The groundbreaking new boss leading GM's sportscar assault

There are some people who rise through a company so fast that, long before middle age, they end up at a level several times removed from what originally attracted them to the industry. Suddenly they’re merely pen pushers, their enthusiasm dwindles and they end up occupying a job position rather than truly fulfilling a role. 

That’s not going to happen to Laura Wontrop Klauser who, at 34, has become General Motors’ sportscar racing programme manager. True, she’s not actually building the 5.5-litre V8s under the engine cover of the Cadillac DPi-V.R prototypes in the IMSA pits at Daytona or Sebring, but she’s making the decisions pertaining to these cars, the Corvette Racing squad’s C8.Rs, and the Chevrolet Camaro GT4.Rs that race in IMSA’s Michelin Pilot Challenge.

Klauser is just fine with that because racing combines two of her greatest passions – mechanical engineering and competition. And she intends to be very cautious about getting too far away from the hands-on activity.

“It’s a fine balance, it really is,” she tells Autosport. “I think a lot of the leaders at GM probably miss the days when they were working on the cars.

“I’ve done a couple of different jobs at GM, some of them I’ve really loved, some were a lot more challenging, and I learned that I’m never going to pursue a job because someone said I should do it. I’m only going to pursue a job that I want to do, where I believe I can make a positive impact.

“Racing is a perfect fit for me. If there came a day when there was another perfect fit, it was a good challenge and I could help move something forward, then I would definitely consider it. But honestly, I’m loving life, I’m keeping so busy and I can’t imagine going anywhere else.” 

Laura Wontrop Klauser

Photo by: Eric Klauser/Cadillac

Klauser grew up on a little farm in Long Green Valley in Maryland. She recalls her birthplace as “a little chunk of paradise” that proved fundamental in her eventual career path.

“I really got interested in cars around age 13 and the ‘car’ that I first learned to drive was actually a John Deere tractor!” she says. “Being on a farm meant that you didn’t just walk down to the end of the street to a 7-Eleven or a drugstore. You always had to get in a car to go anywhere, so having a car of your own meant independence and freedom to do what you wanted to do, when you wanted to do it.

“So I had to learn to drive – a real car this time! – as soon as possible. That started the passion for machinery and that’s why I went into mechanical engineering: it caught my attention and it didn’t let go.”

Klauser first wanted to be a mechanic, but her talent for maths convinced a teacher that she should look into engineering.

"Now I have Cadillac and Corvette and I could not be more happy. This is everything I could have wanted out of my career" Laura Wontrop Klauser

“So I went, ‘Oh, mechanical engineering? Best of both worlds’,” Klauser recalls. “Then when I went to college [at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute], I was on the Formula SAE team where you design, build and race a formula car with your fellow students and that’s when I fell in love with racing and the competition side of it.” 

Some of us in life immediately find the right path, and Klauser was one such.

“As a brand-new hire at GM, 21 years old, I was working on the Corvette production cars as my first assignment,” she smiles, “and I could not have been more excited. That was so cool.”

Initially Klauser’s remit involved working on suspension for GM’s mid-size and luxury models, helping to find noise/vibration/harshness solutions for the company’s small and compact cars. But as Cadillac switched from the CTS-V.R to the ATS-V.R in GT World Challenge Americas – then called the Pirelli World Challenge – the opportunity to head up the programme became vacant. 

Johnny O'Connell, 2015 Pirelli World Challenge Mosport

Photo by: Motorsport Images

“I couldn’t not apply!” explains Klauser. “I felt it would be my dream job, and it was. And then I got to be programme manager for the DPi-V.R in IMSA – an even dreamier job. Now, of course, I have Cadillac and Corvette and I could not be more happy. This is everything I could have wanted out of my career. I’m pretty excited.” 

Excited, yes, but well aware of the responsibilities ahead. She was in charge from the start of Cadillac’s DPi-V.R programme in 2016, and saw it win the first seven races after the IMSA SportsCar Championship introduced its Daytona Prototype international regulations for 2017. The car was so good that even IMSA’s smartest regulators couldn’t cope with the demands of matching Caddy’s beast of an engine – a normally aspirated 6.2-litre V8 built by Earnhardt Childress Racing – with the smaller turbocharged units from the opposition, and requested a capacity reduction for 2018, hence the 5.5-litre unit used since. 

Now the end is in sight for the DPi-V.R – which has amassed a total of 18 wins, including four consecutive Daytona 24 Hours triumphs – as the hybrid LMDh prototypes will be introduced for 2023. That’s a year later than originally planned, because of the knock-on effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. But Klauser says the DPi-V.R’s continuation in 2022 is entirely dependent on the appetite of the teams. Currently three Cadillacs race full-time, fielded by Action Express Racing, Chip Ganassi Racing and JDC-Miller Motorsports, with a second AXR car entered for the four endurance races.

“The way that our programme works is as a customer programme,” says Klauser. “We worked with Dallara to design the chassis, we worked with ECR to design the engine, but the teams buy the chassis from Dallara and lease the engines from ECR. We don’t dictate whether or not they race; really it comes down to whether our teams want to continue into next year.” 

And what about the LMDh regs? Klauser naturally plays her cards close, but says GM is assessing whether to retain IMSA programmes in both Prototype and GT classes or reduce its participation to just one class.

“LMDh has caught our attention,” she says. “We’ve taken a good look at the rules, and what we’re doing now is looking through where we want to place ourselves in sportscar racing in its entirety.

“It’s a package deal in our mind, where in the past it was a little bit separated – Corvette Racing was its own thing in GTLM, Cadillac was its own thing in Prototypes. Now it’s a different story, and LMDh has been very much part of the evaluation. Does it make sense to be there? What brand does it make sense to run?” 

JDC Miller Cadillac, Corvette Racing Daytona 24 Hours 2021

Photo by: Motorsport Images

In any previous year, Corvette Racing would be assumed to be set fair to continue. But this will be the final year for IMSA’s dwindling GT Le Mans class, which has just three full-time entrants this year and will be replaced by GTD Pro for GT3 cars with all-Pro driver line-ups. The new-for-2020 C8.R dominated GTLM last year and will surely do so again this year, but Klauser points out that there are several aspects to consider before GM will commit to switching its GT efforts to a GT3-spec C8.R that could be run by both the works Corvette Racing squad and by privateers. 

“There’s quite a bit of re-engineering to do to turn a car from GT Le Mans class into GT Daytona class,” she says. “It’s quite a different mentality to go down a customer platform route with a GT3 car than when you build a GTE car that you know is going to be factory-built and run.

"The last thing I wanted to do was feel ‘different’. I saw myself as an engineer and never wanted to talk about being female. But after a few years and now working with girls in high school and college, I know how important it is to understand the differences encountered by each gender" Laura Wontrop Klauser

“The decisions that you’d make for a factory team could be completely different from what you do for a customer. You have to pull a lot of cost out of something that you designed to be factory-run to make it affordable for the customer. I see it as likely being a brand-new programme.” 

The day will come, hopefully not long from now, when gender doesn’t come into these interviews, but there is still work to be done before the populace at large is unsurprised by a woman holding a senior engineering-based role in motorsport. Klauser agrees, admitting that her stance on the matter “has changed quite a bit”.

“When I was in college, someone said to me that I only got into RPI because I was a girl, which was bull because I had a hell of a resume coming out of high school,” she says. “The last thing I wanted to do was feel ‘different’. I saw myself as an engineer and never wanted to talk about being female.  

“But after a few years and now working with girls in high school and college, I know how important it is to understand the differences encountered by each gender. Thankfully, though, I don’t have any examples of when a door got slammed in my face or where somebody wouldn’t work with me because I’m a woman – partly because I just wouldn’t accept that!

“I think my feminine qualities mean I’m easy to talk to and approachable; many times, male team-mates will talk to me about something they wouldn’t dare tell another male team-mate. That works out well because I believe communication failure results in a lot of problems, so if people are willing to talk to me to explain what’s wrong, that’s an advantage whenever you need to get things solved.

“If that openness is because I’m a woman, then great. Whatever the reason, I will try to make all of us perform better as a team.”

Laura Wontrop Klauser

Photo by: Richard Prince, General Motors