Penske Motorsport Porsches sweeps top spots at IMSA Road America

Unofficial Race Results

A frantic finish to the feature race of the IMSA SportsCar Weekend at Road America saw Porsche Penske Motorsport score a dramatic 1-2 overall and Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class finish in Round 7 of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

A record crowd for a sports car race at the classic Wisconsin road course watched Mathieu Jaminet in the No. 6 Porsche 963 hold off Porsche Penske Motorsport teammate Felipe Nasr in the identical No. 7 car through heavy traffic in the closing laps to win Sunday by 0.390 seconds.

Hard-charging Ricky Taylor in the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 crossed the line in third place less than a second behind Nasr, closely followed by Jack Aitken in the No. 31 Whelen Cadillac Racing Cadillac V-Series.R. The top four were separated by just 1.449 seconds at the checkered flag after two hours and 40 minutes of intense competition.

It was a thrilling spectacle as the exotic GTP prototypes bobbed and weaved through the pack of production-based GT3 cars in the race’s waning moments.

“We had a couple of contacts in the last laps, I touched quite a few cars,” Jaminet said. “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,” he added. “Big thanks to the team to pull out the strategy, to put the numbers together.”

It was a back-to-front effort by the Porsche pair. Dane Cameron suffered problems Saturday in qualifying in the No. 7 and a drive-through penalty for incident responsibility dropped Nick Tandy in the No. 6 to the rear of the field after a first-lap clash with Pipo Derani in the No. 31 Whelen Cadillac.

Porsche Penske Motorsport utilized pit strategy to move both cars back into contention. The Porsches and the No. 10 Acura made pit stops for tires, fuel and driver changes under a full-course caution on the 28th lap, with the No. 7 Porsche stopping again four laps later to top off. When the final yellow flew with 37 minutes remaining, Porsche gambled and kept both cars on track while the No. 10 Acura pitted, putting Jaminet and the No. 6 in the lead.

“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,” Jaminet said. “This is something I was already discussing before, and I was saving fuel like hell.”

When racing resumed with 16 minutes remaining, he pulled out a small lead before encountering a staggering amount of GT traffic for his final two laps.

“It was a pretty wild last few laps, especially when we were catching traffic,” said Nasr, who chased Jaminet hard through the traffic but couldn’t make a move for the lead. “It got dicey out there. But the execution was perfect and it was a great day for Porsche Penske Motorsport with a 1-2 here. I feel like our race was all over the place. At one point, we had to make an extra stop to change the rear tail because I got hit from behind.

“It’s one of those days that making points on the competition was super important, when their cars had issues or didn’t have the desired results. I was just one car from the win, but congrats to the guys in the No. 6.”

Porsche Penske Motorsport has earned four GTP class wins in 2024, two by each car. Cameron and Nasr maintained their lead in the GTP standings, while Jaminet and Tandy leapfrogged the No. 01 Cadillac Racing duo of Sebastien Bourdais and Renger van der Zande into second place, an even 100 points behind the leaders. Bourdais and van der Zande finished ninth on Sunday and fell 185 points from the lead with two GTP races remaining.

‘Ben’ There, Won That: Keating, Hanley Deliver United Autosports First IMSA Win

Ben Hanley finished teammate Ben Keating’s recovery mission. The “Bens” combined to win the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class Sunday, successfully capping a reclamation project that began when their No. 2 United Autosports USA ORECA LMP2 07 crashed Saturday morning during practice with Keating behind the wheel.

The crew repaired the car in time for Keating to clinch the No. 2 starting spot in Saturday’s afternoon qualifying. He started Sunday’s race by taking the lead in Turn 1 on the first lap, and Hanley finished the race by turning the fastest lap in class during the final minutes of the race.

He was greeted immediately by Keating, who celebrated their first victory as co-drivers and the first win for United Autosports USA in WeatherTech Championship competition.

“We each had a great car,” said Keating, who marveled at the crew’s ability to rebuild the badly damaged left side of the car in time for qualifying. “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.”

Hanley pulled away from Scott Andrews in the No. 79 JDC-Miller MotorSports ORECA after a restart with 16 minutes remaining in the race. Hanley reached the finish line 6.685 seconds ahead after recording the best LMP2 lap around the 4.048-mile, 14-turn circuit – 1 minute, 53.544 seconds – with four minutes remaining.

“Around here, a gap of four or five seconds can go away in a lap,” Hanley said. “It depends on when you were catching the GT traffic. That can make or break your race around here. I was still pushing hard, right to the end.”

Andrews and co-driver Gerry Kraut held on for second place in a one-off appearance for the Minnesota-based LMP2 machine, while pole winner PJ Hyett and Paul-Loup Chatin rallied to finish third in the No. 99 AO Racing ORECA.

While Hanley and Keating were running away with the race, the points lead in the LMP2 championship changed hands after five of seven races. The No. 52 Inter Europol by PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA co-driven by Tom Dillmann and Nick Boulle moved 27 points ahead of the No. 74 Riley ORECA co-driven by Felipe Fraga and Gar Robinson. After winning last month’s race at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, the No. 52 finished seventh Sunday while the No. 74 wound up 10th.

Fuel Strategy and Execution Key to GT Class Success at Road America

Strategic decisions often factor into IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship victories at Road America, the 4.048-mile road course, and in both Grand Touring (GT) classes that defined Sunday’s IMSA SportsCar Weekend two-hour, 40-minute race.

Conquest Racing, in its second and last scheduled GT Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) class start of the season, made it home with a single fuel stop after running a final stint of just over 92 minutes to secure its first win in the category.

Meanwhile in GTD, Turner Motorsport snatched its first WeatherTech Championship victory in more than two years – since Mid-Ohio in May 2022 – as the previously leading Vasser Sullivan entry hit the pit lane trying to also extend its final stint north of 90 minutes but stopped inside the final five.

Daniel Serra and Giacomo Altoe shared Conquest’s winning No. 35 Ferrari 296 GT3 in GTD PRO, with a final margin of victory of 1.873 seconds over Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow in the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3.

“We were not expecting to fight for the win,” Serra said. “In a field as competitive as this in GTD PRO, all the mechanics worked together for the first time. In the end, they did a super job. We gambled on a yellow.

“We knew we had the speed, but not the straight-line speed to fight some cars. We gained a lot of track position and got lucky with the yellows. We finished with the fuel light on the last lap.”

Conquest Racing won the first race for the new Ferrari 296 GT3 at Road America in another sports car series in 2023. The team recently returned to the WeatherTech Championship full-time and delivered its third IMSA win, first since the 2012 American Le Mans Series race, coincidentally at Road America, in the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class.

“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 (Conquest GTD driver) 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.”

Sellers and Snow ended a season-best second, while Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas completed the podium in the No. 23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo.

Championship leaders AO Racing finished fourth with Laurin Heinrich and new recruit Julien Andlauer in “Roxy,” the No. 77 Porsche 911 GT3 R (992), ahead of the pair of Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs.

Corvette Racing’s 300th race as a team began from first and second on the grid, but fell to fifth and sixth after the No. 3 car was contacted on the start and the No. 4 car fell down the order during the second pit stop sequence.

Turner takes GTD

Will Turner’s quote in the team’s official pre-race press release was simple:

“We are looking forward to racing at Road America, specifically because of the cheese curds, brats, and Spotted Cows [a popular beer exclusive to Wisconsin].”

Expect several of those on the menu Sunday night as the team snapped a more than two-year winless drought in the highly competitive GTD class.

Similar to GTD PRO, strategy played a major impact on the category as cars either were on-or-off strategy depending on when any of the five full-course cautions flew.

The No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RD F GT3 appeared to be poised for a win for co-drivers Frankie Montecalvo and Parker Thompson, but it came unglued in the final five minutes when Thompson hit the pit lane.

That promoted Robby Foley to the top in the No. 96 BMW M4 GT3 he shares with Patrick Gallagher.

Their margin of victory was 1.130 seconds, as Foley secured his eighth WeatherTech Championship win and Gallagher his long overdue first, following five runner-up finishes. It also delivered BMW its first WeatherTech Championship win of 2024, thus marking the 16th manufacturer of the 18 racing in IMSA-sanctioned series to win a race this year.

Two Bronze group entries vying for the Bob Akin Award completed the GTD podium. Inception Racing finished second with Frederik Schandorff and Brendan Iribe in the No. 70 McLaren 720S GT3 EVO, with Gradient Racing securing its first podium finish of the season with Sheena Monk – who recorded a career-best result – and Stevan McAleer in the No. 66 Acura NSX GT3 Evo22.

The championship-leading No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Russell Ward and Philip Ellis finished fourth.

The WeatherTech Championship GT classes resume with the Michelin GT Challenge at VIRginia International Raceway, August 23-25.

The next round of the WeatherTech Championship featuring all four classes is the TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, Sept. 19-22.

 

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