| July 20, 2020 By David Phillips IMSA Wire Service |
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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – It would be an exaggeration to proclaim the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship competitors shoehorned 12 hours’ worth of action into 2 hours and 40 minutes, but Saturday’s Cadillac Grand Prix of Sebring was not wanting for drama. While there was little apparent mystery as to the identities of the class winners as the final minutes of the race approached, several unfolding battles made the precise lineups of the podiums anybody’s guess. And in the end, one podium spot was decided on the final run from Sunset Bend to the finish line while another class winner was determined after the checkered flag had waved.
An Unbeatable Combination
The No. 31 Whelen Engineering team put paid to any sense of suspense in DPi as Pipo Derani bolted to a commanding lead in the opening laps and again after the race’s only full-course caution. If anything, co-driver Felipe Nasr was even more impressive in his return to action after a (thankfully) minor case of COVID-19, bringing his Cadillac DPi-V.R. home 36.432s clear of the similar Konica Minolta entry.
The Cadillacs enjoyed an unbeatable combination of speed and fuel economy in covering 83 laps at a blistering pace while making just three pit stops. In contrast the Penske Acuras made four stops while both Mazdas ran dry a quarter mile shy of the finish, enabling the Mustang Sampling Cadillac to snatch its third podium finish in as many tries.
Three into Two Won’t Go
The most disappointing aspect of the event resulted from the Corvette C8.R of Oliver Gavin and the Porsche 911 RSRs of Laurens Vanthoor and Nick Tandy demonstrating that three cars do not divide evenly into two lanes on pit road. Vanthoor had leapfrogged the Corvettes on the opening lap to take the class lead before the GTLM field hit pit lane under a full course yellow around the 26-minute mark.
Serviced slightly faster than the Porsches, the Corvettes motored down the “fast” pit lane as Vanthoor and Nick Tandy exited their pit boxes in unison. Gavin and Tandy made contact, propelling the latter into Vanthoor, surgically removing the No. 912 Porsche’s nose and damaging the No. 911’s right rear. Vanthoor subsequently made a couple of additional stops to effect repairs while Tandy’s right rear tire let go as the No. 911 entry negotiated Turn 1 soon after the racing resumed. From there, the race became an intramural Corvette contest with Tommy Milner edging Antonia Garcia as Vanthoor and Earl Bamber salvaged third for Porsche.
Deja Vu – Not
For much of the evening it appeared the GTD and LMP2 contests would resemble earlier races at Daytona. Initially, AIM Vasser Sullivan Lexus looked on track to repeat their one-two GTD finish in the WeatherTech 240 At Daytona. But, after taking over from Aaron Telitz, Jack Hawksworth had to overcome an energetic challenge from Bill Auberlen’s Turner BMW before taking the win, while their sister Lexus slipped to P4 behind the WeatherTech Ferrari and Turner entry.
Meanwhile, with the LMP2 class absent with leave on July 4, the Rolex 24-winning DragonSpeed USA team was looking to go two for two in 2020. Sure enough, the DragonSpeed ORECA led handily through the first half of the race, then beat back a challenge by Spencer Pigot to cross the finish line some 12 seconds clear of the PR1-Mathiasen Motorsports entry. Alas, a minute check of the data showed Henrik Hedman’s stint in the DragonSpeed car fell a couple of seconds shy of the required 45 minute minimum, handing the win to Pigot and co-driver Patrick Kelly and unwittingly giving fresh meaning to the adage “win at the slowest possible speed.”
