After four podium finishes to open 2026, but no trips to the top step, Jack Aitken and Earl Bamber finally drove their #31 Cadillac Whelen V-Series.R to victory in Saturday’s IMSA Chevrolet Sports Car Classic in Detroit.
It was a commanding victory for the Action Express Racing duo, who headlined a double GM victory at the front door of General Motors’ famous Renaissance Center complex. Antonio García and Alexander Sims did the honors in GTD Pro, taking their first win of the year in the #3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Z06 GT3.R.
Bamber led the first 30 minutes of the 100-minute sprint from pole position. Further back, Kévin Estre was on the charge from tenth on the grid in the #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963, working his way up into the top five early in the race after the team spent many hours overnight repairing the damaged car.
On the opening lap, Tom Blomqvist got muscled out of the way by Filipe Albuquerque at turn five, and the #60 Acura Meyer Shank Racing ARX-06 was then nudged from behind by the #7 Penske Porsche of Felipe Nasr. That damaged the left-rear bodywork significantly, and debris from the #60 Acura brought out the race’s first full course yellow.
A rapid pit stop for energy, right-side tyres, and a driver change allowed Bamber’s co-driver Aitken to retain the net lead of the race, and he’d soon regain first place, opening up his lead to over 14 seconds.
But with 20 minutes left, contact between the #24 WRT BMW of Dries Vanthoor and the #6 Penske Porsche of his older brother Laurens led to a full course yellow for debris. Just after the subsequent restart, the #77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R of Nick Tandy ended up in the turn five tyre barrier, leading to another yellow.
With just over six minutes left, Aitken led the field back to the green flag and would pull away from the pack – winning by six seconds.
In second was the #25 BMW M Team WRT Hybrid V8 of Philipp Eng and Marco Wittmann, their second straight podium, followed by the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac of Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque, which scored its first podium finish of the year.
The #93 Acura Meyer Shank Racing ARX-06 (Renger van der Zande/Nick Yelloly) finished fourth, with the #7 Penske Porsche (Felipe Nasr/Julien Andlauer) rounding out the top five.
With that win, the #31 Cadillac extends its lead in the GTP Teams’ Championship to 153 points.
Aitken, meanwhile, has re-taken the Drivers’ Championship by 144 points over Laurin Heinrich, who had a difficult race in the #5 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche. The Laguna Seca winner was given a 60-second stop-and-go penalty for an incident with the #23 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie, relegating him and Tijmen van der Helm to 11th and last place.
Sims and Garcia also controlled most of the race in GTD Pro, taking the win by just under two seconds. But the frantic final minutes of the race prevented a 1-2 finish for the Corvette Racing team.
On the penultimate restart, Jack Hawksworth in the #14 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F GT3 tried a desperate lunge to overtake García, which earned him a drive-through penalty to be served once the race returned to green.
Seconds later, Catsburg was hit by the #15 Vasser Sullivan Lexus of Aaron Telitz on the approach to turn three. Catsburg was given a drive-through penalty for incident responsibility, deemed to have moved under braking. The penalty kicked him and Tommy Milner down to seventh.
Out of the wreckage, the #9 Pfaff Motorsports Lamborghini Temerario GT3 of Andrea Caldarelli and Sandy Mitchell quietly drove through to a second-place finish, the first podium for the Temerario GT3 in any racing series, which should bring much-needed smiles to the faces of many people at Lamborghini Squadra Corse.
The #65 Ford Racing Mustang GT3 of Christopher Mies and Frédéric Vervisch recovered from an unscheduled stop for a damaged right-front wheel to take third place, while the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO (Connor De Phillippi/Neil Verhagen) finished fourth.
Hawksworth and Ben Barnicoat ended up sixth, behind the #64 Ford (Dennis Olsen/Ben Barker) in fifth.
Milner and Catsburg still lead the GTD Pro standings after four races, but their lead over De Phillippi and Verhagen has shrunk to 18 points, with Mies/Vervisch down by only 20 points and García/Sims just 31 points out of the lead.
Images © Jack Webster / dailysportscar.com
