Early race cautions and a late-race red flag for electrical storms saw a last gasp 20-minute sprint to the finish in the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen.
That sprint would see the culmination of an event-long battle between the two Acura DPIs which, despite the best efforts of a charging Sebastien Bourdais at the very end of the race, would produce a 1-2 for the ARX 05s.
The clinching moment would come at the restart from the red flag stoppage when Filipe Albuquerque would repeat the move he made on the opening lap of the race to pass pole sitter Tom Blomqvist, then holding off the Meyer Shank Racing car to take the win for Wayne Taylor racing.
“It was really crazy,” Albuquerque said. “When you believe in it, you just keep your foot down.”
After a red flag for over an hour for severe weather, the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race restarted with 21 minutes on the clock and Albuquerque second behind Tom Blomqvist, who had teamed with Oliver Jarvis in the #60 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Acura ARX-05 to lead most of the endurance race.
After the restart, Albuquerque in the #10 Konica Minolta Acura chased Blomqvist through the first four turns before pulling alongside heading into the inner loop. The two cars made contact, Albuquerque pulled ahead, and then somehow managed to hold off Blomqvist’s challenge to the finish.
The drama didn’t end there. Shortly after he passed Blomqvist, Albuquerque made contact with a Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) car, knocking the left mirror askew on the #10 car. In spite of that, further damage to the car, and the low fuel, he made it work.
“The mirror was gone, the car was bent,” Albuquerque said. “I just put full throttle to try to get it to the (inner loop). I was like, ‘This is going to be funny now.’ The car was going sideways. It was really weird. And then (strategist) Brian (Pillar) was saying, ‘You need to save fuel.’ I had bigger problems than this. I didn’t know if I could finish the race.”
The last-minute victory had a dramatic effect on the standings in the Daytona Prototype international (DPi) class. Albuquerque and co-driver Ricky Taylor came into the race trailing Blomqvist and Jarvis by 13 points.
With the victory, Albuquerque and Taylor regained the championship lead, taking a 17-point advantage into next Sunday’s Chevrolet Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ontario.
“It’s not a lot at all,” Taylor said. “You could make up that difference with qualifying alone. It’s very tight. The nice thing that we’re going to take out of it is that we continue to build a gap to Cadillac. At the end of the day, we really want to bring a championship for Acura.”
Two Cadillac Racing entries finished close behind the two Acuras, Sebastien Bourdais in the #01 he co-drove with Renger van der Zande, and Alex Lynn in the #02 he shared with Earl Bamber. The #02 dropped to 160 points behind the #10 in the standings, with the #01 185 points out of the lead.
Bourdais pushed hard in the closing stages and got alongside Blomqvist on the penultimate lap only to lose out in traffic to finish third.
Behind the two Ganassi-run cars there were delays for two of the other Cadillacs, the #5 dropping back after a clash with an LMP3 and the #31 after a penalty for a pit stop infringement.
Sunday’s race was also the third of four in the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup. Blomqvist, Jarvis and the #60 Acura hold a one-point lead over Albuquerque, Taylor and the No. 10 Acura in that contest.
After next week’s race, just two races remain for the DPi class, the IMSA SportsCar Weekend at Road America on Aug. 7 and the Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta on Oct. 1.
LMP2
He wasn’t supposed to be in the car at the end, but Scott Huffaker made the most of the opportunity to win Sunday’s Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) portion of the race – barely. The talented 21-year-old Californian held off a charging Louis Deletraz win by a tenth of a second.
Mikkel Jensen normally finishes in the #52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA LMP2 07 when he, Huffaker and Ben Keating are paired. Huffaker was driving when the race was stopped by the weather delay and the team opted to keep him in the car for the conclusion rather than take time to pit and change drivers.
Huffaker saw Deletraz closing in the #8 Tower Motorsport ORECA as the clock ticked toward zero. Deletraz was close enough to make a lunging manoeuvre coming off the final turn toward the checkered flag, but Huffaker held him off by 0.107 seconds.
“The plan was obviously to have Mikkel finish, but we have 30 minutes left in the race, we have the fuel to do it. It makes no sense to do the pit stop,” Huffaker said. “I catch traffic on the last lap and (Deletraz is) all over and I’m like, ‘Oh, no!’ But I knew as long as I make no mistakes, he won’t be able to get by. I was a bit nervous but it ended up being fine.”
“Today, Scott did the job,” Jensen commended, “because the red flag decided we had to do it like this. I’m very happy that he gets recognized for this because normally his work is a bit hidden in the effort. He showed he was the right man for finishing the race.”
It gave the #52 trio – who are competing only in the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup events this year, their second straight win on the heels of their March victory at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Presented by Advance Auto Parts. It also continued Keating’s string of good fortune. The Texan was part of the winning GTE Am team two weeks ago at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
“I don’t know what I did to deserve all of these blessings I’m getting,” he said, “but I’m just gonna ride the wave while I can. Today’s finish doesn’t have anything to do with me other than keeping the car relatively clean when I was in the car.”
The #52 PR1 Mathiasen ORECA, using two driver lineups to compete in the full season, leads the team standings by 73 points over the #8 Tower ORECA after four points-paying races. Huffaker, Keating, Jensen and the #52 also head up the Michelin Endurance Cup standings after three of four rounds.
LMP3
Gar Robinson, Felipe Fraga and the #74 Riley Motorsports Ligier JS P320 squad took a third consecutive win at Watkins Glen after winning both races there in 2021.
Robinson, Fraga and third driver Kay van Berlo won by a full lap over the #54 CORE autosport Ligier. After Robinson negotiated the caution-heavy start of the race, van Berlo and Fraga pulled away.
“I didn’t do much today, honestly, because we had the red flag,” said Fraga, the closing driver who picked up his sixth career win, all in the No. 74 since last year. “Gar started and (brought) the car back in one piece, then Kay did all the job and I went in at P1. At the end, I was just taking off from the GT cars and then just cruising to win the race. Thanks to these guys that made my life easier today.”
The race in class was marked by a number of on-track incidents featuring several of the LMP3 runners in what was far from the best advertisement for the class in the Championship.
Robinson though celebrated his seventh win – again all in the #74 Riley LMP3 – as he tries to repeat as the class season and Michelin Endurance Cup champion. Van Berlo, who joined with Robinson, Fraga and Michael Cooper to win the Rolex 24 At Daytona in January, capped a perfect weekend that also saw the 21-year-old Dutchman win both Porsche Carrera Cup North America races at The Glen.
“I shouldn’t get used to this, I guess,” van Berlo said. “Otherwise, all the other weekends are really disappointing. I’m super happy. It reminds me how privileged I am to be driving for two really successful teams.”
GTD Pro
The 60-minute stoppage for lightning three-quarters of the way through the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen threw calculations for minimum drive time and fuel strategy into disarray in Round 7 of the 2022 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, in particular for the GTD classes.
That resulted in the #23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 driven by Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas being awarded the GT Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) class victory after the #25 BMW M Team RLL (drivers: Connor De Phillippi, Augusto Farfus, and John Edwards) that crossed the line first was put to the back of the field because one of the drivers failed to meet the adjusted minimum drive time for each driver of 1-hour, 17-minutes during the six-hour endurance race.
A brief storm rolled through the Finger Lakes region of New York with around 90 minutes remaining, causing track and IMSA officials to red flag the race. At the time, Davide Rigon and Daniel Serra (#62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GT3) held a slim lead over Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet (# 9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3). The #25 BMW lay fifth, but carried seven more laps of fuel than the Porsche and nine more than the Ferrari when the race was restarted with 35 minutes remaining on the clock.
Sure enough, Serra and Jaminet pulled into the pits for a brief splash-and-go stop with five minutes remaining, leaving Edwards to cruise to what he thought was a one-lap margin of victory over Gunn in the #23 Aston Martin. But not long after the checkered flag, IMSA officials announced that a timing audit revealed the #25 team’s infraction.
Thoroughly surprised, Gunn and Riberas found themselves spraying the champagne in Victory Lane after their second GTD PRO triumph of the season. They also won the sprint race on the Long Beach street course.
They completed 147 laps of the 11-corner, 3.4-mile Watkins Glen International road course, and were credited with the win over Serra and Rigon, with Campbell and Jaminet completing the revised podium.
It was the second time in the last 13 months that the Heart of Racing Team was awarded a WeatherTech Championship race win, post race. The team’s first win in IMSA competition came at Detroit in June 2021 in the GTD class when the winning Audi was put to the back of the field due to a refuelling infraction.
Ironically, the Heart of Racing’s #27 entry was awarded the GTD class win Sunday at Watkins Glen, also due to a drive time infraction violation involving the #57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT GT3.
“It’s still a little bit of a shock,” said Riberas. “I’m speechless, not only for what it means for the 23 car, but especially for the history of the Heart of Racing Team. Today we had very unusual circumstances, and that is in my opinion what makes IMSA racing so special and entertaining and unique. You just never know, and that fits the Heart of Racing really well, because they never give up as a team or as a family.”
Added Gunn: “We were out of sequence due to issues earlier in the race, and that was in a way lucky for us because when we restarted with 35 minutes remaining, we knew we didn’t have to worry about fuel. To be honest, when I crossed the line, I thought I was P5 (fifth place), then I was told I was P2, and about 10 minutes after the race I was told I was P1. I’ll never forget that, for sure.”
The second-place finish allowed Jaminet and Campbell to extend their lead in the GTD PRO point standings.
GTD
After a season of frustration and near-misses, the #27 Heart of Racing Team hoisted its first trophy of 2022 on Sunday – declared the class victor about 20 minutes after taking the checkered flag in second place.
The Winward Racing Mercedes team first across the finish line and also looking to take its first win of the season –,was penalized for not meeting drive-time requirements with its drivers.
“We always know our car is strong here, this is a really good track for us,’’ said Heart of Racing driver Roman De Angelis who drove the Aston Martin Vantage GT3 in the final stint. “We had really good results last year here so we came in here with a lot of confidence.
“I thought second would have been a good result for us and it was very close. As I came to the last corner and got out of the throttle, we ran out of gas, so we coasted across [the finish line].
“We got really lucky and so obviously, with the drive-time [penalty] everything worked out for us,’’ added a smiling De Angelis, who co-drove with Maxime Martin and Ian James.
“We haven’t had a win in a while. We’ve had a pretty rough start to the year, so obviously, super happy to get that result.’’
It was only the second top five of the year for the Heart of Racing GTD team, improving on a runner-up showing in the previous race at Detroit. The team’s second car also won in the GTD PRO class giving the Heart of Racing organization its first double class victory.
It marked the 10th career IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship win for James, second for Martin and fourth for De Angelis.
“For sure we had some luck but at the end of the day, it was good racing,’’ James said.
With the drive-time infraction by the Winward team, the #70 inception racing McLaren 720S GT3 team of Brendan Iribe, Ollie Millroy and Jordan Pepper were officially scored in second place. And the #96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 team moved onto the podium. For Turner drivers Robby Foley, Bill Auberlen and Michael Dinan, it marked their third podium finish this year and was best among the championship leaders heading into Watkins Glen.
IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship competitors will be back in action next weekend for the Chevrolet Grand Prix, July 1-3 at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.
Results below include multiple cars penalised for drive time infringements post-race.
