| Penalties and Podiums; History Repeating; Bob Akin Award Ascendancy August 26, 2025By David PhillipsIMSA Wire Service |
 DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Each and every season the Michelin GT Challenge at VIRginia International Raceway is the chance for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) and Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) competitors to strut their stuff in the spotlight. They seldom disappoint, and this year was no exception. Not only were the identities of the victors in both categories in some doubt right up until the checkered flag, so were the identities of the rest of the podium finishers. The top three in GTD PRO were covered by five seconds while the GTD podium was blanketed by 2.7 seconds. Penalties and Podiums It was made apparent to drivers at VIR that after the incident-heavy Motul SportsCar Grand Prix at Road America earlier in August, aggressive driving would be penalized early, often and strictly. Three early race penalties followed in short order as part of six total assessed for driving standards; the final penalty assessed took the No. 78 Forte Racing Forte Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2 from second to 12th in GTD owing to blocking. While some cars may have got the short end of the stick, others recovered nicely if the penalties affected them early. Triarsi Competizione, for instance, rebounded from an incident responsibility for contact with the No. 34 Conquest Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 just after the start to parlay an off-sequence strategy and great passing maneuvers to finish second in GTD with Kenton Koch and Onofrio Triarsi in the No. 021 Triarsi Ferrari. |
 “It was unfortunate we got a penalty at the beginning,” Koch explained. “I’ll have to look at it. That said, I’m glad they did crack down a lot of stuff. It was aggressive and getting a bit out of hand. “Because they were cracking down, the (No. 78 car) was kind of moving under braking a bit. The only way I could get by was to get close enough to make something happen. Then they got the penalty. Based on where we had our penalty at the beginning, our guys made a great call to pit early, and the yellow came out at a perfect time where we could jump a lot of guys.” With the final green-flag stanza of Sunday’s race occurring with less than 20 minutes left, the risk of an encore of Road America’s incident-heavy race existed. However, it appeared most drivers chose discretion as the better part of valor in the waning stages as a late-race penalty would leave little or no time to recover. History Repeats Itself Corvette and Mercedes-AMG further enhanced their histories of impressive performances at VIR. The GTD PRO win by Antonio Garcia and Alexander Sims in the No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Corvette Z06 GT3.R was the seventh class win at VIR (and 117th IMSA class win overall) for Corvette Racing. Garcia, meanwhile, earned his fifth class win in 16 starts at VIR, the most of any IMSA driver. As well, the win – the first of the season for the No. 3 Corvette – staked Garcia, Sims and Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports to a 53-point lead in the drivers and team championships over VIR runner-up Albert Costa and DragonSpeed, while Corvette now enjoys an 81-point lead over Ferrari in the race for manufacturers championship. Over in GTD, the win by Russell Ward, Philip Ellis and the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 marked the second straight win at VIR for Mercedes in the wake of last year’s 1-3 finish in GTD for the No. 32 Korthoff team and Winward Racing, a podium finish for Winward in 2023 and another win by Ellis, Ward and Winward in 2022. The win leaves the No. 57 pair 171 points ahead of Casper Stevenson and the Heart of Racing Team, after the No. 27 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 EVO came home third at VIR, while Mercedes-AMG leads Ferrari by 186 points in the manufacturer standings. Early-race promise for the two Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVOs went awry with a mechanical issue for the No. 48 BMW, which inadvertently took the No. 1 BMW out of lead contention. Madison Snow hadn’t pitted from the lead before the subsequent caution and the flip in field order dropped the Snow/Neil Verhagen car to sixth. Ferrari didn’t win either class but factored in both. DragonSpeed’s full weekend pace was on display in GTD PRO ending with another podium finish in second and Triarsi, as noted above, went from an early-race penalty back to second at the end in GTD. Another marker of Ferrari’s strength at VIR? The four fastest laps of the race were turned in by Ferrari drivers, namely Frederik Schandorff 1:46.205 (No. 70 Inception Racing), Daniel Serra 1:46.546 (No. 34 Conquest Racing), Kenton Koch 1:46.588 (No. 021 Triarsi Competizione) and Albert Costa 1:46.592 (No. 81 DragonSpeed). Bob Akin Award Ascendancy  The contest for the Bob Akin Award as the top-rated “Bronze” driver in WeatherTech SportsCar Championship competition – and an automatic invitation to the 2026 24 Hours of Le Mans in the LMGT3 class – is a two-horse race between Inception Racing’s Brendon Iribe and AWA’s Orey Fidani. Both are previous winners, with Iribe taking the title in 2023 and Fidani winning the Bob Akin Award last year. Heading to VIR the twosome was tied with 2,260 points, but the race results pushed Fidani into a narrow lead thanks to his eighth place finish with Matt Bell in the No. 13 AWA Corvette Z06 GT3.R. Iribe and co-driver Frederik Schandorff came home 11th in the No. 70 Inception Racing Ferrari 296 GT3, although was on course for a fifth place finish before a blocking penalty was assessed. Still, with the TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks and the Motul Petit Le Mans remaining on the schedule, the “rubber” match between Iribe and Fidani for a second Bob Akin Award – particularly with extra Bronze-rated entries anticipated in GTD at both races – is likely destined to go down to the 10th and final hour at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta. |
