The result was Penske Perfect. Porsche Penske Motorsports’ 963s took victory in a 1-2 finish at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, with the number 6 of Mathieu Jaminet and Nick Tandy taking its second win of the season after starting on the front row alongside the number 7 of Matt Campbell and Felipe Nasr.
It may have been the strongest outing for the factory-run Porsche 963s this year, setting the table for an electric championship-deciding finale at this year’s Petit Le Mans in Road Atlanta. But the road to victory was anything but straightforward in the two-hour, 40-minute Battle on the Bricks at Indy.
Expectations were high for the Porsche Penske team, racing at Indy, which had been purchased by Penske Entertainment Group in the years since IMSA last visited the storied “Brickyard”. The #7 Porsche of Campbell and Nasr started on pole position after leading every practice and qualifying session over the weekend. But in a repeat of the Course de Monterey at Laguna Seca, Campbell overshot the approach into turn one and let the #6 of Jaminet through to the lead.
Behind them, the #24 BMW M Hybrid V8 of Philipp Eng drove into the #01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R of Sébastien Bourdais. Bourdais spun around while Tom Blomqvist in the #60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 was blocked in by the stranded Caddy. This incident brought out the first Safety Car intervention of the race.
When the race resumed, Jaminet and Campbell led the way, while Eng and Augusto Farfus’ race in the #24 car was disrupted due to electrical issues and damage from the lap one collision. The #24 BMW finished the race ten laps down in 40th overall. Nick Yelloly inherited third place in the #25 car, while Pipo Derani settled into fourth aboard the #31 Whelen Engineering Racing Cadillac.
The first 40 minutes saw a number of minor to moderate incidents in the pro-am classes. Dwight Merriman in the #18 Era Motorsport Oreca LMP2 07 was involved in a good handful of them, culminating in a spin coming out of turn 14. Several cars had to take quick avoiding action to get around the Oreca that was stranded in the middle of the track at a fast corner. The Safety Car came out once again.
The Safety Car came out just as the GTP field was preparing for routine pit stops and driver changes, and it was at this stage when the race took a bizarre turn.
Both Penske Porsches left the pits in the same order they entered them, with the #6 ahead of the #7, and Tandy and Nasr now aboard. A great stop from the Action Express Racing crew got the #31 Cadillac of Derani out ahead of the #25 BMW – Derani almost jumped his old co-driver Nasr, too, but had to merge behind the two Porsches.
During the Safety Car intervention, IMSA commenced with the class splits and when it came time for the prototypes to split from the GT cars, Derani in the #31 Cadillac went screaming by the two Porsches, and once Tandy caught up, the two drivers were running side-by-side behind the Safety Car.
IMSA Race Control had determined that the two Porsches did not follow the instructions of race control to accelerate past the line of GT cars in a timely manner. Citing Rule 46.5.2 of the IMSA Sporting Regulations, the #31 Cadillac was given first place on the ensuing restart and the two Porsches would have to yield their positions, moving to second and third.
It was a decision that left many – spectators, observers, and competitors – very confused as the situation unfolded, and the justification also caused some head-scratching.
“The 31 already started accelerating and did pass us before we made the class split,” Tandy explained after the race. “I maintain my position that we’d done the procedure correctly. They obviously thought they had done the procedure correctly. It was ruled by race control that they were to be up front.”
Derani explained his side of the story to Marshall Pruett during a post-race video recap: “We were on top of the rules. I tried to overtake the 7, he kind of blocked me. I think he was trying to give the 6 a chance to go, and then obviously the 6 didn’t go – and I just went. We’re just trying to follow the rules to the best of our ability. Sometimes miscommunications happen, which probably was the case. I think IMSA did the right thing on the call.”
“If the car in front of you don’t go, and you’ve given them enough time…then it is what it is,” Derani said.
If the decision felt unjust to Porsche and its supporters, there was still over an hour and a half for Porsche to make it right on track. Derani led the field back to green while Nasr got past Tandy and began chasing down his countryman over the next half-hour. Tandy followed closely as well, weaving in and out of slower class traffic along the way.
Then, with an hour and two minutes remaining, Derani overdrove the entrance of turn one just enough to let Nasr back into the race lead. And Derani would leave the door open for Tandy to get by at turns three and four. The Porsche 1-2 had been restored.
All that remained was a final round of pit stops, where a slow outlap from Nasr guided the #6 of Tandy into the lead. Tandy would build his margin from there, upwards of ten seconds.
Tandy took the chequered flag after 113 laps of racing, and the #6 Porsche won by 17.421 seconds – to the delight of Roger Penske who was watching from the pit boxes this weekend.
“It’s mega,” Jaminet said after the race. “That [win] was the target this morning. We had a great qualifying. We had a great weekend. I have no words. It’s really a mega day for Porsche Penske Motorsport as well.”
“It’s been great with Roger here. It feels like a home race. I’m really happy to bring this one home. This puts us right back in the championship, so It’s going to be a fight back in Atlanta.”
Tandy added, “This is Indianapolis. It’s a world-renowned, historic venue. The IMSA series is a world-renowned, historic race series. To come here to a venue like this, especially for Porsche Penske Motorsport and all the ties the Penske Corporation has with this place, is massive. It means a huge amount. The fact that it’s a team 1-2 makes it even sweeter.”
The #7 of Campbell and Nasr fell adrift of the #6 towards the end, and Nasr even got himself involved in a cross-class collision with consequences in the LMP3 podium fight. But they still held on for a runner-up finish.
This was the third win for Porsche this season, one which vaults them back into a slim eight-point lead in the GTP Manufacturers’ Championship. With this comprehensive 1-2 finish combined with by far the most encouraging result of the WEC season at Fuji, the 963 seems to be on the right track to shake off the first-year jitters that many previous Porsche prototypes suffered before they went on to rewrite the record books.
The #25 BMW of Yelloly and Connor de Phillippi finished third, the sixth podium of the year for the number 25 crew. De Phillippi took the final podium place after the last round of pit stops, away from the #31 Cadillac of Derani and Alexander Sims, who finished fourth.
Sims’ late slide off at turn one didn’t impact their result, and Derani was just happy to climb from eighth on the grid into the top half of the field.
Indy wasn’t a happy hunting ground for the two Acuras, led by the #10 WTRAndretti/Konica Minolta Acura (Ricky Taylor/Filipe Albuquerque) in fifth, followed by the #60 MSR Acura of Blomqvist and Colin Braun in sixth.
The #01 Cadillac of Bourdais and Renger van der Zande recovered from getting punted on lap one to finish in seventh. JDC Miller Motorsports won the duel of the customer Porsches as Tijmen van der Helm and Mike Rockenfeller finished eighth in the #5 Banana Boat, ahead of the #59 Proton Competition Porsche (Gianmaria Bruni/Harry Tincknell).
All of this has set the table for an incredible showdown for the 2023 IMSA GTP Championship. Six teams still have a mathematical chance to win the title, representing all four manufacturers.
Sims and Derani lead the championship by just three points over Albuquerque and Taylor, and five points over Jaminet and Tandy – who may well be in control of this title chase if not for a few millimetres of worn skid block at Watkins Glen.
BMW’s De Phillippi and Yelloly trail by 38 points, while Porsche’s Nasr and Campbell trail by 73 points. Even MSR’s Blomqvist and Braun, despite the “Tyregate” points deduction, still have a mathematical chance from 127 points back!
Steven Thomas and Mikkel Jensen drove to their second win of the year in LMP2 in the #11 TDS Racing Oreca, with Peugeot Hypercar driver Jensen taking centre-stage in a duel versus future Acura GTP driver Louis Deletraz and Tower Motorsports.
Jensen took control of the #11 TDS Racing Oreca with a deficit of over 45 seconds, but by the final round of pit stops, he was back in contention, running second behind Deletraz. Jensen took the lead with 32 minutes left and won by almost 20 seconds.
Deletraz finished second alongside the impressive LMP2 debutant Dan Goldburg, who was the latest substitute for the injured John Farano in the Tower Motorsports #8 car.
After duelling up front for much of the first half of the race, the #04 Crowdstrike Racing by APR Oreca (George Kurtz/Ben Hanley) held off the #52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca (Ben Keating/Paul-Loup Chatin) for third in class.
At Petit Le Mans, three teams have a chance to win the title: Thomas and Jensen lead the standings by 20 points over Keating and Chatin. Kurtz and Hanley still have a chance as well, but they’ll have to dig deep to overcome a 100-point deficit.
Of equal importance will be the race for the Jim Trueman Award between Keating, Kurtz, and Thomas, who are separated by just 20 points. The highest-ranked Bronze driver of the three will earn an automatic invitation to the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Three championships have been decided already, including, for the first time in the unified IMSA championship era, a team mathematically clinching its championship before the final race has even run.
Paul Miller Racing, Madison Snow, and Bryan Sellers made history with a third-place finish in the GTD class, which secured the GTD Championship for 2023. All that the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 needed to do was finish ahead of the #27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 (Roman de Angelis/Marco Sørensen) to put the championship out of reach, no matter if they come to Petit Le Mans or not, or how many cars enter the final race.
Snow and Sellers started from pole position and led 48 laps on the day, but with 25 minutes left they dropped from first to third. Sellers still had a sizeable gap to Sørensen in fourth, and despite the Dane’s best efforts to close in, Sellers was able to hold onto third place and win the title alongside Snow and the rest of the PMR crew, their first since 2018.
“It’s nice to wrap up the championship here at Indy,” said Snow. “Petit Le Mans is a very, very long race, and it’s a lot of stress off our shoulders, knowing that at Petit, we can just enjoy racing. That’s due to all the hard work Paul Miller Racing put in going into this weekend knowing that if we perform the absolute best we did this weekend, we will be able to relax the next weekend. Indy has been awesome.”
“We led quite a bit of the race but didn’t have quite enough for the #57 or the #78,” added Sellers. “As soon as those guys started mixing it up, our goal was just to beat the #27, watch the points situation, and let the race win go – which is difficult to do. But in the end, we were able to achieve our goal.”
Snow just needed to take the green flag in order to clinch back-to-back WeatherTech Sprint Cups for Paul Miller Racing in the last sprint event of 2023. The Michelin Endurance Cup, and a clean sweep of the 2023 season, are still within reach as well.
The battle in GTD was won by the #57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Russell Ward and Philip Ellis, who finally got their first win in what has been a star-crossed season in the WeatherTech Sportscar Championship – in a heated battle with the #78 Forte Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 (Misha Goikhberg/Loris Spinelli).
Ellis and Spinelli’s duel in the final minutes towed the line between hard racing and reckless. Spinelli grabbed the lead with ten minutes left by putting a block pass on Ellis up the inside of turn 13. The Anglo-Swiss driver countered with three minutes to go with a NASCAR-style “bump and run” at turn seven, sending Spinelli into the grass and driving to the lead. These were two teams that hadn’t caught a break all year, fighting very fiercely for their first win of the year.
Ellis and Ward took the win – making it a double for Winward Racing. On Saturday, Bryce Ward and Daniel Morad won the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge race aboard a Winward-run Mercedes-AMG GT4.
Goikhberg and Spinelli consolidated their second-place finish ahead of the new champions, Snow and Sellers, and the likely runners-up, De Angelis and Sørensen. The #96 Turner Motorsport BMW (Patrick Gallagher/Robby Foley) recovered from an early incident with Goikhberg to finish fifth, while the #77 Wright Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R (Alan Brynjolfsson/Trent Hindman) finished sixth.
A collision and puncture for the #70 Inception Racing McLaren 720S GT3 Evo (Brendan Iribe/Frederik Schandorff) left it eight laps off the class lead in 16th place, but Iribe still leads the Bob Akin Award standings by 160 points. Depending on how many Bronze drivers enter the final race, Iribe would just need to finish 12th or better to clinch his automatic invitation to Le Mans.
Mercedes-AMG swept both GTD classes as the #79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes of Daniel Juncadella and Jules Gounon took its third win of the year, and first since Laguna Seca. The tone was set early when the polesitting #9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche (Klaus Bachler/Patrick Pilet) jumped out of line at the start, resulting in a drive-through penalty that the Canadian team wouldn’t truly recover from.
Juncadella and Gounon combined to lead 70 out of 104 laps to take the victory. The duo seem to have an affinity for the Brickyard – as their GTD Pro class win came almost a year after they won the Indianapolis 8 Hour race in a similar Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.
The #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin (Ross Gunn/Alex Riberas) finished 4.3 seconds back in second.
And with a third-place finish, the #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 of Jack Hawksworth and Ben Barnicoat effectively clinched the GTD Pro Championship for 2023 – the first IMSA title for Vasser Sullivan Racing, the first for drivers Hawksworth and Barnicoat, and the first Manufacturers’ Championship for the Lexus RC F GT3. It’s the 13th podium in 14 races for this car, a streak only broken by a crash at Mosport this July.
Hawksworth and Barnicoat’s coronation will be official once the #14 Lexus starts its engine at Petit Le Mans.
And in the penultimate WeatherTech Championship race for the LMP3 category, the #17 AWA Duquiene D08 of Anthony Mantella and Wayne Boyd took its second win of the year, the first since the Rolex 24 at Daytona. Boyd recovered from an early spin to take the win.
Second place looked like it would go to the #54 MLT Motorsports Ligier JS P320 (Jason Rabe/Dakota Dickerson), but an unfortunate clash with the #7 Porsche 963 of Felipe Nasr inflicted enough damage to the left-rear that the car retired just minutes short of the chequered flag.
Inheriting second place was the #74 Riley Ligier of Gar Robinson and Josh Burdon (again named as a late substitute for Felipe Fraga). With that result, Riley and Robinson have virtually clinched their second and final LMP3 Championships in the WeatherTech Sportscar Championship. All Robinson needs to do is start Petit Le Mans to make it official.
Rounding out the class podium was the #30 Jr III Racing Ligier (Nolan Siegel/Garett Grist) which also had to come back from an early incident.
All that remains is the final showdown, Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta – on Saturday, 14 October.
Images © Richard Dole, Jake Galstad / IMSA
