regulation also imposes restrictions on the engines for their development, dimensions, RPM, leaks, etc.By the way, remember that it looks like it will be with a Chevrolet engine and that in this case it is Pontiac. All brands belonging to General Motors , as there could be problems with Honda for the Indy to be with Toyota in the WEC (direct competition in Japan) ...