Smart strategy and deft fuel saving on a wet track and on a heavily weather-impacted race led to the first victory of the season for Felipe Nasr and Pipo Derani in Friday’s Weathertech 240.
The IMSA WeatherTech 240 at The Glen was already a sprint race. After a red-flag stoppage for lightning midway through. The total race time was two hours, 40 minutes, but the cars were stopped in pit lane for nearly 45 minutes when lightning struck near the track an hour into the event on the 3.4-mile, 11-turn road course. Per IMSA rules, the race clock continues during red flags, so green-flag racing resumed with just under 37 minutes to go. After a short full-course caution for debris on the track, the green waved again at the 28-minute mark.
The #31 Whelen Engineering/ AXR Racing Cadillac DPi V.R took the lead during pit stops shortly after the end of a 46-minute red flag for weather late in the IMSA WeatherTech 240 at The Glen. Nasr then stayed ahead of the field after a late restart to conclude an emotional victory.
“It was just awesome,” Nasr said. “That’s what racing is about. It’s hard. When you pull it out, it really amazes you.”
The strategy, to which Action Express Racing committed before the race, allowed the team to take fuel only during the final pit stop while others were receiving full service. That let Nasr leap the field and take the lead.
One problem. Nasr wasn’t sure if he had enough fuel to reach the end of the race.
“Once we got that second yellow after the restart, that helped us a lot,” Nasr said. “But I was still saving fuel. We are so limited on the capacity that we don’t have the luxury to go flat out all the time, but that second yellow helped us out big time.”
Nasr crossed the line 1.473 seconds ahead of Renger van der Zande in the #01 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac DPi V.R he co-drove with Kevin Magnussen. The #10 Konica Minolta Acura DPi ARX-05 driven by Filipe Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor finished third, increasing its lead in the Daytona Prototype International (DPi) class to 81 points over the #55 Mazda Motorsports Mazda DPi and drivers Harry Tincknell and Oliver Jarvis.
LMP2
The #52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA LMP2 07 shared by Ben Keating and Mikkel Jensen also maintained its points lead in the LMP2 class with a 21.839-second victory over the #11 WIN Autosport ORECA co-driven by Tristan Nunez and Steven Thomas.
Knowing it was the fastest in class, the PR1 Mathiasen team decided to use the pace to their advantage. Instead of saving fuel, Keating and Jensen went as fast as possible.
“We decided to go hard from the beginning and try to build enough of a gap that we could afford to do a stop and keep the lead,” Keating said. “That’s exactly what we did. It worked out really well.”
Gabriel Aubry and John Farano were third in LMP2 in the #8 Tower Motorsport ORECA.
GTLM
Garcia won the GTLM class in Friday night’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race at Watkins Glen International, with Hawksworth taking honours in GTD, which paid points toward only the IMSA WeatherTech Sprint Cup standings. Both did so by getting the jump on the competition on a final restart with 28 minutes to go.
Finishing the race that co-driver Jordan Taylor started in the #3 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C8.R, Garcia ran second to teammate Tommy Milner in the No. 4 Corvette until the last restart.
Given a shot of confidence after turning a couple of green-flag laps before the red flag, Garcia powered around his teammate coming out of the last turn on the restart and pulled steadily away to win by 1.895 seconds over Milner and co-driver Nick Tandy in GTLM. It is the third win in four points-paying races this year for Garcia and Taylor.
“I knew before the restart that I could switch on the tire a little better than (Milner), so I was all out,” said Garcia, who now has 25 IMSA wins. “He got caught on the last corner with some (prototype) car and I got past. After that, you just had to close your eyes and trust that the grip would be somehow there.
“The first two laps, I knew that would be the main thing of the race. That’s where I pulled out those two seconds and kept the distance from that point on. I just took a little bit more risk than Tommy did and opened up the gap.”
Garcia and Taylor made it a sweep of the two Watkins Glen weekends, taking the GTLM pole position and race win in both. Corvette Racing now has 117 wins in IMSA competition.
“Just another great day for Corvette Racing with a 1-2 finish,” Taylor said after collecting his 29th career win, “and for us in the #3 car to go back-to-back with the Six Hour last week.”
GTD
Like Garcia in GTLM, Hawksworth made his decisive GTD move on the first lap of the last restart, except the Brit launched past two cars in the #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3. Running third when it went green, Hawksworth overtook Jeff Westphal in the #39 CarBahn with Peregrine Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 and Vasser Sullivan teammate Zach Veach in the #12 Lexus on the same lap.
Though Veach harassed his teammate the rest of the way, Hawksworth held fast despite being down on straight-line speed after a piece of left-front bodywork came loose from the car to bring out the final caution that set up his double pass for the lead. Hawksworth won by 0.707 seconds, earning his seventh career win and the fourth for co-driver Aaron Telitz. It’s the first win for the #14 and Vasser Sullivan since Mid-Ohio last September.
“That race was a roller coaster of emotion,” Hawksworth said. “We obviously had the wrong tire choice in qualifying yesterday and started eighth. Aaron did a great job to get us to fourth. We had that (bodywork) damage and at one point I thought we were going to be done. Then to win the race is amazing.”
Hawksworth attributed the deciding passes to his ability to generate higher temperatures and pressures more quickly in his Michelin tires.
“The Lexus generates a lot of tire temperature,” he said. “I made a big lunge into Turn 1, which worked, and then Zach was struggling a little bit on cold tires and I was able to nip him as well.”
Veach and Frankie Montecalvo finished second in the #12 Lexus, with Ross Gunn and Roman De Angelis taking third in the #23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3.
The GTD race counted solely toward the WeatherTech Sprint Cup standings and not the season-long class championship. Gunn and De Angelis unofficially leave The Glen with a 27-point lead over Montecalvo. Hawksworth and Telitz, the defending Sprint Cup champions, advanced to third in the Sprint Cup standings, 142 points behind the leaders.
LMP3
In Le Mans Prototype 3 (LMP3), Felipe Fraga completed a sweep of Watkins Glen’s 11-turn, 3.4-mile circuit, adding the WeatherTech 240 to Sunday’s victory in the Sahlen’s Six Hour of The Glen. The win, the fourth for the #74 in five LMP3 races this season, extended co-driver Gar Robinson’s lead in the class driver standings.
The call by Riley Motorsports to keep the #74 Ligier JS P320 on track after the red flag, despite worn tires, was crucial, Fraga said.
“We only did one pit stop,” Fraga said. “That put us in front of them because we didn’t stop for fuel and tires, of course. But that was a little bad for the tires because they already had one cycle of temperature before the red flag. It’s not so good when you go hot, cold and then hot again. At the end of my stint, I was suffering a little bit.”
Fraga won by just 0.276 seconds over Dylan Murry in the #91 Riley Motorsports Ligier he shared with Jim Cox. Colin Braun and Jon Bennett were third in the #54 CORE autosport Ligier.
The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season resumes July 17 with the Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, Connecticut, a race for GTLM and GTD classes only. The DPi, LMP2 and LMP3 classes return to action Aug. 6-8 in the IMSA SportsCar Weekend at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.
pics IMSA/ Rick Dole/ Jake Galstad
