Frederik Vesti is moving the IMSA SportsCar Championship for next season to drive for Cadillac alongside Earl Bamber and Jack Aitken.
The Danish driver already drove the car at the end-of-season WEC Rookie Test in Bahrain, when Vesti explained he already had good confidence in his Cadillac.
He is moving to endurance racing after a successful junior single-seater career, during which Vesti won the FRECA title in 2019 and finished second in Formula 2 in 2023.
Despite his strong set of results, Vesti was overlooked by F1 teams for a full-time drive and had to settle for a reserve driver role at Mercedes.
The racing style in IMSA is very different from Formula 2 and FIA F3, with much more measured wheel-to-wheel combat.
Vesti told sportscar365 that he had a lot of assistance at the track when he was ascending the junior ladder, which may be different in IMSA next year.
Frederik Vesti feels he was ‘spoiled’ in Formula 2 and F3 as drivers are the centre of attention
Endurance racing has a very different atmosphere than junior single-seater championships, as the cars are shared.
It provides a more collaborative atmosphere, while the multi-class aspect can be difficult to get used to on the circuit.
Vesti is still linked to Mercedes as a reserve driver for the F1 team, and he was closely related to the outfit during his junior career.
This allowed him to experience Formula 1 outings in FP1 sessions and do simulator work, while there will be much more testing in IMSA.
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Vesti explained that the Dane feels he needs to change his mindset ahead of racing in IMSA, too, as fewer engineers will micro-manage the finer details of his driving like they did in F2 and F3.
He said: “I’m used to the somehow spoiled world of Formula 2 and Formula 3 where you are the centre of everything as a driver.
“So, I need to shift my mindset a bit from having everything done for me in F2 and starting to be proactive and knowing in which direction I need to look to improve myself.
“Because there won’t necessarily be someone saying, ‘In Turn 1, you’re doing this and in Turn 2, you need to do this’.”
Frederik Vesti is heading to IMSA with experience in endurance racing
Vesti combined his duties with the Mercedes F1 team with a full season of the European Le Mans Series and one-off entries at Le Mans and in IMSA.
This should allow him to make his full-time IMSA debut confidently, having already experienced doing a driver change and learning how to manage slower traffic.
Vesti’s time at Le Mans may be particularly important at the season opener at Daytona, as 24-hour races are unique in the distance and changing track temperatures.