| Mustang Emerges from Race-Long Battle Against Corvette May 31, 2025 By Tony DiZinno IMSA Wire Service |
| Race Results DETROIT – In a fairly straightforward but still intense fight, Ford prevailed against crosstown rivals Chevrolet in a battle for Motor City GT supremacy in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s Chevrolet Detroit Sports Car Classic. The No. 64 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Ford Mustang GT3 started from the pole position in the hands of Seb Priaulx before he handed off to Mike Rockenfeller. The car led 55 of 81 laps in the 100-minute race, the fourth round of the season for the Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) class. Rockenfeller controlled the pace against Alexander Sims’ No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Corvette Z06 GT3.R. Most of the 11-car GTD PRO field pitted within the opening 30 minutes, but the Corvette team attempted to overcut the track position against the No. 64 Ford by running long and maximizing a shorter pit stop. Sims took over from Antonio Garcia who pitted 29 minutes into the race after no tire change and an energy replenishment, matching the strategy the No. 64 car employed. Sims emerged third on track behind Rockenfeller in second, with the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F GT3 leading but due a stop after being off-sequence courtesy of an earlier drive-through penalty assessed for incident responsibility. After a restart following a full-course caution for debris, Sims got within a few tenths of a second of Rockenfeller but fell back to 1.623 seconds behind at the checkered flag. It’s Priaulx’s third WeatherTech Championship win, and first since winning with AO Racing in Detroit in 2024. Coincidentally, this win also stopped AO’s win streak across both WeatherTech Championship GT classes – the last two GTD PRO races in Sebring and Monterey and the sandwiched GTD win in Long Beach – and returned Ford to the top step of the podium for the first time since the season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona when the sister No. 65 car of Dennis Olsen, Frederic Vervisch and Christopher Mies won. Bragging rights are often a topic of conversation around the Ford-Chevrolet rivalry in Detroit, although Rockenfeller – who won his sixth WeatherTech Championship race and first since winning with Corvette Racing at the 2017 Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring – had some good one-liners in the post-race press conference. “I had the feeling that I’m in a Ford city,” Rockenfeller laughed. “I know there’s the GM battle, but we are racing everybody. It’s definitely great to have GM behind us. And clearly, I think you all know that this is a big fight between the two brands and clearly we are happy today.” Garcia was left to ponder both he and Sims staring too much at the Ford’s rear wing, although he and Sims scored their third GTD PRO podium in four starts this season with a strong drive forward and great pit stop to leap from eighth on the grid. “I think we played it very good. It is difficult to stay calm and make the moves and so on. But yeah, I just tried to be smart,” Garcia explained. “Probably at times I lost positions, but then I got them back and from that point on, I think I knew how to play it. So, saving fuel, and relying on all the practice we did in the pits. So, I think that’s where we really jumped everyone also, on the stop. “It’s a shame that we were behind the 64 for over an hour. We couldn’t really pass that car so that’s a long time following that one. But with after all that happened yesterday, I think I we can be happy with this.” Also happy? Pfaff Motorsports, who secured their first podium of 2025 in third with its new chariot: the No. 9 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, shared by Andrea Caldarelli and Marco Mapelli. The plaid Lamborghini showed strong pace all weekend and emerged ahead of the rest of the runners, who all went through some degree of incident at some point. The No. 14 Lexus of Aaron Telitz and Jack Hawksworth started last, had the incident responsibility drive-through, crew members jumping over the wall before a second stop for another drive-through, and still finished fourth. Post-race time penalties were assessed to the No. 77 AO Porsche and No. 4 Corvette, which collided on the final lap to drop to fifth and sixth. The second Multimatic Mustang, second Vasser Sullivan Lexus, both Paul Miller Racing BMWs and the DragonSpeed Ferrari all went through a battle-scarred street fight in Detroit. Although AO’s pair of Laurin Heinrich and Klaus Bachler finished fifth, they still will hold a slim championship lead over Garcia and Sims. The WeatherTech Championship resumes with the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen on Sunday, June 22, at noon ET, live on NBC. |
