For the first time, BMW M Team WRT has won in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTP class as the #24 BMW M Hybrid V8 of Dries Vanthoor and Sheldon van der Linde took a dramatic victory in Sunday’s TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
With less than six minutes to go, van der Linde’s persistent efforts to put pressure on race leader on the #31 Cadillac Whelen V-Series.R paid off; using traffic to his advantage, van der Linde overtook Earl Bamber for the lead and the win late in the race.
Bamber and Jack Aitken controlled most of the race after taking the lead from polesitter Tom Blomqvist in the #60 Acura Meyer Shank Racing ARX-06, but they were able to finish second, crucially ahead of the #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 of Kévin Estre and Laurin Heinrich in third.
The #40 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac (Jordan Taylor/Louis Delétraz) and #60 MSR Acura of Blomqvist and Colin Braun rounded out the top five.
Sunday’s results ensure that the GTP championship will be decided at the 29th Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta on Saturday, 3 October – but it’s Aitken and Cadillac Whelen who are still firmly in control of their championship destinies.
The two-hour, 40-minute sprint race started with immediate drama: Contact between Philipp Eng (#25 WRT BMW) and Estre sent Estre into Porsche Penske Motorsport teammate Julien Andlauer whose #7 Porsche spun out right in front of the #99 AO Racing ORECA LMP2 of PJ Hyett.
Hyett, Phil Fayer (#2 United Autosports USA ORECA) and George Kurtz (#04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR ORECA) were also collected in an incident which had major implications in the LMP2 title race.
Elsewhere in LMP2, Era Motorsport’s one-time-only pairing of Nick Boulle and IndyCar Series race winner Christian Rasmussen drove their #18 ORECA 07-Gibson to a win, on a day where every title contender in the category faced various degrees of strife all race long.
Once the #99 AO Racing and #04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR cars were taken out of contention in the lap one crash, the #43 Inter Europol Competition ORECA (Jeremy Clarke/Tom Dillmann) was poised to cruise to the championship lead. That was, until Clarke was given a drive-through penalty for colliding with a GTD car and dropped out of the net lead.
The #22 United Autosports USA ORECA (Daniel Goldburg/Paul di Resta) took the lead late in the race, but was given a drive-through for overtaking in a yellow flag zone.
Rasmussen took the checkered flag ahead of the #52 Bryan Herta Autosport with PR1/Mathiasen ORECA (Misha Goikhberg/Harry Tincknell), while the #22 United Autosports car salvaged third – and the #43 Inter Europol Competition car had to pit for fuel on the last lap dropping from third to sixth.
It sets up a four-way title battle in LMP2 between Inter Europol, CrowdStrike by APR, the #22 United Autosports team, and AO Racing who all have a chance at the championship – and an invitation to next year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans for their respective Bronze drivers.
GTD Pro ultimately came down to a Ford versus Corvette final-lap skirmish but the win went to the #64 Ford Racing Mustang GT3 Evo of Dennis Olsen and Ben Barker, holding off the #4 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Z06 GT3.R of Tommy Milner and Nicky Catsburg by less than a second.
Olsen and Catsburg touched in turns seven and eight, securing the Ford’s victory, while the #9 Pfaff Motorsports Lamborghini Temerario GT3 (Andrea Caldarelli/Sandy Mitchell) continued its improbable second-half run with a third-place finish. The #3 Corvette (Antonio García/Alexander Sims) was fourth, ahead of the #14 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F GT3 (Jack Hawksworth/Ben Barnicoat) in fifth.
Contact between Connor De Phillippi and the #65 Ford of Frédéric Vervisch dropped the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO of De Phillippi and Neil Verhagen from third to sixth, but the other hard-luck runner was the #59 RLL Team McLaren 720S GT3 Evo (Max Esterson/Nikita Johnson), whose strategic fuel gamble fell just one lap short of a huge victory.
Milner and Catsburg take the GTD Pro points lead going into Petit Le Mans, with Paul Miller Racing and Pfaff Motorsports all within immediate striking distance and several others still clinging to slim title hopes.
Turner Motorsport snapped a two-year winless drought in IMSA’s GTD class at the perfect time. Patrick Gallagher and Robby Foley drove the #96 Turner BMW to the win ahead of championship rivals Russell Ward and Philip Ellis in the #57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO in second.
Ward had to start the race from the back of the GTD grid after failing to line up in pit lane following the sighting lap, but he was able to work his way through most of the field in his opening stint, setting Ellis up to complete a podium drive.
Corvettes finished third and fourth in GTD with the #81 DragonSpeed Corvette (Casper Stevenson/Giacomo Altoè) ahead of the 13 Autosport Corvette (Orey Fidani/Matthew Bell); the #16 Myers Riley Motorsports Ford (Sheena Monk/Felipe Fraga) was fifth, followed by the #27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo (Eduardo Barrichello/Tom Gamble) in sixth.
It sets up a three-way fight for the championship between Winward, Turner, and Heart of Racing at Petit Le Mans.
Images © Jack Webster / dailysportscar.com
