From seventh and ninth on the grid, Porsche Penske Motorsport took a 1-2 finish in the IMSA SportsCar Weekend at Road America – but only by a thread after a 16-minute sprint to the finish.
The #6 Penske Porsche 963 of Mathieu Jaminet last pitted with a little over 90 minutes left in the two-hour, 40-minute race. Jaminet inherited the lead on the final restart, but he still had to save energy in the final minutes while also maintaining his newfound lead.
But Jaminet had enough fuel and battery in the virtual tank, and he was able to bob and weave through tight traffic on the way to the win – the second of the season for Jaminet and co-driver Nick Tandy, who came back from an early drive-through penalty after a collision between Tandy and Pipo Derani.
“I knew it was a long shot, but from the moment I got in the car, I had always in my mind that we could make it to the end, depending on the yellows. This is something I was already discussing before, and I was saving fuel like hell,” said Jaminet.
“We had a couple of contacts in the last laps, I touched quite a few cars,” he added about negotiating traffic towards the end. “That was pure IMSA-style racing. This is why we love it; this is why we want to come back every time. You can be nowhere the day before, and nowhere at the start of the race, and two hours later, you come back with a big trophy!
“Big thanks to the team to pull out the strategy, to put the numbers together.”
Completing the 1-2 finish was the #7 Penske Porsche of Dane Cameron and Felipe Nasr, which extended its lead in the GTP championship out to 100 points – while the #6 crew moved into second place in the standings. Only two GTP races remain this season, the final two legs of the Michelin Endurance Cup at Indianapolis and Road America.
The #10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 (Ricky Taylor/Filipe Albuquerque) rounded out the podium in third, after leading 34 out of 62 laps on the afternoon.
It was an incident-filled race, with five Full Course Yellows. The last FCY with less than 40 minutes remaining gave Taylor the initiative to pit from the lead for a splash of fuel, hoping to dash through the pack while the rest of the GTP field tried to stretch their energy to the finish.
The elder Taylor moved up from ninth to fourth on the final restart, then picked off the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac of Jack Aitken for the final podium place. Ultimately, the two works Porsches had too much left in reserve to overcome.
Derani and Aitken finished fourth in the #31 Cadillac, a good recovery for them after the first-lap incident.
The two privateer Porsche 963s finished fifth and sixth, with the #5 Proton Competition Porsche (Gianmaria Bruni/Bent Viscaal) ahead of the #85 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche (Richard Westbrook/Tijmen van der Helm).
The #24 Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8 (Philipp Eng/Jesse Krohn) salvaged seventh for BMW after Nick Yelloly crashed out in the #25 car exiting the Carousel corner.
Yelloly went off and then spun to the left, hitting the concrete barrier. The British driver was thankfully unhurt after the crash. The dust and dirt kicked up by the BMW led the #01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R of Sebastien Bourdais to lose control and hit the wall to his right in a separate incident.
Incredibly, the #01 Cadillac of Bourdais and Renger van der Zande was in position to salvage a top five until Bourdais spun with under five minutes to go. Bourdais and Van der Zande dropped to ninth at the chequered flag.
It was also a tough day for the #40 WTRAndretti Acura (Jordan Taylor/Louis Deletraz), which had to serve two drive-through penalties and finished eighth after a frustrating race.
Bourdais/Van der Zande are now 185 points back of the championship lead in third, with Derani/Aitken trailing by 242 and Jordan Taylor/Deletraz trailing by 279, just keeping their heads above water in the championship fight.
Just over 24 hours after Ben Keating crashed his #2 United Autosports USA ORECA LMP2 07 in final Free Practice, Keating and Ben Hanley drove to their first win of the season and put themselves back into championship contention in the LMP2 class.
Hanley moved into prime position by coming to the pits with less than 40 minutes left in the race, right as a Full Course Yellow was shown for debris on track – caused by an incident involving multiple GTD cars.
That result moves Keating and Hanley to within 97 points of championship leaders Nick Boulle and Tom Dillmann, who finished seventh in the #52 Inter Europol by PR1 Mathiasen ORECA after two drive-through penalties.
“We each had a great car,” said Keating. “The car felt so good throughout the race. It was a crazy race. There were lots of safety cars and incidents and stuff happening all over the place. For once, we got lucky!”
The well-timed FCY also boosted the #79 JDC-Miller MotorSports ORECA of Gerry Kraut and Scott Andrews to second place in their first LMP2 start together.
The #99 AO Racing ORECA (PJ Hyett/Paul-Loup Chatin) was caught out by that Safety Car, but still salvaged their first podium of the season in third – ahead of the #18 Era Motorsport ORECA (Stuart Wiltshire/Ryan Dalziel) in fourth.
Gar Robinson and Felipe Fraga finished tenth in class in the #74 Riley ORECA, after a late incident for Fraga exiting the Carousel corner. Robinson and Fraga are now 27 points back of Boulle/Dillmann in the LMP2 Championship standings; Dalziel is now up to third place, trailing by 91 points.
The margin between Boulle and Robinson in the race for the Jim Trueman Award is now zero – both drivers are tied, and Keating is now just 110 points back with an automatic entry to Le Mans on the line.
Another long economy run in GTD Pro powered the #35 Conquest Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 of Giacomo Altoe and Daniel Serra to a class win on the car’s debut. The #35 car went off-sequence early on, and Serra ran the last 90 minutes of the race on a single tank of fuel, holding on to win by 1.8 seconds with the fuel light flashing over the line.
It was Conquest Racing’s first IMSA win since this event in 2012, 12 years ago.
“This is the first time we have run two GT cars, so we had to put a crew together for this one,” said Conquest Racing team owner Eric Bachelart. “I didn’t meet Giacomo Altoe until last Thursday! He came as a recommendation from Albert Costa. Obviously, he’s done an amazing job. And we know how good Daniel is.
“We were aggressive on strategy and it worked, but it’s hard to believe that for our second attempt in GTD Pro, we won.” (Conquest Racing tested the GTD Pro waters earlier this year at Detroit by reassigning its GTD class #34 car to the All-Pro category.)
Following them was the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 (Madison Snow/Bryan Sellers) in a season-best second place, while the #23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 (Ross Gunn/Alex Riberas) came forward to take a well-earned third place.
Gunn took 20 points out of the GTD Pro points lead after the #77 AO Racing ‘Roxy’ Porsche 911 GT3 R (Laurin Heinrich/Julien Andlauer) finished fourth in class. Heinrich’s lead is trimmed to 76 points with three races remaining for the GTD Pro and GTD classes.
The #3 Pratt Miller Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R (Antonio Garcia/Alexander Sims) recovered from being punted off by the #64 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang GT3 on the first lap to take fifth, followed by the #4 Corvette (Tommy Milner/Nicky Catsburg).
Meanwhile, two late-race drive-through penalties proved to be a hammer blow for the #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3; Jack Hawksworth and Ben Barnicoat dropped to ninth in class, and gave up ground in the championship race.
GTD top honours went to the #96 Turner Motorsport BMW of Patrick Gallagher and Robby Foley, who ended the team’s two-year winless drought in IMSA at the expense of the #12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus’ late-race misfortune.
Parker Thompson was trying to bring the car home after a long fuel save of his own, but he had to come in with just three minutes left – and conceded the lead to Foley, who took the Turner BMW home to its first win since the May 2022 race at Mid-Ohio. It was also Gallagher’s first IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship win.
“At one point we were on strategy thinking we were looking good, then a couple of yellows put us off strategy, and then the next yellow gave us an advantage back,” Foley explained. “To be honest, until we got to the last yellow, I wasn’t good on fuel. We were able to save quite well. I was kind of hoping that would play out and that’d be our way to victory today.
“The last yellow for us got us home good. I didn’t drive much, maybe an hour and 15, but it was mentally exhausting just hitting the fuel numbers, managing the traffic.”
After running out of fuel, Thompson and Frankie Montecalvo dropped to 11th place in class.
The #70 Inception Racing McLaren GT3 EVO (Brendan Iribe/Frederik Schandorff) finished just 1.1 seconds off the class win in second, while a last-lap double overtake propelled the #66 Gradient Racing Acura NSX GT3 Evo22 (Sheena Monk/Stevan McAleer) to its first podium in nearly two years – ahead of the championship-leading #57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Russell Ward/Philip Ellis) in fourth.
Ward and Ellis still have a comfortable championship lead, 268 points clear of today’s winners Gallagher and Foley.
In the race for the Bob Akin Award – carrying with it another automatic entry to Le Mans – the trio of Iribe, Monk, and AWA’s Orey Fidani are now separated by 30 points. Fidani and Matt Bell finished an impressive fifth in class in the #13 AWA Corvette, enough for Fidani to retain the lead in this three-driver race.
Images © Jack Webster / Racingpilot.com / DSC
