Top 5 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship for GTP

IMSA

Aug 9

As confirmed by the upheaval in the championship standings after Road America, several teams can take the championship lead in Indianapolis and everything will probably remain open until the last race at Road Atlanta. As it stands after Road America, the top 5 are within 118 points. Considering 385 points are awarded to the team earning pole and victory in a race, all 5 are still in contention for the Championship.

For the 7 races so far, 7 different teams have won the victory points: #10 at Daytona (even though #60 won), #31 at Sebring, #6 at Long Beach, #01 at Monterey, #25 at The Glen, #60 at Canadian Tire and #7 at Road America.

#10 Wayne Taylor Racing takes the lead with no victory.

With 3 podiums, following a third-place finish at Road America, the victory points at Daytona and a P2 at Canadian Tire, the #10 Konica Minolta Acura ARX-06 team now retake the lead by 14 points of the championship with two races remaining in the 2023 IMSA WeatherTech season.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Sebring. #10 Konica Minolta Acura ARX-06 crashed and abandoned.

Now, we can go to Indy with the lead and half that first pit stall on pit lane and start to control things for the last two races of the year.” said Ricky Taylor

We are now the championship leaders, so it’s exactly where we want to be and it’s hard to not think about it going into the closing races of the championship.” said Filipe Albuquerque. Source: Wayne Taylor Racing.

#31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac lost P1 for P2 .

The pole-winning #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac V-Series.R experienced adversity two hours before the green flag when Alexander Sims got caught off-guard by cold tires on the fast Turn 12 and made heavy rear impact with the barrier. Sims was checked at the infield care center and cleared to drive, and the crew quickly prepared to commence systematic work on the Cadillac Racing hybrid racecar.

After an extensive exchange of parts and bodywork that took less than 90 minutes, the car rolled out of the prep area to cheers from the throng of spectators gathered and joined the grid with Pipo Derani behind the wheel. Per IMSA regulations, the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac V-Series.R started from the rear of the GTP field. Source: Cadillac Racing

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Daytona. At the ROLEX 24, Alexander Sims and Pipo Derani in the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac Racing Cadillac V-Series.R ended 5th overall .

Despite leading the championship (victory at Sebring, P3 at Monterey, P2 at The Glen) and earning pole ahead of the Road America race, Alexander Sims and Pipo Derani in the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac Racing Cadillac V-Series.R are now 14 points behind the #10 Acura duo.

Pipo Derani: “We take the positives from what the crew and team did to get the car into the race after what happened in warmup to Alex on cold tires. Just to have gone into the race to score some points is great. Obviously, difficult situation with the tires being too cold in warmup and getting Alex off-guard. We’ve being seeing that happen a lot this year. It was us today and could be someone else tomorrow. We leave here without the lead in the championship, but it’s one of those things that are out of your control. But the positive is we finished the race and scored points in the championship.”

Alexander Sims: "The real credit today goes to the team that got us back out. They were faced with massive difficult conditions after my mistake in warmup, so they really got us the points today. The race was unfortunately not much better than the start of warmup. It seemed like we really struggled for pace. I was hoping Pipo might have good pace on a new set of tires, but he didn’t seem to be able to pull up. I had only two tires and double stinted right-side tires and it was really tough. It’s the way it goes in IMSA. We got the best points we could get under the circumstances, and we’ll go on to the next one.” Source: Cadillac Racing

BMW #25 is third.

the #25 car driven by De Phillippi and Nick Yelloly was classified in tenth position in the GTP class. As a result, De Phillippi and Yelloly lost their second place in the overall standings, which they held after a victory (The Glen) and three other podium finishes this season (P2 at Sebring and Long Beach, P3 at Canadian Tire). Source: BMW Group

📷 © Luc Warnotte at 6 Hours of The Glen. First victory for #25 BMW M V8 Hybrid.

Connor De Phillippi : “In the formation lap, unfortunately, I spun while trying to warm up the cold tyres and ended up in the gravel. The marshals pulled me out, and I was able to continue. It seems that the action significantly altered the balance of my car, which I didn't notice at first. It was only when I had overtaken all the GTD vehicles and went through 'The Kink' at full speed for the first time that I suddenly lost the rear of the car and hit the wall. Fortunately, I'm okay, but I feel really sorry for the entire team. However, I'm confident that we will come out stronger from this experience.” Source: BMW Group.

#6 Porsche 963 is fourth

In the early stages, Nick Tandy worked his way through the field to fourth place, only to be struck by a major setback: a puncture in the right rear tyre. The UK driver carefully limped back to the pits for an unscheduled stop – which cost him around two minutes. With no full course yellows, it proved impossible to close the gap in the action-packed race. Ultimately, Tandy and his teammate Jaminet finished seventh. Source: Porsche

📷 © Luc Warnotte at 6 Hours of The Glen. Porsche #6 team won but were disqualified.

With a win at Long Beach, a P2 at Monterey, Jaminet and Tandy with #6 Porsche 963 are fourth, 63 points behind the leading #10 Acura.

#60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 is fifth

The #60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 qualified sixth on the grid, but would end up starting fourth following separate incidents for two cars ahead prior to the race start. Drivers Colin Braun and Tom Bolmqvist would move forward during their stints and their combined efforts were rewarded with a second-place finish. Source: Acura.

The #60 team count two victories (Daytona and Canadian Tire) this season minus 200 points penalty due to the manipulation of tire pressure data at Daytona, a P2 at Road America and P3 at The Glen.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Rolex 24 at Daytona. Victory for #60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 but 200 points off from victory points due to false data transmission.

Colin Braun:"All-in-all I'm really proud of Acura, HPD and MSR. I think this is a great result! Considering where we started, we had a couple of challenging practice sessions with some brake issues, so hats off to the guys, we turned it around and got into the window in qualifying. And then the race today was close. I wouldn't have expected us to have so few yellows during this event, and that made the strategy a bit more straightforward and gave us less opportunity to capitalize. Tom did a great job the last few stints and it was really close at the end, but the traffic just didn't go our way. But, you can't be too upset about a podium." Source: Acura