| Analytics Rule; Three First-Timers; A Man For All Seasons (and Classes) July 14, 2025By David PhillipsIMSA Wire Service |
| DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – IMSA’s lightning-fast, exotic Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) entries from Acura, Aston Martin, BMW, Cadillac, Lamborghini and Porsche bring unquestioned prestige, high-tech, speed and glamour to the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. But as Sunday’s Chevrolet Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park demonstrated, the WeatherTech Championship’s other three classes of Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2), Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) and Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) can put on one heckuva show when left to their own devices. In two hours and 40 minutes of continuous action, the WeatherTech Championship’s annual visit to Canada delivered a bevy of lead and position changes aplenty, conservative vs. riverboat gambling strategic calls, and several paint exchanges that set the stage for nail-biting finishes. Unfortunately and ultimately the race finished behind the safety car following LMP2 class leader Tom Dillmann’s incident, which took little away from an engaging afternoon of sports car racing. Most importantly, Dillmann’s Inter Europol Competition team reported him OK later Sunday evening. Analytics Rule Much as old school sports fans may rue the emergence and domination of the sort of analytics that can lead to a baseball coach yanking a southpaw who’s hurling a shutout in favor of a righty reliever just to face a left-handed slugger, analytics proved their worth in the Chevrolet Grand Prix. GT leaders DragonSpeed and Wayne Taylor Racing topped off halfway and banked on a late caution, and both eschewed late race ‘splash-and-goes’ to maintain their respective class leads. They got not one but two late-race cautions for a pair of incidents inside the final 30 minutes, which avoided the likelihood of their running dry had the race stayed green until the checkered flag. Giacamo Altoe and Alberto Costa took a most unlikely win in the No. 81 DragonSpeed Ferrari 296 GT3 – having been Saturday’s slowest GTD PRO qualifier – while Trent Hindman coaxed the No. 45 Wayne Taylor Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 he shared with Danny Formal to the finish and the victory in GTD. Costa summarized DragonSpeed’s victory: “We woke up this morning and said, ‘We need to make a gamble.’ We were lucky for once.” |
| Speaking of unlikely, few would have predicted the WTR Lamborghini would get anywhere near the CTMP podium, let alone the top step, when contact from another GTD competitor dropped the Lamborghini down the order. “Started off to be a tough day and the incident on Lap 1 turned it into a strategy race for us,” explained Travis Houge, WTR vice president and general manager. “The team put their head down and stayed focused to get the result at the end.” This was Hindman’s second and Formal’s first WeatherTech Championship wins. They’ve won regularly in other IMSA-sanctioned championships, but the strategic recovery drive came good in their GTD effort on Sunday. Three Class First Timers Remarkably, the GTD PRO and GTD winners had something in common with the LMP2 and overall winner, namely the No. 99 AO Racing ORECA LMP2 07 piloted by PJ Hyett and Dane Cameron. This was the first win in WeatherTech Championship competition in their respective classes for all three teams. AO Racing’s wins in 2025 are as varied as they are voluminous. In IMSA, they’ve won in three different classes in a single season – a rarity in championship history – with its first IMSA LMP2 win joining the three other wins achieved in GTD PRO (two victories) and GTD (one) this season. Add in wins in two European-focused championships with LMP2 Pro/Am triumphs at both the 24 Hours of Le Mans and Imola and it’s been a banner year for the team after winning the 2024 WeatherTech Championship GTD PRO class title. For DragonSpeed, it’s a similar story of winning in its new class after achieving success elsewhere in IMSA. Most of its success has come, ironically, in IMSA’s LMP2 class, where the Elton Julian-led team was a standard-bearer for several years. The team won three times in four years in LMP2 at the Rolex 24 At Daytona in 2019, 2020 and 2022 with a variety of all-star drivers. The team’s first win since Mid-Ohio in 2022 comes amidst its first year in a technical partnership with Risi Competizione and delivers Ferrari its first GTD PRO win since Road America last year, achieved by Conquest Racing. Risi’s last IMSA win came at the 2023 Rolex 24 At Daytona in GTD PRO. Wayne Taylor Racing has been one of IMSA’s flagship teams in the top-level prototype class, whatever the name, for decades with more than 50 wins. Its affiliation with Lamborghini has primarily produced success in the single-make Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America championship, with its IMSA prototype success most often aligned with Cadillac, Chevrolet and Acura in the last couple decades. On a weekend when GTP was absent, perhaps it was fitting a GTP entrant got a win anyway with its GTD car, much to the team’s delight. “I am very proud and excited for the whole team, our drivers and our partners at DEX Imaging and Lamborghini,” said Wayne Taylor, team owner. “This is a win that has been a long time coming and one we have been waiting for. The team’s execution was fantastic, and the grit and strategy called, shows the passion that everyone in our team brings to this program. It is a great day!” A Man for All Seasons (and classes) Hyett’s co-driver Dane Cameron’s IMSA record continues to grow, as his 18th career win means he adds LMP2 to the list of classes he’s triumphed in across WeatherTech Championship competition. Cameron has won in IMSA’s top prototype class through four different naming structures – whether known as GTP, DPi, P or DP. He’s now won in two secondary prototype classes, LMP2 and the former Le Mans Prototype Challenge (LMPC) class. And he’s won in GT, too, in GTD. His championship record also runs the gamut, with titles in 2014 (Turner Motorsport BMW Z4 GT3, GTD), 2016 (Whelen Action Express Racing Corvette DP, DP), 2019 (Acura Team Penske Acura ARX-05, DPi) and 2024 (Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963, GTP). With their win at CTMP, Cameron and Hyett move to within 78 points of the LMP2 leader Daniel Goldburg in the No. 22 United Autosports USA ORECA LMP2 07. And with one sprint race (IMSA SportsCar Weekend at Road America) and two enduros (TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta) remaining on the calendar, a fifth championship is now within Cameron’s reach. |
