Historic Crowd, Teamwork and Porsche Domination Highlighted the WeekendAugust 7, 2023By David PhillipsIMSA Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Mix “America’s National Park of Speed” with Chamber of Commerce weather and a bumper crop of the world’s fastest sports prototypes and sports cars and what do you get? The biggest crowd at Road America in the long history of IMSA and one heck of an entertaining weekend of racing. Domination Finally Given the partnership of two juggernauts in Porsche and Team Penske, coupled with the fact that Porsche Penske Motorsport did the lion’s share of the testing and development of the single-source hybrid powertrain system used by all manufacturers in the new Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class, few would have been surprised if its Porsche 963s had dominated GTP’s inaugural IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season. Instead, the No. 10 Konica Minolta and No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Acura ARX-06s have set the pace with the Meyer Shank entry scoring two wins and the No. 10 currently leading the championship points. The No. 01 and No. 31 Cadillac V-Series.Rs have each tasted victory with the No. 25 BMW M Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8 getting into the win column as well. To be sure, the Penske Porsches have had their moments in the sun, with the No. 6 Porsche winning at Long Beach and then taking the checkered flag first at Watkins Glen. However, the Long Beach triumph owed much to a Hail Mary fuel/tire strategy and, of course, the win at The Glen was overturned when a post-race technical inspection revealed a skid block measuring less than the permitted minimum thickness. There are no such asterisks affixed to Porsche Penske’s win at Road America on Sunday. After showing fair to middling form in practice and qualifying, the No. 7 Porsche 963 took off at the green flag. Although the 963s appear to bring their Michelin rubber up to operating temperature quicker than the competition – a theory espoused by Matt Campbell, co-driver of the No. 7 – he and co-pilot Felipe Nasr subsequently commanded the proceedings until Tom Blomqvist hauled the No. 60 Acura almost within striking distance in the closing laps. The key word there is “almost,” for Nasr never put a wheel wrong and deftly used lapped traffic to his advantage to score a win for Porsche Penske Motorsport that could be accurately described as dominant. Finally. Status Quo Rebounding from a subpar eighth place at Lime Rock Park, the GT Daytona (GTD)-leading No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 of Madison Snow and Bryan Sellers recorded a fourth win of the year to stretch their points lead to more than 200 markers over the No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 which came home seventh on Sunday. As has been the case since April, the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 sits atop the GT Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) standings and is now 169 points clear of the No. 3 Corvette Racing Corvette C8.R GTD, the ‘Vette having lost any chance to gain ground due to a refueling penalty on Sunday. Speaking of the status quo, the No. 74 Riley Ligier JS P320 maintained its so-far flawless 2023 Le Mans Prototype 3 (LMP3) campaign with a fourth victory in as many points-paying races. On the other hand, no less than three cars are within 101 points of the second-placed No. 13 AWA Duqueine D08, including the No. 30 Jr III Racing Ligier, the No. 17 AWA Duqueine and the No. 33 Sean Creech Ligier. Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) saw a bit of shake-up, at least in a historical sense, as the No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA LMP2 07 snapped Era Motorsport’s monopoly on Road America’s victory lane that dated back to 2021 and now leads the WeatherTech Championship LMP2 standings ahead of the No. 11 TDS Racing and No. 04 Crowdstrike Racing by APR entries. No ‘I’ in Team While there may be some I’s in Action Express and TDS Racing, none were evident in the teams’ paddock spots this weekend. The TDS squad faced a major repair job on the No. 11 ORECA LMP2 in the wake of Steven Thomas’ heavy crash in Friday’s practice. They were rewarded for their efforts when Thomas qualified third on Saturday and, together with Mikkel Jensen, drove the No. 11 ORECA to a third-place finish in the race, a result that puts them in second place in a tight LMP2 championship race that sees the top three teams covered by 97 points. The task was even greater over at Action Express on Sunday as every man, woman and child on the team pitched in to repair the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac in time for the start of the race following Alexander Sims’ crash in the pre-race warm-up. Although the Caddy’s handling proved less than ideal during the ensuing two hours and 40 minutes, it never missed a beat en route to a sixth-place finish that enabled the Whelen Engineering entry to stay within close striking distance of the new GTP points-leading No. 10 Konica Minolta Acura. Those maximum efforts by the TDS and Action Express crews, make that teams, could well prove critical when the final points are tallied at conclusion of the season-ending Motul Petit Le Mans. |
