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