Vesti eager to impress in substitute role with Cadillac GTP at Laguna

It’s never easy to jump into a car and replace one of sports car racing’s most accomplished drivers, but after an impressive run at the Twelve Hours of Sebring, Frederik Vesti feels like he’s ready to pick up where Earl Bamber has had to leave off.

Bamber isn’t at Laguna Seca this weekend due to his commitments at Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA at the WEC 6 Hours of Spa, so his place in the No. 31 Cadillac Whelen V-Series.R is being filled by Vesti. The young Dane had the chance to test for the first time at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in April and tells RACER he’s excited about his prospects for the race.

“I have a huge amount of respect for Earl. He’s very successful in sports cars. So yeah, it is some big shoes to fill,” Vesti says. “But at the same time, I feel ready for this weekend. It’s my third weekend with the team, and every test, every weekend so far, I’ve made a big step forward. And that’s what I’m looking to do this weekend, as well.

“I’m looking to treat it as any other race weekend in IMSA. It’s a bit shorter, it’s going to be a bit more intense — with the traffic on a small track like this, with all the GTs — but I’m ready for it!”

Vesti feels he made significant strides with the Whelen Cadillac at Sebring. Brandon Badraoui/IMSA

Vesti doesn’t have the trophy to show for it, but he did all that he could to keep Action Express Racing’s red Cadillac in contention to win at Sebring.

“Yeah, I was really pleased when I left Sebring. Because there’s no doubt Daytona was difficult for us as a team, especially with what happened with me in the car in the middle of the night,” Vesti admits. “So to bounce back at Sebring like we did as a team, and how I was driving, I was quite happy with that.

“I want to keep that as my baseline and move forward from there. And that starts with jumping into the car, confident and ready to explore the limit.”

At Sebring, Vesti looked more like the highly touted single-seater prospect that won the Formula Regional European Championship as a 17-year-old in 2019 and then won more races in the 2023 FIA Formula 2 Championship than any other driver, including its eventual champion, Theo Pourchaire. He’d been introduced to LMP2 and GT3 racing last year, primarily racing in the European Le Mans Series, but he’s taken a bigger step forward in his second season in sports cars.

This successful redirect into sports car racing emulates that of his co-driver Jack Aitken, who, like Vesti, found some success all the way up to F2 — and even had a small cup of coffee in Formula 1 — before finding a home at Action Express in IMSA.

“I’m super happy to be working closely with Jack. He’s a really good teammate,” Vesti says. “He’s pushing the boundaries in sports cars. We’ve had very similar career paths from our young driver careers in F3 and F2, so I think we’re really on the same page on how we approach a race.

“We’re basically coming from the same school, if that makes sense. And that just makes it really easy to work together. I’m just happy to keep building on that relationship with Jack and hopefully get our first win soon.”

Sims or no sims, there’s nothing like the real Corkscrew… Jake Galstad/IMSA

Like every other first-timer at Laguna Seca, Vesti is excited to get to drive around the circuit for real after logging countless laps in a simulator.

“No words can really describe the difference between what it feels like in the sim, and then in reality,” Vesti recalls of his first real-world impression of the circuit. “You really get butterflies through the stomach the first time you do it. And you just get a smile on your face. It’s one of the most historic, legendary, old-school tracks we have in the world.”

What will make or break Vesti’s first race at the demanding circuit? He highlights common challenge for many drivers coming over from open-wheelers into multi-class racing with GTs and prototypes.

“It’s going to be the traffic,” he says. “In my single-seater career, I’m used to just having a clear track ahead — all I have to do is maximize each corner to get the fastest possible qualifying or race. But in IMSA, it’s just about managing the KERS and not making mistakes when you’re under pressure from other GTPs or the traffic. It just really feels like a wild race, all the time. You never really have a break.

“It’s just minimizing those small mistakes throughout the race, and taking enough risks in the traffic is really important. Because if you’re too safe, obviously you will lose time. On the other hand, if you’re risking it all, you probably won’t finish the race. So it’s a very fine line to balance — that’s what I’m still learning in this car.”

Through his role as the Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 team’s reserve driver, Vesti still has connections to the F1 paddock — recently, he had a Free Practice run at the Bahrain Grand Prix — and admitted he would happily take up a seat if, say for instance, the new Cadillac F1 team asked him to drive one of its two cars. But his primary focus is with the Cadillac V-Series.R and with Action Express Racing/Cadillac Whelen as they look to finally crack Porsche’s run of IMSA GTP dominance.

“I’m really proud of racing with Cadillac in IMSA,” he says. “It’s a different challenge to what I’ve had previously in my career. I love the challenge. I love developing, continuing to improve, and racing in IMSA really offers me that opportunity.”