No. 10 Acura ARX-06 Heads the GTP Championship but Plenty of Racing RemainsAugust 8, 2023By Jeff OlsonIMSA Wire Service ELKHART LAKE, Wis. – Leading the championship standings with two races remaining in the season is both important and unimportant.That’s where Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport drivers Filipe Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor find themselves after finishing third Sunday in the IMSA SportsCar Weekend at Road America. Without a victory this season and with time running out, they’re in control of the math. With just two races remaining on the 2023 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship schedule for the Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class, Albuquerque and Taylor have the No. 10 Konica Minolta Acura ARX-06 14 points ahead of Alexander Sims and Pipo Derani in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac Racing Cadillac V-Series.R.Significant, yes. Insignificant? Also, yes.“It still means nothing, but it still means something,” Albuquerque said during Sunday’s post-race ceremony. “Now we are in the lead. It still means nothing for the end. There are a lot of points still in it.” The same could be said about the championship contenders in the other four classes in the WeatherTech Championship. Here’s a quick rundown of the current leaders:Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2): Ben Keating and Paul-Loup Chatin, who won Sunday in the No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA LMP2 07, have a 45-point lead over Mikkel Jensen and Steven Thomas, co-drivers of the No. 11 TDS Racing ORECA LMP2 07. No team has won more than once this season in LMP2.Le Mans Prototype 3 (LMP3): Gar Robinson, who teamed with Josh Burdon to win Sunday in the Riley Ligier JS P320, holds a 251-point lead over Matthew Bell and Orey Fidani, co-drivers of the No. 13 AWA Duqueine D08. Robinson and the No. 74 have won all four points-paying races this year with either Burdon or Felipe Fraga, or both, as his co-drivers.GT Daytona Pro (GTD PRO): Ben Barnicoat and Jack Hawksworth, who have won twice so far in the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3, are 169 points ahead of Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor, co-drivers of the No. 3 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C8.R. While the No. 23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 and co-drivers Alex Riberas and Ross Gunn are a distant fifth in points, they’ve won the past two races.GT Daytona (GTD): Madison Snow and Bryan Sellers combined for their fourth victory of the season Sunday in the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 to extend their lead over Marco Sorensen and Roman De Angelis in the No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 to 205 points.IMSA WeatherTech Sprint Cup: Snow and Sellers also reclaimed the lead over Sorensen and De Angelis in the Sprint Cup standings, which measures results of the seven GTD sprint races of the season. Pressure Is on to Keep PerformingHolding the lead as time runs down is a good position for Albuquerque and Taylor, but 12 hours and 40 minutes of racing still remain for the GTP class – and just 139 points separate the top seven cars in the standings. With as many as 10 GTP entries expected in the remaining events and the difference between first and 10th place at each race being 140 points, a subpar finish could prove disastrous.The WTRAndretti drivers are all too familiar with that scenario. In 2021 and 2022, they led the Daytona Prototype international (DPi) class heading into the season finale. Both times they came up short in winning the title. Albuquerque knows that consistency wins championships.“It’s super easy to go from P1 to P6,” he said. “There are a lot of good guys out there. You could easily fall back. Step by step, not making any mistakes. That’s the name of the championship this year.”Three races remain for GT classes, two for prototype classes. GT classes resume their championship battle Aug. 27 with the Michelin GT Challenge at VIR at VIRginia International Raceway. Prototype classes resume Sept. 17 with the TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. |
