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Race report

Watkins Glen 240 IMSA: Derani, Nasr charge to first win of the season

Pipo Derani and Felipe Nasr secured a hard-earned victory for the Whelen Engineering/Action Express Cadillac squad in another gripping IMSA SportsCar Championship race at Watkins Glen.

Race winner #31 Action Express Racing Cadillac DPi: Felipe Nasr, Pipo Derani

Race winner #31 Action Express Racing Cadillac DPi: Felipe Nasr, Pipo Derani

Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

Just five days after a dramatic six-hour enduro, the character of this race was entirely different, especially given a lengthy stoppage before the half-distance mark due to lightning in the area.

But once again there was a mighty fight to the finish with around 36 minutes remaining after the race was restarted. That length was right on the fuel limit range for the DPi prototypes, although another brief caution moments later after some debris was deposited on the track at the restart allowed a little more leeway for the fuel number-crunching engineers.

And whereas last weekend the timing of the final restart proved frustrating for the Cadillac teams, this time it worked out to perfection.

The #31 Cadillac of Derani and Nasr had stopped for fuel immediately prior to the red-flag interruption, and even though everyone ducked onto the pitlane again prior to the restart, Nasr required merely a splash and was able to take the restart in the lead.

Dutchman Renger van der Zande, who had taken over from Kevin Magnussen in the #01 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac, managed to vault from fifth to second within a couple of laps of the resumption, and was able to maintain that position to the finish, just over 1.4 seconds behind the winning Cadillac.

After once again starting on pole position, the championship leading #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac of Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque led the early stages before slipping to third after the first round of pitstops.

Albuquerque then found himself in fourth after the final restart before squeaking past the Cadillac of Loic Duval and Tristan Vautier with a just a half-dozen laps remaining.

After victory in last weekend’s six-hour race, Mazda were unfortunate at the restart and ended up in fifth place.

#10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura ARX-05 Acura DPi: Ricky Taylor, Filipe Albuquerque, #01 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac DPi: Renger van der Zande, Kevin Magnussen, #55 Mazda Motorsports Mazda DPi: Oliver Jarvis, Harry Tincknell

#10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura ARX-05 Acura DPi: Ricky Taylor, Filipe Albuquerque, #01 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac DPi: Renger van der Zande, Kevin Magnussen, #55 Mazda Motorsports Mazda DPi: Oliver Jarvis, Harry Tincknell

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

After starting fifth, Harry Tincknell fought his way to second at the start and was actually leading the race when the race was halted. But with the car needing more fuel than its rivals, Oliver Jarvis was also muscled down several positions at the restart – on a damp track – and had to be content with an unrepresentative fifth.

PT1 Mathiesen Motorsports pair Ben Keating and Mikkel Jensen won LMP2 convincingly from the pole, while in LMP3, Felipe Fraga narrowly held off Riley Motorsports team-mate Dylan Murry and the Core Autosport Ligier of Colin Braun in a tremendous fight to the finish.

Corvette’s Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor triumphed again in GTLM, just as the pair did last weekend, with the sister Corvette of Tommy Milner and Nick Tandy their only real challenger.

GTD, though, was another frantic race, with Jack Hawksworth and Aaron Telitz finally claiming their first win of the season for the Vasser Sullivan Lexus team – chased home by team-mates Frankie Montecalvo and Zach Veach – after experiencing all manner of misfortune during the first half of the season.

IMSA Watkins Glen 240 results

Cla Class Num Driver Chassis Time Gap
1 DPi 31 Brazil Felipe Nasr
Brazil Pipo Derani
Cadillac DPi 2:41'27.882  
2 DPi 01 Netherlands Renger van der Zande
Denmark Kevin Magnussen
Cadillac DPi 2:41'29.355 1.473
3 DPi 10 United States Ricky Taylor
Portugal Filipe Albuquerque
Acura DPi 2:41'38.197 10.315
4 DPi 5 France Tristan Vautier
France Loic Duval
Cadillac DPi 2:41'39.907 12.025
5 DPi 55 United Kingdom Oliver Jarvis
United Kingdom Harry Tincknell
Mazda DPi 2:41'40.328 12.446
6 DPi 60 United States Dane Cameron
France Olivier Pla
Acura DPi 2:41'42.989 15.107
7 LMP2 52 United States Ben Keating
Denmark Mikkel Jensen
ORECA LMP2 07 2:41'58.570 4 Laps
8 LMP2 11 United States Thomas Steven
United States Tristan Nunez
ORECA LMP2 07 2:42'20.409 4 Laps
9 LMP2 8 Canada John Farano
France Gabriel Aubry
ORECA LMP2 07 2:42'26.082 4 Laps
10 LMP3 74 United States Gar Robinson
Brazil Felipe Fraga
Ligier JS P320 2:42'27.802 4 Laps
11 LMP3 91 United States Jim Cox
United States Dylan Murry
Ligier JS P320 2:42'28.078 4 Laps
12 LMP3 54 United States Jon Bennett
United States Colin Braun
Ligier JS P320 2:42'28.758 4 Laps
13 LMP3 36 United States Jarett Andretti
United States Oliver Askew
Ligier JS P320 2:42'51.754 4 Laps
14 GTLM 3 Spain Antonio Garcia
United States Jordan Taylor
Corvette C8.R 2:43'04.665 4 Laps
15 GTLM 4 United States Tommy Milner
United Kingdom Nick Tandy
Corvette C8.R 2:43'06.560 4 Laps
16 GTLM 79 United States Cooper MacNeil
Australia Matt Campbell
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 2:42'19.198 5 Laps
17 LMP3 38 Sweden Rasmus Lindh
Guatemala Mateo Llarena
Ligier JS P320 2:42'20.349 5 Laps
18 GTD 14 United States Aaron Telitz
United Kingdom Jack Hawksworth
Lexus RC F GT3 2:42'29.900 6 Laps
19 GTD 12 United States Frankie Montecalvo
United States Zach Veach
Lexus RC F GT3 2:42'30.607 6 Laps
20 GTD 23 Canada Roman De Angelis
United Kingdom Ross Gunn
Aston Martin Vantage GT3 2:42'30.973 6 Laps
21 GTD 39 United States Richard Heistand
United States Jeff Westphal
Audi R8 LMS GT3 2:42'31.298 6 Laps
22 GTD 28 United States Michael de Quesada
Canada Daniel Morad
Mercedes-AMG GT3 2:42'33.055 6 Laps
23 GTD 66 United States Till Bechtolsheimer
United States Marc Miller
Acura NSX GT3 2:42'43.250 6 Laps
24 GTD 32 United States Guy Cosmo
United States Shane Lewis
Mercedes-AMG GT3 2:42'44.013 6 Laps
25 GTD 88 United States Rob Ferriol
United Kingdom Katherine Legge
Porsche 911 GT3 R 2:42'51.550 6 Laps
26 GTD 76 Jeff Kingsley
Germany Mario Farnbacher
Acura NSX GT3 2:42'09.141 9 Laps
27 GTD 1 United States Bryan Sellers
United States Madison Snow
Lamborghini Huracan GT3 2:26'35.177 15 Laps
28 GTD 19 Canada Mikhail Goikhberg
France Franck Perera
Lamborghini Huracan GT3 2:42'35.473 15 Laps
29 GTD 96 United States Bill Auberlen
United States Robby Foley
BMW M6 GT3 2:30'27.398 32 Laps
30 LMP3 84 Theodor Olsen
Dominic Cicero
Ligier JS P320 2:31'07.157 32 Laps

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