Sébastien Bourdais and Renger van der Zande suffered through weeks of racing misfortune across multiple continents. But now that luckless run is a thing of the past after they drove the #01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R to victory in the Motul Course de Monterey at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.
After suffering a spectacular mechanical failure in the Sebring 12 Hours, a first-corner crash at Long Beach, a horrific shunt at Eau Rouge during the WEC 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps – and then a practice crash on Friday caused by a braking issue – this time the golden yellow Cadillac avoided any misfortunes and saw the chequered flag first.
It was a change of fortunes which mirrored the conditions heading into Sunday’s two-hour, 40-minute race. In the morning, Laguna Seca Raceway was blanketed in a thick cover of fog. But by the time the green flag waved at a quarter past noon local time, the skies were bright and sunny again as they’d been throughout the weekend.
The Porsche Penske Motorsports 963s started on the front row, with the #7 Porsche Matt Campbell leading the 38-car field towards the green flag. But as he and the rest of the prototypes plunged downhill into the Andretti Hairpin, Campbell and his team-mate Mathieu Jaminet in the #6 Porsche suffered big brake lockups, Campbell’s being more spectacular. He dropped six positions on the opening lap.
Colin Braun took advantage of the Porsche’s first-corner woes and swiped the lead in the #60 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Acura ARX-06 ahead of Pipo Derani in the #31 Whelen Engineering Racing Cadillac V-Series.R, while Jaminet settled into third.
The combined GTD grid had an equally eventful opening lap. Roman de Angelis got a great start to pilot the #27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 into the GTD “Standard” lead, while Klaus Bachler held the point in GTD Pro aboard the #9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R. As they headed through turn six and up the Rahal Straight, the #66 Gradient Racing Acura NSX GT3 of Sheena Monk was hit from behind and suffered significant damage. The first full-course yellow came out at the end of the first racing lap.
Polesitter Campbell was eager to make amends when the race restarted. In his haste to carve through slower traffic, he and Jarett Andretti made contact out of turn ten. This sent the #94 Andretti Autosport Aston Martin spinning off track, and into a tyre barrier at the entrance of pit lane – bringing out a second full-course yellow at the 18-minute mark. Campbell was deemed to be at fault for the collision and was given a drive-through penalty that put the #7 Porsche further back.
A round of pit stops followed. The #31 Cadillac exited its pits first, and Derani led on the ensuing restart. The action was fast and frantic behind them, but then it came to another pause just short of the one-hour mark.
The #8 Tower Motorsports Oreca LMP2 07 of John Farano went off at turn five and crashed into the tyre barriers. The 63-year-old Canadian opened the door to get out, but he would need additional assistance getting out of his damaged car. Farano was taken to nearby Natividad Hospital in Salinas as a precautionary measure where he was “in good spirits” and suffered no serious injuries.
During that 20-minute caution, the #60 Acura of Braun cycled back into the lead after another round of pit stops and taking fuel only just as the #31 Cadillac did in the previous sequence. Braun was able to fend off Derani at first, but on the next lap, Derani was able to pull off the switchback manoeuvre on Braun into turn three and out of four to take the race lead, and drive away by several seconds per lap.
Felipe Nasr had boarded the #7 Porsche but, in his haste to gain ground after the restart, he lost control at Rainey Curve and couldn’t keep away from the concrete barriers. Nasr was able to drive back to the pits, but the eight laps of repair work needed officially put himself and Campbell out of contention.
Thankfully, Nick Tandy in the #6 Porsche was still fighting, using the GTD Pro Corvette as a pick down the frontstretch to get past Braun for fourth place behind the dominating Derani, second-placed Van der Zande in the #01 Cadillac, and Filipe Albuquerque in the #10 Konica Minolta Acura in third. Braun tumbled down the order as the grip from his Michelin tyres began to disappear.
The last round of pit stops came with an hour left to run. Shortly afterwards, Aaron Telitz came to a stop in the #12 VasserSullivan Lexus RC F GT3, which brought out the fourth full-course caution of the race. Alexander Sims had just relieved Derani aboard the red #31 Cadillac, and Van der Zande had moved into second place.
The race restarted with 40 minutes left. Van der Zande was determined to make a move for the lead, and he bravely drove around the outside of Sims into turn three, carrying more speed through the corner to take the lead of the race. It was a lead that the Dutchman wouldn’t relinquish over the final 40 minutes, as he managed the tyres, the energy, and the traffic to perfection.
Finally, good fortune blessed the Chip Ganassi Racing-run Cadillac team of Bourdais and Van der Zande as they took their first win of the season.
“Everyone knows how challenging the last couple of months have been since our Sebring retirement. It’s never fun to go through those phases, but it’s part of racing. It’s something you have to pull through,” Bourdais remarked, after starting the weekend with a practice crash that left him screaming in frustration. “I think the whole group was starting to lose a little bit of spirits, I’d say. So it’s really good that we’ve gotten our head out of it with a win today.”
“Renger came out and did it again! I couldn’t ask for a better teammate,” Bourdais added. “When he’s put in those positions, I don’t think there is anybody better than him. He made some pretty critical passes to get us to the front and managed from there.”
“You could see the emotions running through everyone, and this sets up as best as possible going to Le Mans. We’ll try to carry that momentum.”
Van der Zande, a winner at Laguna Seca two weeks after his horrific crash at Spa, added: “Chip Ganassi Racing and Cadillac with all the effort they are putting in, it’s days and nights of work. They aren’t sleeping much. So it’s amazing to pay it off with a win like this.”
“Coming from a big shunt at Spa to win this race is what you call lows and highs!”
This Cadillac V-Series.R will now be loaded up and shipped across the Atlantic Ocean in preparation for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where Bourdais, Van der Zande, and Scott Dixon will fight for overall and Hypercar class honours.
Behind them, the #6 Porsche of Tandy was making moves. He restarted from fourth, but with 30 minutes left, he was able to dispatch the #25 BMW M Hybrid V8 of Nick Yelloly for third place.
And after giving chase to the red Cadillac in front, Tandy overtook Sims for second place with just under 20 minutes remaining. The hard-charging Porsche would hold on to finish a solid second place, which is enough for Jaminet, Tandy, and the #6 Penske Porsche team to extend their lead in the GTP Championship standings.
Sims owned up to being too tentative during the final restart and throughout the rest of his closing stint, but a third-place finish for he and Derani was still a great result which keeps the Action Express Racing crew within 25 points of the GTP Championship lead.
Porsche may still lead the Drivers’ and Teams’ Championships but after the V-Series.R’s second win of the season – the first repeat winner of the GTP/LMDh era – it’s Cadillac who leads the GTP Manufacturer’s Standings after four races.
Best of the Acuras was the #10 Konica Minolta machine of Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor, in fourth place.
As for the best of the BMWs, it wasn’t the #25 of Yelloly and Connor de Philippi in the end – Yelloly dropped well down the order without the benefit of four fresh tyres underneath him. However, the #24 BMW of Philipp Eng and Augusto Farfus swooped in to take fifth place as the fortunes of BMW M Team RLL as a whole continue to improve with every race.
Tom Blomqvist put in a solid recovery drive to bring the #60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura up to sixth place after a ragged middle stint.
The new #5 JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche (Tijmen van der Helm/Mike Rockenfeller) not only finished its first race but finished off the bottom of the GTP class standings in seventh – a great result for Porsche’s first North American 963 customer team.
The #25 BMW slipped to eighth in class and ninth overall at the end while the #7 Porsche finished a woeful 32nd overall after its mid-race accident.
There was plenty of acrimony after a rough and tumble battle for LMP2 top honours, and some surprise after the #11 TDS Racing Oreca of Steven Thomas and Mikkel Jensen overcame two separate pit lane miscues to take its first class win of the season!
Thomas dropped down the order after diving down into a closed pit lane and avoided what would have been a significant penalty by not stopping. Later on, Jensen missed his cue to pit under the final caution when pit lane opened to prototypes.
Jensen would take the final restart seventh in his class. Lucky for him, three different cars in front of him each picked up drive-through penalties for various pit lane infringements, which put him fourth behind the #04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR Oreca of Ben Hanley, the #18 Era Motorsport Oreca of Ryan Dalziel, and the #52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca of Paul-Loup Chatin.
Dalziel pounced when Hanley caught slower traffic and made his move for the lead at turn eleven, only to get spun out after contact. This left the Scotsman fuming after the race. Chatin snuck through to grab the lead from Hanley.
But then on the next lap, Hanley and Chatin banged doors in the final corner – and Jensen snuck past them both to go from third to the lead with 25 minutes to go!
Jensen would hold on for the class win and on the last lap he even overtook the #25 BMW for eighth place overall.
Chatin and Ben Keating would end up finishing second in their class, while Hanley and LMP2 polesitter George Kurtz finished in third. But Hanley’s driving had drawn the ire of Dalziel and Keating after the race, and both drivers were perplexed as to how no further action was taken after their incidents.
The win from Thomas and Farano puts them into the lead in the LMP2 Championship standings, 63 points ahead of Keating and Chatin.
For the third time in five races dating back to 2022, the highest-finishing GTD car of all carried green number plates.
This occasion crowned a first-time winning crew: Kellymoss with Riley, and the #91 Porsche 911 GT3 R of Alan Metni and Kay van Berlo, took its first-ever GTD class win.
Metni took the start and was able to gain track position by staying out of the pits during the first two Safety Car periods. After a 56-minute stint, young Van Berlo relieved him for the rest of the race as both of the Kellymoss/Riley Porsches ran first and second throughout the race.
Meanwhile, the #44 Magnus Racing Aston Martin of John Potter and Andy Lally was prepared to roll the dice on fuel strategy. Lally pitted with 85 minutes left and stayed out during the final restart, which helped vault him up to the lead in the final 40 minutes.
With less fuel to save and fresher tyres, Van Berlo sized up a move up the inside of the Andretti Hairpin and took the lead from Lally with just 23 minutes left in the race. It was the race-winning move to give the team from Wisconsin – longtime standard bearers of Porsche Carrera Cup racing – its first IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship win.
“With one hour to go, everything settled and I was like, ‘Oh, we’re in P2 and the car in front of us is on slightly older tyers,” van Berlo said. “I thought we could actually go and win here. … I was just waiting and waiting and waiting while defending the car behind me. I had one opportunity and went for it.”
“It’s just amazing. I’ve had probably the roughest three months of my racing career ever. Setback after setback above everything else. I said before the weekend, ‘I would be happy with a podium at this stage,’ and then we saw we were quick.”
Bill Auberlen would work his way into second place in the last 15 minutes, alongside Chandler Hull in the #97 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3. It’s the first podium for the new-look #97 crew of Auberlen and Hull in IMSA.
Kellymoss put both of its Porsches on the GTD podium as the #92 of Udell and Julien Andlauer finished third – their second podium finish in the last three races.
Lally may have slipped off the podium in the end but Magnus’ strategic gambit wasn’t in vain, as they consolidated fourth place in the class. The #70 Inception Racing McLaren 720S GT3 EVO (Brendan Iribe/Frederik Schandorff) overcame a ten-second penalty stop early in the race to finish fifth in class, followed by the #77 Wright Motorsports Porsche (Alan Brynjolfsson/Trent Hindman), the #96 Turner Motorsport BMW (Patrick Gallagher/Robby Foley), and the #27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin of De Angelis and Marco Sørensen which led early on but faded to eighth in class.
Down in tenth, the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW (Bryan Sellers/Madison Snow) snapped its two-race winning streak. But Sellers and Snow still lead the GTD points table by 62 over Iribe and Schandorff, and 73 over De Angelis and Sørensen.
The #79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Daniel Juncadella and Jules Gounon picked up its second GTD Pro class win of the season, but not without controversy towards the end of the race.
For most of the race, GTD Pro had been led by the #23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin (Ross Gunn/Alex Riberas), and the #3 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C8.R GTD (Jordan Taylor/Antonio Garcia).
GTD and GTD Pro are treated as one class for the purpose of re-ordering the field during full-course yellows, especially when being given “wave-bys”. Gunn and Garcia were given brutal 170-second penalty stops for completing improper wave-bys, which dropped them two laps down and out of contention. Both drivers admitted to making mistakes on their part, but it was also a source of needless confusion inflicted upon competitors and fans watching the race.
Gounon took the class lead after jumping ahead of the #14 VasserSullivan Lexus (Jack Hawksworth/Ben Barnicoat) during the final round of pit stops. Juncadella and Gounon would go on to their second win of the season.
A fourth straight podium finish for Hawksworth and Barnicoat keeps them in the lead of the GTD Pro standings.
As for the pole-winning #9 Pfaff Porsche of Bachler and Patrick Pilet, it was a miracle that they even had a chance to fight for the win at all or finish on the lead lap – after Bachler received a 60-second penalty stop for running the red light at pit exit during the second full-course yellow, and Pilet also had to take a drive-through for speeding in the pits!
Up next for the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship is the series’ annual visit to the beautiful Finger Lakes region of New York – and Watkins Glen International, home of the Six Hours at the Glen on Sunday, 25 June. This will be the third round of the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup and the start of a blistering summer stretch for the series.
To every driver and competitor who will now prepare for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, we wish you a safe journey to and from the event.
Images courtesy of IMSA, except where otherwise listed.
