IMSA Laguna Seca: Ganassi Cadillac holds off Porsche for victory

At the drop of the green, the two Porsche Penske Motorsports 963 of Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet locked up at Turn 2. Both Campbell and Jaminet ran wide, allowing the fast-starting Colin Braun (Meyer Shank Racing Acura) to get into the lead, followed by Pipo Derani (Action Express Racing Cadillac V-Series.R).

Jaminet recovered to claim third ahead of the two BMW M Hybrid V8s of Connor De Phillippi and Philipp Eng, and Ricky Taylor's Wayne Taylor Racing Acura. Campbell fell to seventh ahead of Bourdais’ Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac and Tijmen van der Helm in the new JDC-Miller MotorSport Porsche 963.

After Campbell nudged Jarett Andretti’s Aston Martin into an accident at pitlane entry, all nine GTP cars pitted, and leader Braun dropped to seventh having taken both fuel and tyres. Derani now led De Phillippi, Bourdais, Eng and van der Helm. Meanwhile, Porsche’s day got worse as Campbell was given a drive-through penalty for the incident with Andretti.

Braun elbowed his way past Eng’s BMW on Lap 33 on the climb from Turn 5 to Turn 6, and the BMW’s loss of momentum allowed Filipe Albuquerque (WTR Acura) and Jaminet to also lever their way through to demote the #24 BMW to seventh.

With 1h42m to go, John Farano crashed the Tower Motorsports LMP2 car at Turn 5, packing the field back up. All GTP cars hit pitlane, and MSR gave Braun fuel only, so his Acura took the lead ahead of Derani and Albuquerque.

Nick Tandy took over the #6 Porsche to emerge in fourth, ahead of the #25 BMW now steered by Nick Yelloly, and the #7 Porsche now driven by Felipe Nasr. Renger van der Zande replaced Bourdais in the Ganassi Cadillac, ahead of Augusto Farfus’ #24 BMW and Mike Rockenfeller’s JDCM Porsche.

Derani kept the pressure on Braun and, on the second lap after the restart, he passed the MSR Acura at Turn 3 to hit the front. Further back, the #7 Porsche of Nasr went off exiting the Corkscrew soon after passing Tandy, and the impact was hard enough to send him into the pits for repairs.

Tandy dropped to fifth behind van der Zande, who found himself stacked behind the two Acuras. Van der Zande then passed Albuquerque to claim third and closed on the struggling Braun. Once he demoted Braun, Albuquerque followed him through.

So with 70m left it was a Cadillac 1-2, with Derani and van der Zande running 14s apart. Tandy grabbed fourth from Braun into Turn 2 on lap 55, with the BMWs also demoting the struggling MSR machine. Yelloly was on a roll and demoted Tandy for fourth with just over an hour remaining.

That triggered Tandy to pit, and then Derani stopped as well, handing the car to Alexander Sims with a 20s lead. The rest followed shortly after, with Tom Blomqvist replacing Braun in the MSR Acura.

The last of them to pit – CGR's Caddy and the BMWs – got in just before IMSA threw the fourth full course caution for Aaron Telitz parking the Lexus RC F in the wall on the outside of the final corner.

For the restart with 41m to go, Sims led van der Zande, with Yelloly, Tandy, Albuquerque and Farfus completing the top six. Van der Zande went around the outside of Sims at Turn 3 to grab the lead.

Tandy then prised third place from Yelloly. Ten minutes later, Albuquerque also got around the #25 BMW, as Yelloly dropped down the order.

Tandy passed Sims for second with a quarter of an hour to go, and now had 4.4s to close on van der Zande. Although the gap fluctuated in traffic, van der Zande's winning margin was 3.8s at the flag.

Sims was a further seven seconds adrift but over 10s clear of the WTR Acura.

LMP2

Ben Keating of PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports took the lead at the start of the race from George Kurtz’s Crowdstrike Racing by APR entry, ahead of Steven Thomas of TDS Racing.

However, with 25m to go, Kurtz’s co-driver Ben Hanley tipped Ryan Dalziel’s Era Motorsports car into a half-spin on the front straight, allowing Mikkel Jensen to take the win for TDS Racing.

#9: Pfaff Motorsports, Porsche 911 GT3 R (992), GTD PRO: Klaus Bachler, Patrick Pilet (Photo by: Perry Nelson / Motorsport Images)

Mercedes, Porsche win GTD Pro and GTD

Klaus Bachler’s GTD Pro Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R led the GT field, with Roman de Angelis in close pursuit in the lead pro-am GTD car, the Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage.

That was chased by two more GTD Pro cars, the WeatherTech Racing Mercedes of Daniel Juncadella and Alex Riberas in the second HoR Aston. Alec Udell’s Kellymoss with Riley Porsche was next up, ahead of Jordan Taylor’s Corvette and Madison Snow’s Paul Miller Racing BMW M4.

After a yellow Bachler jumped the red light at pit exit – for which he would receive a stop and 60sec hold penalty – so it was Taylor’s Corvette that took the lead in GTD Pro class ahead Jack Hawksworth’s Lexus.

Following the third yellow, Kellymoss with Riley ran 1-2, with Alec Udell ahead of Kay van Berlo having just pitted before the yellow, and they were chased by the Turner M4s of Bill Auberlen and Robbie Foley. In GTD Pro, Alex Riberas’ HoR Aston led ahead of Antonio Garcia who was now in the Corvette.

Udell had to pit with 63m to go, van Berlo stopping next time by, leaving Turner and Paul Miller to run 1-2-3 for BMW just briefly until they pitted too.

Andy Lally led GTD for Magnus Racing (Aston), ahead of van Berlo and Auberlen, while Ross Gunn led GTD Pro ahead of Garcia. However, the latter pair had blown the wave-by rules under yellow and had to pit for stop-and-hold penalties.

That left Jules Gounon’s WeatherTech Mercedes leading GTD Pro, ahead of the earlier penalized Pfaff Porsche and the #14 Lexus, albeit in 12^th through 14^th overall in GT. Van Berlo passed Lally after a slightly physical confrontation with 20m to go, and soon Lally also had to give up second to Auberlen. With under 10m to go, Lally also lost third to Julian Andlauer (in for Udell).

Van Berlo won GTD by 10s ahead of Auberlen who had two seconds in hand over Andlauer.

Gounon took GTD Pro victory by eight seconds from the #14 Lexus, as Ben Barnicoat nipped Patrick Pilet for second by a mere 0.2s.

Cla	Class	Driver	Chassis	Laps	Gap
1	GTP	Sébastien Bourdais Renger van der Zande	Cadillac V-Series.R	102
2	GTP	Nick Tandy Mathieu Jaminet	Porsche 963	102	3.882
3	GTP	Pipo Derani Alexander Sims	Cadillac V-Series.R	102	10.636
4	GTP	Ricky Taylor Filipe Albuquerque	Acura ARX-06	102	21.041
5	GTP	Philipp Eng Augusto Farfus	BMW M Hybrid V8	102	22.818
6	GTP	Tom Blomqvist Colin Braun	Acura ARX-06	102	23.109
7	GTP	Tijmen van der Helm Mike Rockenfeller	Porsche 963	102	23.818
8	LMP2	Steven Thomas Mikkel Jensen	ORECA LMP2 07	102	43.809
9	GTP	Connor de Phillippi Nick Yelloly	BMW M Hybrid V8	102	45.677
10	LMP2	Ben Keating Paul-Loup Chatin	ORECA LMP2 07	102	48.904
11	LMP2	George Kurtz Ben Hanley	ORECA LMP2 07	102	49.158
12	LMP2	François Heriau Giedo van der Garde	ORECA LMP2 07	102	50.003
13	LMP2	Eric Lux Juan Pablo Montoya	ORECA LMP2 07	102	1'03.324
14	LMP2	Dennis Andersen Ed Jones	ORECA LMP2 07	102	1'04.674
15	LMP2	Dwight Merriman Ryan Dalziel	ORECA LMP2 07	100
16	GTD	Alan Metni Kay van Berlo	Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	97
17	GTD	Bill Auberlen Chandler Hull	BMW M4 GT3	97
18	GTD	Alec Udell Julien Andlauer	Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	97
19	GTD	John Potter Andy Lally	Aston Martin Vantage GT3	97
20	GTD	Brendan Iribe Frederik Schandorff	McLaren 720S GT3 EVO	97
21	GTD	Alan Brynjolfsson Trent Hindman	Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	97
22	GTD	Patrick Gallagher Robby Foley	BMW M4 GT3	97
23	GTD PRO	Daniel Juncadella Jules Gounon	Mercedes AMG GT3	97
24	GTD	Roman De Angelis Marco Sorensen	Aston Martin Vantage GT3	97
25	GTD	Mikhail Goikhberg Loris Spinelli	Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2	97
26	GTD	Bryan Sellers Madison Snow	BMW M4 GT3	97
27	GTD PRO	Jack Hawksworth Ben Barnicoat	Lexus RC F GT3	97
28	GTD PRO	Klaus Bachler Patrick Pilet	Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	97
29	GTD	PJ Hyett Seb Priaulx	Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)	97
30	GTD PRO	Antonio Garcia Jordan Taylor	Corvette C8.R GTD	95
31	GTD PRO	Ross Gunn Alex Riberas	Aston Martin Vantage GT3	95
32	GTP	Matt Campbell Felipe Nasr	Porsche 963	94
33	GTD	Russell Ward Philip Ellis	Mercedes AMG GT3	86
34	GTD	Sheena Monk Katherine Legge	Acura NSX GT3	75
35	GTD	Frankie Montecalvo Aaron Telitz	Lexus RC F GT3	58
36	GTD	Mike Skeen Mikael Grenier	Mercedes AMG GT3	37
37	LMP2	John Farano Louis Deletraz	ORECA LMP2 07	34
38	GTD	Jarett Andretti Gabby Chaves	Aston Martin Vantage GT3	9
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