Porsche Penske Claim 1-2 Finish at Road America
Words by Matthew Boyce
Cover image courtesy of Art Fleischmann
Porsche Penske Racing has claimed a 1-2 finish at the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race at Road America. Mathieu Jaminet, driving the No. 6 Porsche 963, claimed the win by 0.390 seconds ahead of the sister No. 7 of Felipe Nasr after a spirited traffic-heavy 16 minute sprint to the checkered flag.
Jake Galstad/IMSA
Jaminet was handed the lead at the restart as the leader, the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 of Ricky Taylor, made a pit stop. With fresh tires on his Acura, Taylor charged through the GTP field, but stalled behind the No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac V-Series.R of Jack Aitken. Aitken was on a similar strategy to the two leading Penskes, and was able to hold off Taylor for a majority of the stint. However, Taylor made his way around Aitken on the penultimate lap to take over third with his eyes set on the win. GT traffic played a huge factor in the finish as the top three had to manage all of the slower GT machines. In the end, Jaminet was able to hold off his teammate Nasr and Taylor to claim the victory.
The No. 31 of Aitken settled for fourth on the day, while the No. 5 Proton Competition Porsche of Bent Viscaal and Gianmaria Bruni finished in fifth. Yet another Porsche finished in sixth at the hands of Richard Westbrook and Tijmen van der Helm driving the No. 85 JDC-Miller Motorsports. It total, four Porsche 963 GTP entries finished in the top six. The No. 24 Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8 of Jesse Krohn and Philip Eng finished in seventh after missing qualifying due to a rear-end change after a practice two incident.
United Autosports
After Ben Keating suffered a practice crash over the weekend, the No. 2 United Autosports Oreca 07 Gibson of Keating and Ben Hanley claimed their first victory of the season. JDC Miller Motosports, fielding an LMP2 car for a one-off race for Scott Andrews and Gerry Kraut, finished second in class on their debut. Rounding out the podium was the No. 99 AO Racing Oreca of Paul-Loup Chatin and PJ Hyett. Hyett claimed his fourth consecutive class pole for this event.
Conquest, Turner Claim GT Class Wins
Richard Dole
Daniel Serra piloted his No. 35 Conquest Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 to victory using a one stop strategy and superior fuel saving to claim the GTD Pro class win. Sharing the car with Giacomo Altoe, Serra outpaced the GTD Pro class to secure to win in only their third start in class this season. For Conquest Racing, the win serves as their first win since the 2012 season.
Serra paced the field after pitting fifteen minutes before any of the other GTD Pro class entries, racing the final 1 hour and 29 minutes on a single tank of fuel.
The No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 of Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow finished second in class ahead of the No. No. 23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo of Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas.
Turner Motorsport
In GTD, the No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 of Robby Foley and Patrick Gallagher claimed the win due to a late pit stop for the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus which was running low on fuel. The No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 of Parker Thompson had to pit with less than three minutes remaining in order to finish the race, handing the win to the No. 96 Turner BMW.
The win is the first class win for Turner Motorsports this season with Gallagher his first IMSA win of his career. Finishing second in class was the No. 70 Inception Racing McLaren 720S GT3 Evo of Frederik Schandorff and Brendan Iribe while the No. 66 Gradient Racing Acura NSX GT3 Evo22 of Stevan McAleer and Sheena Monk rounded out the podium.
IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship at Road America results: CLICK HERE
