Cadillac is finally on the board with its first win of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season after the #31 Cadillac Whelen V-Series.R of Jack Aitken, Earl Bamber, and Frederik Vesti won the TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, leading an all-American 1-2 finish.
A warm, cloudy Sunday in the last days of summer was the setting. Jack Aitken took the early hole shot while the #93 Acura Meyer Shank Racing ARX-06 of Nick Yelloly made a rocket start to jump up from fifth to second.
Back-to-back full course yellows – one for debris, the other for George Kurtz spinning his #04 Crowdstrike by APR ORECA LMP2 – led to an early round of pit stops for all but the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac and #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963. This represented the only time the #31 Cadillac relinquished control of the race. But even before the next pit window, Aitken was able to pass both Matt Campbell and Ricky Taylor in succession to take the lead again.
The next phase was a showdown between young Vesti and his Acura counterpart Kakunoshin Ohta for the lead. That duel was broken up by some full course yellows involving the #80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG and the #18 Era Motorsport ORECA LMP2, but eventually Vesti would break through, building a ten-second advantage before handing the car off to Bamber.
With less than 90 minutes to go, Bamber handed the cockpit back over to Aitken, and minutes later, a piece of bodywork blew onto the track, bringing out a full course yellow which reset the race with one hour to go.
Aitken first had to withstand pressure from the likes of BMW M Team RLL’s Sheldon van der Linde, then when the time began to tick down, there was also a question of whether the leaders had enough energy to reach the finish.
But when the ORECA LMP2s of Ben Hanley and Toby Sowery tangled, sending Sowery into the turn 12 wall, the race ended with a two-lap sprint finish. Aitken got a great restart and held on to secure the first win for Action Express Racing (competing as Cadillac Whelen) since the 2025 Twelve Hours of Sebring.
The #10 WTR Cadillac of Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque overcame an untimely puncture just before half-distance, which buried them down the order, to finish second, only 0.988s behind the #31. Taylor made a frantic sprint from tenth to second with less than an hour to go, and the final caution ensured he had enough energy to reach the finish.
Likewise, the #60 Acura Meyer Shank Racing ARX-06 of Tom Blomqvist and Colin Braun came from the back of the GTP grid after a post-qualifying penalty, then recovered from a drive-through penalty for blocking, to round out the podium in third.
The #24 RLL BMW (Philipp Eng/Dries Vanthoor) and #93 MSR Acura (Renger van der Zande/Nick Yelloly/Kakunoshin Ohta) rounded out the top five, with the #25 BMW (Sheldon van der Linde/Marco Wittmann) dropping to sixth.
Mathieu Jaminet and Matt Campbell finished seventh in their #6 Porsche Penske Motorsports 963, five places ahead of the sister #7 Penske Porsche of Felipe Nasr and Nick Tandy.
Tandy’s race unraveled due to two incidents and a drive-through penalty during the middle stages. But in contrast, Jaminet and Campbell had time to recover from a blocking penalty and extended their championship lead going into the season-ending Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta on October 11th.
Later on, the #7 Porsche also tangled with the #63 Lamborghini Squadra Corse SC63 at turn seven, leading to an unscheduled stop for the Lambo of Romain Grosjean and Edoardo Mortara. A top-five was possible, but tenth was all they could salvage.
The #85 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche (Tijmen van der Helm/Nico Müller) and #40 WTR Cadillac (Jordan Taylor/Louis Deletraz) were eighth and ninth respectively; the #23 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie (Ross Gunn/Roman de Angelis) came home 11th after a late pit stop, ahead of the #7 Penske Porsche.
At the end of an action-packed final hour, TDS Racing captured its third straight LMP2 class win at the Brickyard. Steven Thomas, Mikkel Jensen, and Hunter McElrea drove their #11 ORECA 07-Gibson to the front after the final round of routine pit stops.
United Autosports USA’s pole-winning #2 ORECA led early but the yellow #11 TDS Racing machine was often near the front. Jensen took the lead from the #22 United ORECA of Paul di Resta, who then found himself on the wrong end of a three-wide squeeze at turn 12 between teammate Hanley and the #43 Inter Europol Competition car of Tom Dillmann. Di Resta came away the worst and spun down to eighth place.
Then, minutes later, Hanley got spun out by the #8 Tower Motorsports car of Sébastien Bourdais, Crowdstrike by APR didn’t get the late-race yellow they needed to make it to the end without pitting and surrendered the lead, AO Racing’s Dane Cameron got a drive-through for punting the #34 Conquest Racing Ferrari, and then came the clash between Hanley and Jakobsen near the end.
The last caution erased a large lead for Jensen but he was able to hold on for TDS’ third Indy win in a row, with the #43 Inter Europol car of Dillmann, Jeremy Clarke, and Bijoy Garg coming through to finish second. It was Dillmann’s first IMSA race since the back injury he sustained at CTMP in July.
Picking their way through the chaos was the #74 Riley ORECA (Gar Robinson/Felipe Fraga/Josh Burdon) to finish third, while Di Resta, Dan Goldburg, and Rasmus Lindh recovered to finish fourth in the #22 United ORECA.
The #99 AO Racing ORECA of Cameron, PJ Hyett, and Jonny Edgar took fifth after the late penalty, but holds the LMP2 Championship lead going into Road Atlanta.
After Ford Multimatic Motorsports’ pair of Mustang GT3s spent most of the race fighting in vain to get past AO Racing’s #77 Porsche 911 GT3 R, young Sebastian Priaulx was able to muscle his way to the front of the GTD PRO class with 37 minutes to go, giving he and Mike Rockenfeller their second win of the year in the #64 Mustang.
But not before Laurin Heinrich and Klaus Bachler drove a spirited race for AO Racing, hanging out in front with Bachler in particular putting on a defensive masterclass against the likes of Frédéric Vervisch (in the #65 Ford) and Rockenfeller, then the final showdown between Heinrich – and his former AO co-driver Priaulx.
The decisive move came out of turn four and onto the chicane at Hulman Boulevard, and as Priaulx went by Heinrich, Heinrich veered wide through the grass and allowed the #48 Paul Miller Racing BMW and #81 DragonSpeed Ferrari through.
Heinrich’s woes were compounded on the next lap after a tangle with Nicky Catsburg in the #4 Corvette, dropping him to seventh, which is where ‘Rexy’ finished in the end after slowing momentarily on the final lap. Priaulx took the win after the #64 Mustang came back from a drive-through penalty for a pit work infraction.
It was a quiet but productive race for the #81 DragonSpeed Ferrari 296 GT3 of Albert Costa and Davide Rigon, but that’s all they needed to take second in GTD PRO, setting up a potential winner-take-all fight for the series title between Costa and Corvette Racing’s Antonio García and Alexander Sims.
The #48 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Dan Harper and Max Hesse finished third after leading early on, followed by the #3 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R of García and Sims in fourth.
Rounding out the top five in class was the #14 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F GT3 (Ben Barnicoat/Aaron Telitz), then the #4 Corvette (Tommy Milner/Nicky Catsburg) in sixth.
Ironically, the car whose front deck lid blew away and instigated the final full-course yellow was the car that won GTD – the #70 Inception Racing Ferrari of Brendon Iribe, Frederik Schandorff, and Ollie Millroy.
But the timing of the yellow flag caught other GTD front-runners out, needing to make emergency service stops – and after the leading #57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 and third-place #13 AWA Corvette took penalties, the lane was clear for Inception Racing to take its first IMSA GTD victory.
One of the cars that had to take emergency service was the #120 Wright Motorsports Porsche of Adam Adelson, Elliott Skeer, and Tom Sargent – but Skeer made a spirited sprint from seventh place on the penultimate restart to finish second.
The #34 Conquest Racing Ferrari of Manny Franco, Daniel Serra, and Ben Tuck also got caught out by the late yellow, costing Eric Bachelart’s team a chance at the win. But despite that, and despite being caught up in a couple of late incidents, they recovered from sixth to finish third.
The #96 Turner Motorsport BMW (Patrick Gallagher/Robby Foley/Jake Walker) was fourth, and the #57 Winward Mercedes-AMG (Russell Ward/Philip Ellis/Indy Dontje) recovered from its pit lane speeding penalty to finish fifth in class and all but put the title out of reach.
That’s because the #27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 (Casper Stevenson/Tom Gamble/Zacharie Robichon) was tangled in a four-car, chain reaction crash in turn seven and suffered damage, leading to an 11th place finish all but extinguishing Stevenson’s hopes of the Drivers’ title.
Among the retirements included the #45 Wayne Taylor Racing Lamborghini which suffered a broken differential while fighting for a podium finish. And the #80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG, which led the first hour in the hands of Lin Hodenius, had its left rear wheel come loose, accelerating their downfall.
All that remains is the 28th annual Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta in less than three weeks.
Images © Jack Webster / dailysportscar.com
