Acura Meyer Shank Racing’s Nick Yelloly and Renger van der Zande drove the team’s #93 Acura ARX-06 to victory in an incident-packed IMSA Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.
Since 2019, Acura has been the title sponsor of the Grand Prix of Long Beach, held not far from Honda’s US headquarters in the nearby city of Torrance – but Yelloly and van der Zande’s victory was the first IMSA overall win for either Honda or the Acura brand at Long Beach since 2013, before the unification of American sports car racing.
Yelloly led from the green flag and after the first of four full course yellows for an incident between the GTD Corvettes of Orey Fidani and Henrik Hedman. But while negotiating traffic, Yelloly was held up behind Fidani’s 13 Autosport Corvette at turn 10, allowing the #31 Cadillac Whelen V-Series.R of Jack Aitken to swing around and take the lead.
Aitken pitted from a three-second lead, but Yelloly stayed out another three laps, and timed his stop perfectly, just before a bad-blooded incident between BMW M Team WRT’s Philipp Eng and JDC-Miller MotorSports’ Laurin Heinrich brought out the second yellow.
That allowed the #93 Acura, now in the hands of van der Zande, to cycle to the lead ahead of Frederik Vesti in the #31 Cadillac. They ran in that order for virtually the remainder of the race.
Contact between the #24 WRT BMW of Sheldon van der Linde and #23 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie of Roman de Angelis brought out an immediate third yellow just past half-time, and with 25 minutes to go, Ricky Taylor in the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac lost control over the turn five kerbs and hit the tyre wall to bring out a fourth yellow.
And then, with eight minutes to go, the #66 Gradient Racing Ford Mustang GT3 of Corey Lewis was pushed into the wall exiting turn 11 after contact from the #46 Pfaff Motorsports Lamborghini Temerario GT3 of Andrea Caldarelli. The damage to the silver Mustang spilled debris down Shoreline Drive, bringing out the last yellow.
In the end, van der Zande and the #93 MSR Acura had the upper hand, holding on after one more six-minute dash to the finish to win by eight-tenths of a second over the #31 Whelen Cadillac, which maintains a streak of five straight IMSA podiums dating back to the end of 2025.
Even after significant Balance of Performance nerfs to the two Porsche Penske Motorsport 963s, the factory Porsches still finished third and fourth, led by the #6 of Kévin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor. Estre made a rocket start on the opening lap, grabbing three places and showing no signs of lasting damage from contact with the #40 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac.
Felipe Nasr and Julien Andlauer maintained their GTP championship lead after driving their #7 Penske Porsche to fourth place, while the #24 WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 (Dries Vanthoor/Sheldon van der Linde) completed the top five. The #5 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche of Heinrich and Tijmen van der Helm finished sixth, with Heinrich driving all but five minutes of today’s 100-minute sprint race.
Heinrich was in the wars with BMW’s Eng in the middle of the race: One lap, Eng blocked Heinrich hard down Seaside Way. On the following lap, Heinrich made contact with Eng at turn eight, sending the BMW into the tire wall. But despite seeming like a retaliatory act at first glance, Race Control ruled that Eng shouldered the blame for the second incident.
30 years after Jimmy Vasser won the Grand Prix of Long Beach as a driver, his Vasser Sullivan Racing team took the GTD class win as Benjamin Pedersen and Aaron Telitz drove the #12 Lexus RC F GT3 to its first win of the year.
Telitz took the lead from the pole-sitting #36 DXDT Racing Corvette, the car that was the story of the first half of the race. Robert Wickens drove brilliantly in his opening stanza, and did all he could to give himself and co-driver Mason Filippi a chance to win the race.
But Filippi couldn’t hold Telitz and the pack at bay, and Telitz took control in the second half to clinch the win, finishing five seconds ahead of the #96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Patrick Gallagher and Robby Foley. The #34 Conquest Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo (Manny Franco/Albert Costa) rounded out the GTD podium in third.
Behind them were the #70 Inception Racing Ferrari (Brendon Iribe/Frederik Schandorff), the #89 Vasser Sullivan Lexus (Frankie Montecalvo/Jack Hawksworth) which went from 17th on the grid to finish fifth, and the #36 DXDT Corvette in sixth. Caldarelli’s contact with Lewis warranted a drive-through penalty in the final minutes, which cost the Pfaff Temerario a chance at a top-five finish in the car’s second IMSA race.
Eduardo Barrichello held onto his GTD championship lead after he and Spencer Pumpelly finished tenth in the #27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo, which lost ground after a drive-through penalty for pit lane speeding.
The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship returns on 3 May as the series travels north to WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca for the StubHub Monterey SportsCar Championship.
Images © IMSA
