The #25 BMW M Hybrid V8 of Connor de Phillippi and Nick Yelloly has won the Six Hours of Watkins Glen after the #6 Porsche Penske Motorsports 963 of Mathieu Jaminet and Nick Tandy failed post-race scrutineering checks.
It’s not the way BMW M Team RLL will have envisioned or even desired it, but it is the first competition victory for the German manufacturer’s new LMDH-spec prototype. The decision capped off an eventful six-hour race.
The race began under partly cloudy skies after rainfall washed away most of Qualifying. The two BMW LMDH prototypes ran first and second in the morning Warm-Up session. But only one of them would clear the first corner unscathed. Augusto Farfus took the start in the #24 BMW, couldn’t get traction out of turn one, and countersteered off to the left, into the guardrails. The Safety Car would be deployed at the end of the opening lap, but not before the entire pack of GTD cars passed Farfus at speed.
“I hit the power and just lost the rear. It was totally my fault,” a dejected Farfus said. “We end a six-hour race in turn one. I am sorry.”
Tandy held the lead on the ensuing restart and held it until a multi-car incident involving three LMP2 cars brought out the Safety Car after 33 minutes. Porsche Penske Motorsports split strategies, bringing the #6 in and letting the #7 of Matt Campbell cycle to the lead after he’d pitted prior to the Safety Car. This made it a Porsche 1-2 overall.
BMW’s challenge for the victory could have ended in the first hour when the #01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R of Sébastien Bourdais lost control trying to get by a slower GTD car. Bourdais was already in a death wiggle by the time he got hit from behind by the #25 BMW of De Phillippi, this turned Bourdais into the tyre barriers and brought out the third Safety Car in just over an hour. Both cars had to pit for emergency service. The #25 BMW was able to stay on the lead lap.
But for Bourdais and Renger van der Zande, the race didn’t get much better. After three hours and 36 minutes of racing, Van der Zande got caught up in a multi-car incident at turn six. LMP3 debutant Alex Kirby did not slow sufficiently in the corner and punted off two Lamborghinis – the #42 NTE Sport Huracán of Rob Ferriol, and the #63 Iron Lynx Huracán of Andrea Caldarelli who was fighting for the GTD Pro lead. Both Lamborghinis and the #38 Performance Tech Racing Ligier JS P320 of Kirby retired from the race. The #01 Cadillac continued and finished four laps down.
An hour earlier the #7 Porsche, now in the hands of Felipe Nasr, went to the pits and then behind the wall with a hybrid system issue while running second behind new leader Jaminet. “As I left the pits, I started to have some alarms on the car or something related to the hybrid system,” Nasr explained. “I tried all my best as I was driving in trying to keep position, but it just started getting worse until I lost all the hybrid drive, basically. That’s when we decided to come in. Not a good day for us.”
The #7 Porsche of Campbell and Nasr spent half the race in the garage and finished 101 laps down in 52nd overall.
Jaminet was leading when the caution came out, ahead of the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac of Alexander Sims, the #25 BMW of Yelloly, and the #60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 of Tom Blomqvist. But after a driver change and cycle of pit stops, the #6 Porsche now driven by Tandy had fallen to third place, and would then be relegated to fourth when Yelloly passed him.
They found themselves back out in front when they pitted with less than 90 minutes to go. De Phillippi got back aboard the BMW and was able to undercut his way back into the lead once the #31 Cadillac and #60 Acura came in several laps later, with Tandy now in second place.
De Phillippi pitted again with just over 45 minutes to go, while Tandy stayed out three more laps before coming in and handing the controls over to Jaminet for the final stint. The BMW was leading by upwards of seven seconds, but the Porsche began to close in lap after lap, until Jaminet was less than a second behind with ten minutes to go.
Traffic management would be critical, and a dense pack of slower cars gave Jaminet a window of opportunity as De Phillippi came to a pack of cars at the heel of the Boot. De Phillippi found himself caught behind the GTD leading #12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 around the apex. Jaminet pulled off a beautiful up-and-under pass and then used the Lexus as a pick to get through to the lead with less than six minutes to go. And he’d stay in front as Jaminet then began to pull out a margin.
With four minutes left, the #95 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 of Bill Auberlen spun exiting turn ten, rear-ended the tyre barriers and flipped over before landing on its wheels. That incident brought out the Safety Car for the fifth and final time, and the race ended with the #6 Porsche winning from the #25 BMW.
At the flag, this appeared to be the second win of 2023 for Jaminet and Tandy and Porsche’s first overall win at the Watkins Glen 6h since 1987. But after the race, the #6 Porsche’s skid block was worn down below the permitted minimum thickness. Unlike “Deflategate” at Daytona, this infraction wouldn’t take months to reveal.
De Phillippi scored his sixth career IMSA win, and Yelloly got his first. De Phillippi was also at the wheel of the first competition win for the BMW M8 GTE, at the 2018 round at VIRginia International Raceway.
The two BMW M Hybrid V8s have made genuine progress since the start of 2023 and now, with this victory for Team RLL – who’ve had a wretched time of things in IndyCar – plus the start of Team WRT’s testing programme, things are looking up for BMW fans.
After inheriting the lead after the third Safety Car period, the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac of Pipo Derani, Alexander Sims, and Jack Aitken would take a strong second-place finish.
With this result, Derani and Sims now move to the lead in the GTP Drivers’ Championship and Action Express Racing moves to the top of the Teams’ Championship. It was the perfect way to recover from a tough outing at Le Mans.
The #60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura of Tom Blomqvist and Colin Braun faded from the lead battle in the final hour, but would still take home a third-place finish as the team continues to try and dig out of the points deficit it was left in after Daytona.
It turned out that JDC Miller Motorsports’ fourth-place finish would save face for Porsche. Tijmen van der Helm and Mike Rockenfeller had an uneventful, unremarkable, but still productive day and finished fourth, two laps off the lead. The combination of two incidents, and a mechanical black flag for insufficient tyre pressures, would leave the #01 Cadillac of Bourdais and Van der Zande to finish fifth.
Watkins Glen was also tough for the #10 Konica Minolta Acura (Ricky Taylor/Filipe Albuquerque/Louis Deletraz). The left rear wheel came loose while Albuquerque was running second, with two hours and 30 minutes elapsed. The #10 car would truck on after running virtually an entire lap on three wheels and then served two more pit lane penalties. Shortly after Taylor spun out with 35 minutes left, he brought the car behind the wall to retire.
The penalty to the #6 Porsche made it a nightmare race for Penske in the long run. Instead of leading the GTP standings by 75 points, they now have a 75 point deficit to the leading duo of Derani and Sims. De Phillippi and Yelloly are now second in the standings, 64 points behind.
Whelen Engineering Racing also leads the Michelin Endurance Cup after leading at half-distance and finishing the race in second. With a seven-point advantage, the trio of Derani, Sims, and Aitken can win both major titles when the season is done – but there’s still a long way to go before Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta.
George Kurtz, Ben Hanley, and Nolan Siegel won LMP2 in the #04 CrowdStrike Racing with APR Oreca LMP2 07. A mistake-free opening stint from Kurtz became critical on the road to victory after multiple LMP2 runners were involved in incidents during the opening hour.
It began when the #51 Rick Ware Racing Oreca of Eric Lux lost its left front wheel due to a wheel hub failure. Lux drove the car back to the pits without any further incidents, but the #51 would retire before Devlin DeFrancesco or Pietro Fittipaldi could get in the game.
Mark Kvamme, an 11th-hour substitute for the #20 High Class Racing team, turned down on the #31 Cadillac of Derani and spun around in the last corner, which also left two LMP3 cars with nowhere to go. Kvamme was able to continue but the #20 car would spend most of the race behind the wall and eventually retired.
Kurtz took the class lead while, in a battle for second, Salih Yoluç in the #8 Tower Motorsports Oreca hit the #52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca of Ben Keating. Keating’s car did a quarter-spin and continued, Yoluç took damage to the left front – but Steven Thomas in the TDS Racing #11, trying to avoid the wreck, hit the tyre barriers to bring out the second Safety Car of the race. Yoluç earned a drive-through penalty for causing the multi-car accident, while the #11 car finished 14 laps down after spending over 20 minutes in the garage.
From there the race calmed down as LMP2 teams began installing their professional drivers. Kurtz, Siegel, and Hanley led most of the way, and after losing it to the #18 Era Motorsports Oreca (Dwight Merriman/Ryan Dalziel/Christian Rasmussen), Hanley would retake the lead after the last round of pit stops and took the chequered flag.
The win is Kurtz’s second big LMP2 victory across two continents and two different series, separated by two weeks – he drove the CrowdStrike/APR Oreca to an LMP2 Pro-Am class victory at Le Mans on his debut. Add in a pair of GT World Challenge America victories at VIR last week, and Kurtz now has a four-race win streak going in GT3s and LMP2s.
“When you look at the level of competition in P2, this is a stout field. To be able to come away with a win here is incredibly gratifying and it shows the teamwork that we have. It’s been a great month and I want to keep the momentum going,” said Kurtz.
The win was the first IMSA win for Siegel – who’s been a revelation throughout 2023 in both LMP2 and Indy NXT competition – and the win had to feel good for Hanley, who invoked the wrath of competitors like Dalziel and Keating after some uncharacteristically rough driving at Laguna Seca.
Rasmussen brought the #18 Era Motorsport car home to a second-place finish as Keating, Paul-Loup Chatin, and Alex Quinn finished third in the PR1 Mathiasen #52 car.
Kurtz and Hanley now lead the LMP2 standings by just three points over TDS Racing’s Thomas and Mikkel Jensen, and just six points over Keating and Chatin. Merriman and Dalziel aren’t too far out of reach either, just 66 points behind. Kurtz and Hanley also lead the Michelin Endurance Cup by two points after taking the maximum ten points available.
Likewise in LMP3, clean driving was paramount as the #74 Riley Ligier JS P320 of Gar Robinson, Felipe Fraga, and Josh Burdon picked up its second straight win of the year, and the third straight win at the Glen for the Riley crew anchored by Robinson and Fraga.
Throughout most of the race, the #74 Riley Ligier was trading the lead with the #30 Jr III Motorsports Ligier, which was involved in the big Qualifying crash yesterday. After that crash, Ari Balogh withdrew, and Dylan Murry came in as a 59th-minute substitute alongside Garett Grist and Dakota Dickerson.
The final battle came down to Grist versus Fraga, and with 52 minutes to go, Fraga took the class lead with a great move through the Inner Loop. “A couple of laps before there, I left space for [Grist] and he didn’t leave space for me, so I ran over the curb,” Fraga said of his race-winning pass. “The team let me know we had so much race left that I let him go because I thought it was safer. I was driving like crazy for two laps and again at the (Inner Loop) we could pass him. We had a very good car but it was very hard to follow today. With the aero, we had so much understeer when we were close. So I’m very happy. I think with Josh and Gar we did a very good job.”
With LMP3’s departure from the main series after this season, Robinson and Fraga ensured an unbeaten record at Watkins Glen for the Riley team in this category. And with back-to-back wins in LMP3, the #74 crew leads both the WeatherTech Sportscar Championship and Michelin Endurance Cup tables.
Jr III Motorsports finished second this time, avoiding the same cruel misfortunes which struck them down at Sebring, while the Daytona-winning #17 AWA Duquiene D08 (Anthony Mantella/Wayne Boyd/Nico Varrone) would finish third, after leading a sizeable portion of the race themselves.
A year after The Heart of Racing Team recorded a historic double GTD victory at Watkins Glen with its two Aston Martin Vantage GT3s, Vasser Sullivan’s pair of Lexus RC F GT3s duplicated this achievement at the same venue.
The #12 of Frankie Montecalvo, Aaron Telitz, and Parker Thompson drove to a dominant win in the GTD class, while in GTD Pro, the #14 of Jack Hawksworth and Ben Barnicoat held on to take its second win of the year and tighten its grip on the championship lead. Both cars dominated their respective categories, leading over 100 laps each.
But it could have gone all so wrong for the #14 car. With one hour to go, Hawksworth was tagged with a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pit lane, and it erased a 15-second lead that he’d built. He rejoined behind the #3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R GTD of Antonio Garcia in second place, and right in front of the #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3 of polesitter Daniel Serra.
Hawksworth dug deep, stuck with Garcia, and overtook the Corvette with 23 minutes left – while Serra followed him through into second place.
The Safety Car for Auberlen’s crash ensured that the black and fluorescent yellow Lexus wouldn’t be overtaken. Hawksworth and Barnicoat took their second win of the season together in the #14 Lexus, and their fifth podium of the season in as many races.
The #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus crew also extended their commanding lead in the GTD Pro standings to 113 points.
The #62 Risi Ferrari of Serra and Davide Rigon finished second, after coming back from a slow puncture, a drive-through penalty for improper pit entry, and a mechanical black flag for going under the minimum tyre pressure. They eventually got back on the lead lap to challenge for the victory.
Garcia and Jordan Taylor held on for the final GTD Pro podium position for Corvette Racing, in third, ahead of the #79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Daniel Juncadella/Jules Gounon), and the #9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R (Klaus Bachler/Patrick Pilet).
Despite the fourth-place finish, the WeatherTech Racing duo of Juncadella and Gounon continue to lead the Michelin Endurance Cup standings by three points over Garcia and Taylor.
Meanwhile, the incident between Caldarelli, Alex Kirby, and Rob Ferriol knocked the #63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 out of contention for the class win. Caldarelli and Jordan Pepper had run solidly in the top three in class until they were taken out by Kirby.
Things were less frenetic in the GTD “Classic” category as Montecalvo assumed the class lead 45 minutes into the race, during the second Safety Car intervention and pit stops.
After taking over from Telitz, Montecalvo would continue to lead for most of his stint, and Thompson would likewise run up front. Telitz took over for the final stint and actually jumped ahead of the Pro #14 car, holding a 35-second lead over the rest of the GTD field before the final Safety Car.
After the double victory, team co-owner James Sullivan was lost for words. “It really is unbelievable. The Lexus was just un-freaking-believable,” he said. “The driving signature of this car at this track today was unbeatable. It was absolutely unbeatable.”
Finishing in second was the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 of Bryan Sellers, Madison Snow, and Corey Lewis – from two laps down at one point.
Sellers had just gotten in the car when his radio was not working. It turned out that the car had electrical problems which cost them five agonising minutes in the pits. But after the fourth Safety Car intervention after half-distance, Sellers was able to get back in the car and back on the lead lap.
The comeback drive was punctuated when Sellers drove from 16th to fourth in half an hour, and the exclamation point came when Snow, in his final stint, overtook the #16 Wright Motorsports Porsche of Jan Heylen to take second place.
If Paul Miller Racing goes on to win the 2023 GTD class championships, this drive will be remembered as a defining moment in the season – from catastrophe to a podium finish.
Heylen, Ryan Hardwick, and Zacharie Robichon finished third for Wright Motorsports, ahead of the #023 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari (Onofrio Triarsi Jnr/Charlie Scardina/Alessio Rovera) which scored its first top-five in IMSA competition, and the #66 Gradient Racing Acura NSX GT3 (Sheena Monk/Katherine Legge/Marc Miller).
In sixth was the #27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin (Roman de Angelis/Marco Sørensen/Ian James), which leads the Michelin Endurance Cup table by one point.
Meanwhile, the #83 Iron Dames Lamborghini (Rahel Frey/Michelle Gatting/Doriane Pin) was having an outstanding race. Pin caught and passed Montecalvo for the class lead, and a top-five finish or podium seemed to be on the cards, if not a win. But during Frey’s closing stint, the heat in the car became too much and she had to be relieved with 17 minutes to go. That final pit stop relegated them to 16th in class – hardly representative of the effort the team put forward today.
Still, others were less fortunate. Such as the #57 Winward Racing Mercedes (Russell Ward/Indy Dontje/Raffaele Marciello) – Ward was behind the #70 Inception Racing McLaren 720S GT3 of Brendan Iribe when Iribe came to a stop in front of him. Ward could not react in time and rear-ended the McLaren hard enough to force the Mercedes to retire, before Marciello could even get in the car.
The IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship returns to action on 9 July at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (Mosport) in Canada, for all classes excluding LMP2.
Images courtesy of IMSA
