- BMW and RLL Racing’s heartbreak became a celebration for Porsche 963 drivers Mathieu Jaminet, Nick Tandy and Porsche Penske Motorsport.
- After recovering from a pit road speeding penalty that wiped out a 15-second lead, Jack Hawksworth, Vasser Sullivan and Lexus celebrated an impressive double victory, sweeping the GT classes.
- In LMP3, Riley Motorsports won its fourth straight race with its Ligier JS P320 in a season that is a prelude to moving up to LMP2 next year.
What does BMW have to do to break into the winner’s column in GTP?
With the Rahal Letterman Lanigan team’s first pole in sight, rain cancelled qualifying for the Sahlen’s Six Hours at the Glen. Leading for the final 90 minutes, traffic and a late caution caught out Connor De Phillippi’s M Hybrid V8 with less than four minutes remaining.
BMW and RLL Racing’s heartbreak became a celebration for Porsche 963 drivers Mathieu Jaminet, Nick Tandy and Porsche Penske Motorsport. Moments before the final caution, Jaminet passed De Phillippi in heavy GTD car traffic in the boot portion of the Grand Prix circuit.
“I just gave it all,” said Jaminet, who is the co-leader in the points with Tandy. “It was every lap like a qualifying lap. So much risk taken, for sure. Even before I got in the car, the team told me, “It’s all in for the victory. We’re not thinking of the championship’. We wanted this race.”
Nick Yelloly, co-driver of the eventual runner-up No. 25 BMW, said the weekend showed “all the hard graft” being put in by the RLL team and BMW’s test team in Europe.
BMW’s day began with a crash on the opening lap of M Hybrid V8 driver Augusto Farfus that eliminated the No. 24 BMW from contention. What brought out the final caution that sealed yet another runner-up finish for BMW?
That yellow flew for the heavy crash and rollover of the BMW M 4 GT3 of Bill Auberlen, IMSA’s winningest driver. His M4 GT3 righted itself after contact with the wall at Turn 11 before a shaken Auberlen, who is 55, emerged and walked away. The BMW entry of Paul Miller Racing lost two laps in the GTD class with an electrical issue before clawing back to second place with pit strategy.
BMW was looking to become the fourth different manufacturer to win in this year’s new GTP hybrid category. Instead, Jaminet and Tandy became the first team in five races to win twice. BMW scored its third runner-up finish followed by the Cadillac team of Action Express Racing (Pipo Derani, Alexander Sims and Jack Aitken) and the Acura of Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian (Tom Blomqvist and Colin Braun).
After stepping in for co-driver Nick Yelloly, De Phillippi worked his way to an eight-second lead. But the pit sequence for the Rahal Letterman Lanigan team meant his final stint was almost a full hour on his Michelins. Jaminet closed the gap when the BMW began suffering with less grip off the corners, then pounced in traffic when De Phillippi chose an outside line around the winning GTD Pro car of Jack Hawksworth.
The No. 14 Vasser Sullivan, Lexus RC F GT3 of drivers Jack Hawksworth and Ben Barnicoat won in GTD Pro.
Lexus Scores First Double Victory
After recovering from a pit road speeding penalty on his final pit stop that wiped out a 15-second lead, Jack Hawksworth, Vasser Sullivan and Lexus celebrated an impressive double victory, sweeping the GT classes.
The GT double was the first for the team or Lexus, which relied on downforce through the high-speed turns and horsepower on the straights to overcome drag in the RC F GT3.
Hawksworth, who recovered to pass the leading Corvette C8.R in Turn 8 with 24 minutes remaining, and Ben Barnicoat, scored their second GTD Pro victory of the season and ninth straight podium going back to last season. It says something about the strength of the Lexus program that Aaron Telitz, Frankie Montecalvo and Parker Thompson finished ahead of their two Pro class teammates as well as all the other entries in a 33-car GT field.
“We’d done an unbelievable job giving us such a big lead going into the final stint,” said Hawksworth. “We don’t really know what happened. I can’t believe it. I don’t know if the (speed limiter) button just didn’t latch when I left the box. But for a couple of laps there when we lost that 15-second lead, I was devastated. Then obviously the car was great. We just kept pushing on and never gave up.”
The No. 04 Crowdstrike Racing by APR ORECA LMP2 07 was driven to the LMP2 win by George Kurtz, Ben Hanley and Nolan Siegel.
LMP2, LMP3 Streaks Continue
George Kurtz kept an impressive, if short, streak alive with an LMP2 victory at the Glen with co-drivers Gen Hanley and Nolan Siegel.
The win with the Crowdstrike Racing by APR team follows a first-place result at the Le Mans 24 hour in the LMP2 Am class for Kurtz, who co-drove an Algarve Pro Racing entry with Colin Braun and James Allen.
“I can check (the Glen) off the list,” said Kurtz. “It was a fantastic race. The Crowdstrike APR guys gave us a great car. The team did a fantastic job. No mistakes. It’s been one heck of a month.”
LMP3
In LMP3, Riley Motorsports won its fourth straight race with its Ligier JS P320 in a season that is a prelude to moving up to LMP2 next year after IMSA shuttles the LMP3 category out of the multi-class events.
“This is the hardest one of all of them,” said Gar Robinson, the team’s bronze-rated gentleman driver who shared the cockpit with Felipe Fraga and Josh Burden. “Everyone was on a fuel strategy mode and we just had to keep pushing until the finish. We had numbers we had to meet and Felipe and Josh did an amazing job.” In the closing minutes Fraga had a fierce dice with Garrett Grist, the gold-rated driver of JR III Racing before finally shutting the door.
It was an eventful day for the No. 24 BMW M Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8 and drivers Philipp Eng and Augusto Farfus.
Dangerous First, Final Hour
In a fraught and dangerous first hour, two drivers were left stranded in the middle of the track after separate crashes before IMSA officials called for full course cautions.
Augustus Farfus spun his BMW M Hybrid V8 on cold tires one corner after the starting green flag for the prototypes. Despite his car sitting at the entrance to the Esses, the green flag was waved for the secondary start of the GTD field, which came through Turn 1 at race speed while baring down on Farfus’s immobile BMW.
“I was a bit stunned,” said Farfus when he saw the GTD field headed toward him. “Luckily, all of the guys went by me.” The Brazilian shouldered the blame for his crash, which took the No. 24 entry out of the race before the end of the first lap. “These tires are tricky,” he said. “I went for the accelerator and just lost it.”
Thirty minutes later, Steven Thomas hit the Turn 12 wall in his TDS Racing LMP2 entry, then inexplicably backed his heavily damaged car off the wall into the groove of the blind corner before coming to a stop. After IMSA officials finally called for a full course caution following several cars dodging the ORECA, Thomas and his team were penalized for his harrowing and unsafe attempt to get to the pit entry.
The pits were not safe, either. Corvette Racing left a wheel in its stall after its car left the pits. The wheel was hit by Heart of Racing’ Aston Martin and nearly cleared the pit wall and into the front straight. Corvette Racing was penalized for a pit equipment violation.
The race became a string of penalties. The No. 10 Acura ARX-06 of Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport was penalized twice—once in the first hour to exchange its left rear Michelin tire when IMSA officials spotted a tire with ow pressure and later a second time for failure to fulfill the required fueling time. Colin Braun was caught speeding entering the pits in the Acura of Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian.
In all, 44 penalties were administered and 10 black flags for mechanical issues.
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