IMSA: Fisichella takes VIR GTLM victory for Ferrari on final lap

Giancarlo Fisichella made a last-lap pass on Wolf Henzler to claim victory for himself and Risi Ferrari teammate Pierre Kaffer in a thrilling all-GT tudor United SportsCar Championship encounter at Virginia.

The Risi Competizione duo were able to work their way back into contention during a pair of caution periods at mid-distance after dropping down the order when poleman Kaffer ran off course on the opening lap. That had handed the initiative to Dominik Farnbacher, who was able to stretch out a small advantage during the first stint that teammate Marc Goossens maintained after taking over the SRT Viper in the first round of stops.

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Two caution periods soon followed, the pack splitting into two as some chose to make a second stop during the latter. Goossens was the first of those to not stop, but this proved to be the wrong strategy as the Belgian lost ground making his second trip to the pits under green.

Fisichella, having earlier taken over from Kaffer, meanwhile jumped the Rahal Letterman BMWs of John Edwards and Bill Auberlen to lead the group of cars on the optimum strategy. The ex-Formula 1 star made his final stop with 27 minutes to run, dropping behind the yet-to-pit Falken Porsche of Henzler and Bryan Sellers, but staying ahead of Edwards and Auberlen.

A third safety car – deployed in response to Michael Christensen's works Porsche stopping out on the circuit – then bunched the pack together, leaving a six-minute sprint to the finish led by Henzler, who had saved sufficient fuel to not need to stop again.

Henzler was initially able to fend off a hard-charging Fisichella before capitulating on the very last lap, the Italian taking the checkered flag by less than half a second.

"I knew it was the last lap and I did all I could do," said Fisichella, who was joined by co-driver Pierre Kaffer in the victory, just as he was two weeks ago at Road America. "I got close to Henzler and I was lucky because I even had a good exit. Once I took the lead, I was quicker than him in the straights."

"Sometimes you have to take a chance; we took a bit of (a gamble on) fuel and it paid off," said Henzler. "Some other times you take a chance and you can't make it. This time we were lucky, other times we were not. I think we deserved it, we deserved to be on the podium here."

Edwards, sharing with Dirk Muller, finished third, just a further two tenths back, ahead of the sister car of Auberlen and Andy Priaulx.

The leading Viper of Jonathan Bomarito and Kuno Wittmer was fifth, surviving a hairy moment when Bomarito launched himself into the air over a kerb, with Goossens completing the top six.

Corvette driver Antonio Garcia, sharing with Jordan Taylor in the absence of regular teammate Jan Magnussen after the Dane suffered a heavy crash in practice, came home seventh having made the same pit strategy error as Goossens. The sister car of Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner finished four laps down after contact with the Porsche of Patrick Long gave both cars punctures and severe bodywork damage.

The other works Porsche shared by Christiansen and Nick Tandy had also endured an eventful afternoon, suffering from a jump-start penalty and an early off-track excursion before grinding to a halt with mechanical problems late on.

GTD class honors went to Turner Motorsport BMW duo Markus Palttala and Dane Cameron, who took the lead shortly after the second caution period and weren't headed thereafter.

"It's a big gain for us to come in 12 points behind and leave tied," Cameron said. "We're in a good position now, but we're not going to change our strategy. We're not going to run conservatively and run for points or anything. We'll do what we need to win this championship.

"The last thing we needed today was that late yellow. The last thing we wanted was to be bunched up with everybody else, but I was able to get a good run coming out of the first corner and I could exhale from there. It was a pretty stressful day. It's never easy to win in this category."

The third safety car allowed the Ferrari of Alessandro Balzan and Jeff Westphal to close, but they missed out by a second in the final reckoning. The Porsche of Andrew Davis and Patrick Dempsey completed the class podium finishers.

The full TUDOR Championship field, including the usual headlining Prototype class that did participate at VIR, will be reunited for the next round as part of the World Endurance Championship bill at Austin's Circuit of The Americas next month.