For the first time in 15 IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship races, the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 of Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque was victorious. Taylor and Albuquerque snapped their winless drought at the Chevrolet Detroit Sports Car Classic on Saturday.
With 27 minutes left in the 100-minute race, Taylor got past the leading #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 of Mathieu Jaminet with a textbook lunge in the hairpin at the end of East Jefferson Street (turn three). Taylor had avenged his mistake in the closing laps of last year’s Long Beach Grand Prix, and held onto his advantage through multiple Full Course Yellows to take the win – Taylor’s 33rd career IMSA win, and Albuquerque’s 14th.
The #6 Penske Porsche of Jaminet and Nick Tandy finished second. Tandy led from pole position but was given a drive-through penalty for avoidable contact with the #35 Conquest Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 of Daniel Serra at the hairpin. However, Tandy brought the car into the pits for fuel and a driver change just before an FCY was deployed for an incident on track, which allowed him to get back to the lead on the ensuing pit cycle.
Rounding out the podium was the #01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R (Sebastien Bourdais/Renger van der Zande) in third, just ahead of the #7 Penske Porsche (Dane Cameron/Felipe Nasr) who made a brilliant triple overtake that helped him jump from eighth to fourth mid-way through the race. The #40 WTRAndretti Acura (Jordan Taylor/Louis Deletraz) was fifth.
In GTD Pro, “Rexy” – the #77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R of Laurin Heinrich and Seb Priaulx – scored his second consecutive victory, holding off the damaged #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 (Jack Hawksworth/Ben Barnicoat) in second. The #23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 (Ross Gunn/Alex Riberas) finished third in class, with the #15 Vasser Sullivan Lexus (Frankie Montecalvo/Parker Thompson) in fourth.
But vehicular carnage was the theme of IMSA’s first race around the tight, bumpy Detroit Renaissance Centre circuit, and it began on the opening lap when the GTD Pro polesitter, the #3 Pratt Miller Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R of Antonio Garcia, ducked into the pits with an alternator failure. Garcia and Alex Sims finished 15 laps off the class lead. Simultaneously, the #64 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang GT3 of Harry Tincknell stopped on course to bring out the first Full Course Yellow of the race.
The race ran green and somewhat clean for another 35 minutes before Connor de Phillippi crashed out in his #25 Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8. De Phillippi had just left the pits when he slid into the tyres at the hairpin on cold tyres, and minutes later, he smacked the wall at the exit of turn 2 and broke the right-rear suspension, bringing out the second FCY.
It was not a particularly great day for the two BMW M Hybrid V8s – though the #24 (Philipp Eng/Jesse Krohn) at least salvaged a lead-lap finish in seventh.
The ensuing restart with 48 minutes left was a flashpoint of the race. Tommy Milner and Nicky Catsburg had taken the lead from their fallen Pratt Miller stablemates. But heading into turn three, the #4 Corvette of Catsburg and the #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus of Ben Barnicoat crashed at the approach to the corner. Catsburg limped back to the pits – his challenge for the win was effectively done – while Barnicoat continued with only the front bodywork of the car broken off.
All the while, Heinrich slipped by both of them to take the class lead and never looked back!
While that incident was being processed, the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac of Jack Aitken spun the #85 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche of Richard Westbrook around at turn one, which blocked the track and brought out another FCY. Aitken was given a drive-through penalty for causing the initial collision with Westbrook.
Shortly after Taylor took the overall lead from Jaminet, a fourth FCY came out for debris on track. Gianmaria Bruni restarted sixth in the #5 Proton Competition but at turn four, he was turned around by the #31 of Aitken and crashed into the wall. This brought out the fifth and final FCY, right as the #35 Conquest Ferrari got spun out by the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 of Bryan Sellers.
Race control deemed the collision between Bruni and Aitken to be a racing incident, and also took a similar view in another clash that decided the final place on the GTD Pro podium – where the #9 Pfaff Motorsports McLaren GT3 EVO of Marvin Kirchhöfer was hit by the #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin of Riberas entering turn three. Kirchhofer tried to reverse his stranded McLaren out of the tyre barriers but could not, however, Race Control deemed a sixth FCY to be unnecessary.
As the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship leaves Detroit with many of its competitors heading to Le Mans, the #7 Porsche crew of Cameron and Nasr continue to lead the GTP Drivers’ Championship by 70 points over Bourdais and Van der Zande. Heinrich and Priaulx extended their lead in the GTD Pro standings to 84 points over Hawksworth and Barnicoat.
The next IMSA round is the third leg of the Michelin Endurance Cup, the Six Hours at the Glen on 23 June.
Images © Josh Tons, Brett Farmer / IMSA
