IMSA Mid-Ohio: WTR Acura wins fuel-save nail-biter

DPi

Polesitter Harry Tincknell immediately sprinted into the lead in the Mazda RT24-P and by Lap 8 he had pulled more than 5sec ahead of Filipe Albuquerque in the Wayne Taylor Racing Acura ARX-05. Three seconds further back was Action Express Racing’s Cadillac DPi-V.R piloted by Pipo Derani, Dane Cameron in the Meyer Shank Racing Acura and Tristan Vautier in the JDC-Miller Motorsports Caddy. Unfortunately, Kevin Magnussen was given a drive-through penalty for changing lanes before reaching the start-finish line, so the Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac fell to the back of the class.

Derani was passed by Cameron and got spun when he turned across the nose of a GTD car, so fell to fifth behind Vautier. The Brazilian stopped on Lap 25 and was replaced by Felipe Nasr, Magnussen came in on Lap 26.

Multimatic turned Tincknell around swiftly on Lap 31, and the two Acuras pitted together next time by. WTR’s stop went well, although Albuquerque rejoined third behind the charging Nasr, but MSR, who swapped Cameron for Olivier Pla, fell to the back of the class, behind Vautier and Magnussen.

Tincknell, who had built up a 12sec lead before his pitstop, saw that deficit shrink to 3sec as he negotiated traffic and the AXR Cadillac closed in. Six seconds behind, Albuquerque was having to work hard to stave off Vautier and Magnussen.

At the second round of stops, #31 AXR car was again the first of the DPis to stop, while Vautier halted the JDC Miller car just one lap later and handed off to Loic Duval.

Tincknell and Magnussen pitted two laps later, Oliver Jarvis taking over the RT24-P, Renger van der Zande jumping aboard the Ganassi Caddy. Jarvis didn’t have it easy thanks to Nasr’s pressure. When Pat Long’s GTD Porsche spun into the sandtrap with an hour to go AXR pitted Nasr immediately, getting the Cadillac in before the pitlane closed. When pitlane opened, the five other DPis stopped. WTR got Ricky Taylor out ahead of the Mazda as the #10 had previously stopped five laps later than the Mazda – but AXR’s hair-trigger decision to pit Nasr saw the #31 Cadillac ahead of both of them and in the lead.

IMSA Radio reported that Meyer Shank Racing was struggling with its refueling equipment, so the team did well to get Pla ahead of Duval and van der Zande.

The restart with 45mins to go was clean , Nasr comfortably holding off Taylor, Jarvis and Pla. However, Taylor dived inside Nasr to claim the lead at Turn 6, while van der Zande moved past Duval to snatch fifth.

Taylor couldn’t escape from the AXR car however, and traffic made the pressure on Taylor even higher. On a clear track he inched away, while further back , van der Zande deposed Pla to claim fourth in the Ganassi Cadillac.

In fact, with Mazda worried that it couldn’t quite make to the end without a splash of fuel, Jarvis had to ease off and allowed van der Zande into third, albeit eight seconds behind Nasr who was still only 1.5sec from Taylor’s Acura. Jarvis’s feather-footing also saw him fall into the clutches of Pla. However, Pla couldn’t make it to the end, and ducked into the pits with less than four minutes to go for a splash of fuel. The following lap, van der Zande did likewise and gave up third to Jarvis’s Mazda.

Up front, Taylor tiptoed around the last lap, trying to keep Nasr behind and enough juice in the tank, and held on to win by 0.368sec, a mission he completed to Acura’s delight. Jarvis did a fine job to claim third to save enough fuel to claim third without a splash, while Duval moved up to fourth as a result of the Ganassi and MSR late stop.

GTD

Aaron Telitz retained his pole position from the drop of the green, the #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F remaining ahead of Robby Foley in the Turner Motorsports BMW M6, Daniel Morad in the Alegra Motorsports Mercedes AMG GT, Frankie Montecalvo in the second Lexus, Madison Snow in the Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini Huracan, and Roman De Angelis in the Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage.

At the first round of stops, Jack Hawksworth took over from Telitz and retained the net lead ahead of Foley, while the second Lexus, now driven by Zach Veach, was turned around fast enough to get him out ahead of Michael De Quesada who was now piloting the Alegra Benz.

However, Snow, Zacharie Robichon in the Pfaff Motorsports Porsche and Richard Heistand in the Carbahn Audi R8, delayed their first stop until an hour into the race.

However, almost as soon as the Hawksworth/Telitz Lexus regained the lead, it was suddenly seen running slow with wobbly left-rear wheel due to suspension failure. The #14 pitted and rolled back to the paddock.

That left Foley’s Turner BMW leading the class by 25sec over Veach, with Ross Gunn now in the HoR Aston Martin in third, with Pat Long fourth in the Wright Motorsports Porsche, and Mario Farnbacher fifth in the Compass Racing Acura.

The final stops for top runners in GT Daytona came with 62mins to go, but almost immediately afterward, GTD points leader Pat Long now in the Wright Porsche was spun into the Turn 13 sandtrap after getting trapped between the Alegra Mercedes of De Quesada and Robichon’s Pfaff Porsche. That required the first full-course caution of the race to rescue Long, who had sustained a right-rear puncture.

Of course a flood of stops ensued, and the Turner M6 – now driven by Bill Auberlen – saw its 25sec lead erased, with Veach tucked in behind ahead of Gunn. The big change was that Paul Miller Racing’s Lamborghini driven by Bryan Sellers was up to fourth, ahead of Farnbacher’s Compass Acura NSX, Jeff Westphal in the Carbahn Audi, and the Acuras of Andy Lally (Magnus Archangel) and Marc Miller (Gradient Racing).

At the restart with 45mins to go, Sellers and Farnbacher jumped Gunn to take third and fourth, although 17mins later, Gunn moved back ahead of the Compass Acura at Turn 1.

Auberlen dropped Veach by over four seconds, leaving the Lexus driver to try and keep Sellers from his tail, a job he did adequately despite his relative dearth of GT experience, to claim second.

Heart of Racing claimed fourth ahead of Compass Racing.

In LMP3, Felipe Fraga and Gar Robinson drove their Riley Motorsports Ligier to a three-second victory over Rasmus Lindh and Dan Goldburg in the similar car of Performance Tech Motorsports, with the second Riley entry a further 5sec back driven by Dylan Murray and Jim Cox.

Colin Braun survived a crash in the CORE autosport car at the penultimate turn to claim a distant fourth, but Andretti Autosport’s Jarett Andretti and Oliver Askew had to retire the #36 machine due to a mechanical failure at three-quarter distance.

Race results:

Cla	Class	Num	Driver	Chassis	Laps	Gap
1	DPi	10	Ricky Taylor Filipe Albuquerque	Acura DPi	122
2	DPi	31	Felipe Nasr Pipo Derani	Cadillac DPi	122	0.368
3	DPi	55	Oliver Jarvis Harry Tincknell	Mazda DPi	122	12.925
4	DPi	5	Tristan Vautier Loic Duval	Cadillac DPi	122	26.719
5	DPi	01	Renger van der Zande Kevin Magnussen	Cadillac DPi	122	33.115
6	DPi	60	Dane Cameron Olivier Pla	Acura DPi	122	37.698
7	LMP3	74	Gar Robinson Felipe Fraga	Ligier JS P320	115	7 Laps
8	LMP3	38	Rasmus Lindh Dan Goldburg	Ligier JS P320	115	7 Laps
9	LMP3	91	Jim Cox Dylan Murry	Ligier JS P320	115	7 Laps
10	LMP3	54	Jon Bennett Colin Braun	Ligier JS P320	115	7 Laps
11	LMP3	33	Lance Willsey Joao Barbosa	Ligier JS P320	114	8 Laps
12	GTD	96	Bill Auberlen Robby Foley	BMW M6 GT3	111	11 Laps
13	GTD	12	Frankie Montecalvo Zach Veach	Lexus RC F GT3	111	11 Laps
14	GTD	1	Bryan Sellers Madison Snow	Lamborghini Huracan GT3	111	11 Laps
15	GTD	23	Roman De Angelis Ross Gunn	Aston Martin Vantage GT3	111	11 Laps
16	GTD	76	Jeff Kingsley Mario Farnbacher	Acura NSX GT3	111	11 Laps
17	GTD	9	Zacharie Robichon Laurens Vanthoor	Porsche 911 GT3 R	111	11 Laps
18	GTD	39	Richard Heistand Jeff Westphal	Audi R8 LMS GT3	111	11 Laps
19	GTD	66	Till Bechtolsheimer Marc Miller	Acura NSX GT3	111	11 Laps
20	GTD	44	John Potter Andy Lally	Acura NSX GT3	111	11 Laps
21	GTD	28	Daniel Morad Michael de Quesada	Mercedes-AMG GT3	111	11 Laps
22	GTD	88	Rob Ferriol Katherine Legge	Porsche 911 GT3 R	110	12 Laps
23	GTD	16	Ryan Hardwick Patrick Long	Porsche 911 GT3 R	107	15 Laps
24	LMP3	36	Jarett Andretti Oliver Askew	Ligier JS P320	85	37 Laps
25	GTD	14	Aaron Telitz Jack Hawksworth	Lexus RC F GT3	77	45 Laps
View full results