In the IMSA SportsCar Championship race, it was a Cadillac 1-2 finish as Renger van der Zande and Kevin Magnussen won the race. The Porsche Penske Motorsports 963 cars of Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet locked up at Turn 2, allowing Colin Braun to take the lead, followed by Pipo Derani. Jaminet finished third ahead of the two BMW M Hybrid V8s of Connor De Phillippi and Philipp Eng, and Ricky Taylor’s Wayne Taylor Racing Acura. Campbell fell to seventh ahead of Bourdais’ Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac and Tijmen van der Helm in the new JDC-Miller MotorSport Porsche 963. All nine GTP cars pitted after Campbell nudged Jarett Andretti’s Aston Martin into an accident at pitlane entry. Braun dropped to seventh after taking both fuel and tyres.
Derani led De Phillippi, Bourdais, Eng and van der Helm, while Porsche’s day got worse as Campbell was handed a drive-through penalty for the incident with Andretti. Braun elbowed his way past Eng’s BMW on Lap 33 on the climb from Turn 5 to Turn 6, and the BMW’s loss of momentum allowed Filipe Albuquerque and Jaminet to also lever their way through to demote the #24 BMW to seventh.
With 1h42m to go, John Farano crashed the Tower Motorsports LMP2 car at Turn 5, packing the field back up. All GTP cars hit pitlane, and MSR gave Braun fuel only, so his Acura took the lead ahead of Derani and Albuquerque. Nick Tandy took over the #6 Porsche to emerge in fourth, ahead of the #25 BMW now steered by Nick Yelloly, and the #7 Porsche now driven by Felipe Nasr. Renger van der Zande replaced Bourdais in the Ganassi Cadillac, ahead of Augusto Farfus’ #24 BMW and Mike Rockenfeller’s JDCM Porsche.
Derani passed the MSR Acura at Turn 3 to take the lead on the second lap after the restart. The #7 Porsche of Nasr went off exiting the Corkscrew soon after passing Tandy, and the impact was hard enough to send him into the pits for repairs. Tandy dropped to fifth behind van der Zande, who found himself stacked behind the two Acuras. Van der Zande then passed Albuquerque to claim third and closed on the struggling Braun. Once he demoted Braun, Albuquerque followed him through.
With 70m left, it was a Cadillac 1-2, with Derani and van der Zande running 14s apart. Tandy grabbed fourth from Braun into Turn 2 on lap 55, with the BMWs also demoting the struggling MSR machine. Yelloly demoted Tandy for fourth with just over an hour remaining. Sims took the lead as Derani stopped the car with 20s lead. The last of them to pit – CGR’s Caddy and the BMWs – got in just before IMSA threw the fourth full course caution for Aaron Telitz parking the Lexus RC F in the wall on the outside of the final corner.
GTD Pro and GTD
Klaus Bachler’s GTD Pro Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R led the GT field, with Roman de Angelis in close pursuit in the lead pro-am GTD car, the Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage. Alec Udell’s Kellymoss with Riley Porsche was next up, ahead of Jordan Taylor’s Corvette and Madison Snow’s Paul Miller Racing BMW M4. Taylor’s Corvette took the lead in GTD Pro class ahead Jack Hawksworth’s Lexus after the yellow. Kellymoss with Riley ran 1-2, with Alec Udell ahead of Kay van Berlo having just pitted before the yellow. Andy Lally led GTD for Magnus Racing (Aston), ahead of van Berlo and Auberlen, while Ross Gunn led GTD Pro ahead of Garcia. Van Berlo won GTD by 10s ahead of Auberlen who had two seconds in hand over Andlauer. Gounon took GTD Pro victory by eight seconds from the #14 Lexus.
Leave a Reply