- Porsche No. 7 wins its first race of the season, bringing Porsche Penske Motorsport a second victory.
- Points leaders Action Express and BMW M Team RLL suffer pre-race setbacks.
- Lexus, BMW teams continue to lead the GT ranks despite strong move by Heart of Racing and Aston Martin.
The chase for the first IMSA WeatherTech Championship in the new GTP hybrid era got scrambled by Road America’s newly repaved and tricky surface. The two points-leading teams of Cadillac and BMW crashed on cold tires before the green flag even waved, which helped keep the door open to title contenders from Porsche and Acura.
When the checkered flag waved for the IMSA SportsCar weekend feature, the winning No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 of Matt Campbell and Felipe Nazr led the runner-up Acura ARX-06 of Colin Braun and Tom Blomqvist by 6.8 seconds. The latter duo were docked 200 points by IMSA when the Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian was caught bypassing regulations on tire pressure at the Rolex 24 at Daytona. But they now have an outside chance of back-to-back titles after winning the final DPi title last year.
Despite not having a victory this season, a distant third place finish in the two hour, 40-minute race by Ricky Taylor and Felipe Albuquerque in the Acura of Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport put those two drivers on top of the championship chase.
After picking up points for Pipo Derani’s pole, Cadillac’s Action Express Racing team slipped from first to second in the standings, 14 points behind WTR. Alexander Sims crashed the Action Express Cadillac V-Series.R in the morning warm-up that Pipo Derani had put on the pole. After replacing the entire rear section of the prototype, including its hybrid system, the former points leaders started at the rear of the GTP field and finished sixth.
The BMW M Team RLL suffered an even more disastrous outing. Second in the points, Connor De Phillippi spun his No. 25 entry into the gravel on the pace laps. He then crashed under green at the Kink nine minutes into the race, which ended the car’s day. The No. 24 BMW dropped from contention due to a technical problem.
Meyer Shank emerged tied for fifth with the Cadillac team of Chip Ganassi, 118 points behind the leaders. The teams higher up in the standings would have to tank in the final two races for the those lower down the order to win a title. But as Road America proved, strange things can happen.
Porsche had the numbers working in its favor due to the catawampus shuffling of the order before the start. The No. 6 team remained in points contention despite finishing a disappointing seventh. By finishing fifth, the privateer Porsche 963 entry of JDC-Miller Motorsports took points from Action Express.
After crunching the numbers on set-up following a miserable practice and so-so qualifying session, the winning No. 7 Porsche became a flyer in the race. Campbell, aided by the problems of the No. 31 Cadillac and the disappearance of the No. 25 BMW, led the field on the re-start after the latter’s crash and was never headed.
“We had a big swing after practice,” said Campbell. “We tested in the spring, but the track has changed so much since then. We just weren’t ready for it.” The key was being the quickest GTP on cold Michelin tires, which caught out the Cadillac and BMW teams before the race had even started due to the rubbered in line being so narrow on the new pavement and the offline being so slippery. “Obviously it’s quite hard to be able to get tire temperature here and it’s really tough,” said Campbell. “So just to try and minimize the time loss out of the pits.”
Madison Snow and Bryan Sellers scored their fourth victory in the team’s BMW M4 GT3 on the heels of Snow’s “perfect lap” that won the pole in qualifying.
GTD Teams Beat Most of the Pros
The points-leading Paul Miller Racing team demonstrated why it’s going to be tough to beat for the IMSA Championship in GTD. Madison Snow and Bryan Sellers scored their fourth victory in the team’s BMW M4 GT3 on the heels of Snow’s “perfect lap” that won the pole in qualifying.
Counting on full course cautions due to the new pavement’s challenges, many teams ran pit strategies accordingly, anticipating opportunities to save fuel under yellow that never came. The Miller team, which will move to GTD Pro next season, ran a standard two-stop strategy with Snow starting and finishing the race.
“I think (my team) were all a little bit surprised when I said we need to put Madison back in,” said Sellers, who thought a fresh driver was needed to hold off the charge of Frederik Schandorff in the McLaren 720S GT3 Evo of Inception Racing “It’s different at the end. There is a lot of pressure, especially with the McLaren closing at two-seconds a lap.” Schandorff finished 2.26 seconds behind, but like the BMW drivers finished ahead of three of the GTD Pro entries.
The race among the teams with two pro drivers was decided by a pit penalty assigned to Corvette Racing.
The race among the teams with two pro drivers was decided by a pit penalty assigned to Corvette Racing, which violated the minimum refueling regulation before taking the lead from the eventual class winners of Heart of Racing, Alex Riberas and Ross Gunn. Andy Garcia held off Gunn at the exit of Turn 6 to sustain the lead before the penalty was assessed for the final stop, which allowed the Aston Martin Vantage GT3 drivers to win a second straight race.
“There was a bit of different strategies going on so it made it interesting,” said Gunn. “And then the last stint was really tough. We really had to look after the fuel, as you saw a lot of people were stopping there at the end. I’m just grateful we got to the end.”
The points-leading Vasser Sullivan team held serve in the GTD Pro championship. Jack Hawksworth started before Ben Barnicoat advanced to second in the team’s Lexus RC F GT3 following the penalty to the Corvette C8-R GTD. With three races remaining, the Vasser Sullivan duo lead the Corvette Racing’s Garcia and Jordan Taylor by 169 points.
Ben Keating and Paul-Loup Chatin took a 9.5-second victory.
Keating Gets a LMP2 Victory
While others were crashing in practice or qualifying, Ben Keating kept his PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca on the track – after spinning between Turn 6 and the Carousel. In the wake of other contenders working overnight to repair their cars, Keating and Paul-Loup Chatin took a 9.5-second victory over the TDS Racing, which went into overtime to repair its Oreca following a pre-race crash by Giedo van der Garde.
“I fought so hard in the first stint to stay on the lead and thanks to the strategy with the team I just had to finish the job at the end,” said Chatin. “So, at the end I took no risks at all just to bring the car back in one piece.”
Gar Robinso adapted to the new pavement to win a fourth LMP3 race in the Ligier JSP 320 of Riley Motorsports, this time with co-driver Josh Burdon. “It was treacherous out there today,” said Robinson. “Since the re-paving of this track, it’s completely changed the way this track races. The races here from now on are going to be a lot different. Especially now. It’s different and we were definitely in a spot that we didn’t want to be in for the majority of the race. Josh brought it back and we made some great calls.”
Next year’s Indy race will become a major endurance event.
IMSA WeatherTech 2024 Schedule Announced
The second appearance next year of the IMSA WeatherTech Championship at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway under the ownership of Roger Penske will become a major endurance event. The 2024 race, as expected, will be a six-hour event. Next month’s return of IMSA will be a standard two hour, 40-minute affair.
The six-hour distance is within a traditional length of a sports car endurance race, but is designed not to overtax the track’s resources or the those of the teams, The Indy race joins the 24-hour at Daytona, the 12-hour at Sebring and the six-hour at Watkins Glen in the endurance ranks of the nine-race schedule.
Lime Rock Motorsports Park, which hosted the WeatherTech’s GT cars last month, is not on the 2024 schedule. Discussions about a date at Lime Rock after 2024 will be revisited.
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