It was a drama laid upon drama race with several cautions, intermittent rain and a red flag when a deluge brought out a 40-minute red flag. The 6 Hours of The Glen 2024 eventually ended with the same top 3 ranking as the teams’ championship increasing the gap between Nasr-Cameron in #7 Porsche, Bourdais-van der Zande in #01 Cadillac and Jaminet-Tandy in #6 Porsche after a 16’ sprint.

#10 Acura leading then abandoning

Felipe Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor were leading the race with Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti #10 Acura ARX-06 before race was red flagged. Ricky Taylor was at the wheel under yellow during the restart procedure when his #10 Acura came to halt after losing the car’s right-rear wheel.

Nasr-Cameron win with #7 Porsche 963

When the cars were released, Felipe Nasr grabbed the first opportunity and, with an impressive move, swept past the then leading Louis Deletraz in #40 Acura struggling to warm up his tires and resisted to van der Zande assaults to win his second IMSA race this season. The Daytona winners and championship leaders Felipe Nasr and Dane Cameron increase the gap with their rivals in the championships lead for both WeatherTech teams and drivers as well as Michelin Endurance Cup.

Dane Cameron (Porsche 963 #7): “It’s wonderful to win at Watkins Glen and to have the sister car on the podium as well. This victory is a huge step for us in terms of our championship ambitions. Ten years ago, I celebrated a class win at Watkins Glen – now I’ve finally clinched overall victory. What a fantastic feeling.”
Felipe Nasr (Porsche 963 #6): “This victory comes at just the right time, as we’re now entering the hot phase in the bid for the championship title. It was an enormous challenge for our team in these chaotic conditions but the crew handled it masterfully. Everyone stayed calm and made smart decisions – just fantastic. I can’t wait for the next race.” Source: Porsche

#01 Cadillac second

Renger van der Zande and Sebastien Bourdais in the #01 Cadillac V-Series.R finished second to earn their fourth podium in six IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship races.

Renger van der Zande: “It was really enjoyable to fight for the win. Congrats to the car that won, and I think we’re happy to be P2. We had a good start and had speed in the car on the dry track, but it faded away a bit. We were doing OK until the rain came. And when the track dried out and we were on slicks, we gave it our all. We’ll take the points home to go into the final few races of the championship.”

Sebastien Bourdais: "It was a really tricky race. I felt like there were a lot of chances to take when it was sprinkling on dry tires. I didn’t feel comfortable because with that hard tire if you misjudge it and you fence the car the race is over. I was torn because I knew I was losing time, but I knew we can’t take the chances right now. It’s really not my forte to play casino with how much grip you’re going to get on the corner when you don’t know how much rain came down from the last time you came around. We made the switch to slicks after the rains and I feel comfortable there. It’s drying. We made good gains and were back in the fight. Overall, Renger did an awesome job at the end and he just executed. We’ll just keep digging and stacking up points and hopefully we’ll get even.” Source: Cadillac Racing

Two Porsches on the podium

Mathieu Jaminet and Nick Tandy in #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 complete the podium in third as Jaminet also ploughed his way up to third place shortly before the chequered flag and took Deletraz place on the winners’ podium.

Nick Tandy (Porsche 963 #6): “Both cars on the podium – what a result. The race was extremely interesting. So much happened. At the end of the day, we had two really fast Porsche 963 for the final sprint to the finish and we scored a heap of points. These last few days at Watkins Glen were a welcome change after our not-so-favourable experience at Le Mans.” Source: Porsche

P4 for Deletraz-Taylor

After starting from pole position, Louis Delétraz led the field to the green flag behind the wheel of the #40 DEX Imaging Acura ARX-06. Nearing the end of Delétraz’s double stint, the Swiss-driver was able to gain ground on the frontrunners and hand over the control to co-driver Jordan Taylor. For nearly an hour of changing weather, Taylor and the #40 team found themselves slightly down the running order before a downpour brought #40 DEX Imaging Acura ARX-06 to pit lane.

Shifting back to wet tires, Taylor swapped positions in the driver’s seat to Delétraz and impressive work by the WTRAndretti crew sent Delétraz out into the lead off pit lane. While under yellow for heavy rain, the field eventually came down pit lane as IMSA displayed the red flag for standing water on track. After 40 minutes and the skies cleared, the field returned on track under caution. With less than 20 minutes remaining, Delétraz saw the restart and it was head down to the finish. Delétraz tried his best to hold off the charging competitors behind him and keep the nose clean to the end. As the checkered flag flew, Delétraz brought the #40 DEX Imaging Acura ARX-06 home in fourth place, earning their third-consecutive top five result and moving up to fourth in the championship standings.

Louis Delétraz: “First of all, I want to thank all of WTRAndretti and HRC because we’ve had, I think, a strong weekend overall. Obviously, the result is disappointing because we just really struggled on restarts. I lost three spots on lap one of the start and three spots again on the final restart. I could hardly do better. But we still had a good race. We had pole position, great strategy and great pit stops. So, we know where to look to find that last bit of performance, and I think everyone is very motivated to find a solution and get on top of that, because I think if we fix this issue, we would have been very hard to beat this weekend.”
Jordan Taylor: “It was an up and down day. Obviously, it was great starting up front. I think we were battling with the top three most of the day. We got a little bit unlucky with some of the weather that came through, which put us to the back, but we still had such a strong car. The guys made a good call in ducking the pits as the rain was falling to jump everyone right before the red flag came. It put us in a good spot, but it does seem we have a weakness on some of the restarts where we’re struggling to get up to speed compared to some of the other cars. Something we know about and need to work on before Road America. At least we have a strong car, good strategy, and goods stops; we’re just missing a little bit.” Source: Wayne Taylor Racing

BMW M Hybrid V8 in the top 5

Philipp Eng and Jesse Krohn started from eighth place and worked their way up to fifth.

Philipp Eng (#24 BMW M Hybrid V8, 5th place): “Fifth place is not the result we wanted, but, except for qualifying where we had balance issues, I was quite satisfied with our pace over the weekend. We had the fastest time in practice, and I could also keep up with the pace of the Cadillacs in the race. After a pit stop, I even led the race for a few laps. Our focus is now on Road America. The biggest praise today definitely goes to the crew of number 25. That repair was a fantastic performance!”

Connor De Phillippi (USA) lost control of his car during practice and crashed into the track barrier. The BMW M Hybrid V8 was so heavily damaged that BMW M Team RLL had to resort to a different chassis and completely rebuild it overnight. Just minutes before the start the car rolled to the end of the pit lane, from where it started the race. Despite a drive-through penalty as a result of missing the formation lap, De Phillippi and Nick Yelloly (GBR) staged an impressive comeback that ended in sixth place.

Connor De Phillippi (#25 BMW M Hybrid V8, 6th place): “Thank you to the entire team for the incredible effort to get the car to the start after my accident on Saturday! This applies not only to our number 25 crew but to everyone, as the number 24 team also helped. For everyone it was like a 24-hour race. The car was only finished just before the start, so for us it was just about completing a clean race. But the balance improved over the six hours, and if we hadn't been stuck behind the Acura at the end we might even have been able to run with the leading trio.” Source: BMW Group

Proton Competition Porsche 963 seventh

When the race was finally resumed, the #5 Porsche 963 piloted by Gianmaria Bruni and Bent Viscaal, was in seventh place at this point and ultimately crossed the finish line without improving on that position.

Gianmaria Bruni (Mustang Sampling Porsche 963 #5): “That was a tough race for all of us, especially for the mechanics and strategy engineers. Seventh place is certainly not the result we had hoped for. On the bright side, at least we made it to the finish line with an intact car. It’s a shame that in the end, it wasn’t enough for a better position. Things actually looked really good for us in qualifying. Certainly, a markable improvement from our training laps on this ever-demanding track. We’re making progress.”

Bent Viscaal (Mustang Sampling Porsche 963 #5): “We improved our car over the entire weekend. It wasn’t easy to find the right setup for this taxing circuit. Unfortunately, a drive-through penalty set us back in the race. I’m proud of the team, who did a fantastic job. When the rain rolled in, conditions became increasingly difficult. But we managed to get our car across the line in one piece.” Source: Proton Competition

P8 for the #31 Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R

The #31 Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R’s fortunes turned surrounding its second round of service stops. First, with Aitken behind the wheel and an 11-second advantage over the second-place runner, the racecar spun exiting Turn 5 and Aitken was overtaken for the lead. He pitted on the next lap for service and a driver change to Derani.

With Derani on new tires, the #31 Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R made light contact with traffic and ran off course in Turn 1, necessitating an unscheduled pit stop for tires and a nose change. The sequence put the hybrid Cadillac a lap down that it was unable to recover. The #31 Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R placed eighth.

Jack Aitken: “I think the race started with so much promise. I had a pretty average first lap, dropped down to fourth (from qualifying third) and it was a case of being patient. The race was coming more and more to us and we picked them off one by one to get to the lead. I felt quite comfortable and everything was going smooth. Then, just a misjudgment by me in the Bus Stop caught the car at a bad angle and had a half-spin. It was not the end of the world; dropped us down to fourth – back where we started. Then it kind of had a cascade of events. Pipo (Derani) had an incident on his outlap with a couple of other cars and picked up some damage, and we just never really got back into the race, which is a bit surprising. Strategically, it didn’t fall our way. Pretty painful race for us, especially with the way it started. We’ll carry on, enjoy the break and come back to Road America fresh.”

Tom Blomqvist: "It was a tough day for the team. It was kind of pear-shaped. The race was going so well, then kind of derailed. Jack (Aitken) did an incredible first two stints and around the pit cycle we had two little incidents that put us a lap down. But in these races, a lap down, maybe you’re on the cusp of being out of contention but you normally bank on getting that back. The other guys played their hand and kept us a lap down, and there really wasn’t an opportunity to get it back with the yellows. I was on slicks, wets, did a lot of yellow laps and not any dry laps. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to do much to help out there.” Source: Cadillac Racing