By alley - Sep 19, 2015, 4:26 PM ET

IMSA: Ganassi-Ford repeats with dominant COTA win

ABOVE: Lone Star Le Mans Grand Marshall
Jim Hall with winners Hand (left) and Pruett.

The Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Ford EcoBoost DP team turned a pole position into an emphatic win today at Circuit of The Americas, earning the No. 01 car's first victory since COTA 2014.

Drivers Scott Pruett and Joey Hand blitzed the 36-car field during the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship's penultimate round as Hand set a new lap record while marching out to a 16.9-second win over Ricky Taylor's No. 10 Corvette DP. Richard Westbrook completed the Prototype top-3 in the No. 90 VisitFlorida.com Racing Corvette DP.

"It's just awesome," said Pruett, who earned a personal milestone with the win. "This good Lord's blessed me with this career. We've been working so hard to get this victory – number 60 for me. We've made big, big gains. This is great."

It was Hand's first victory with Ganassi since joining the Ford program for 2015, and his second for the team after claiming the 2011 Rolex 24 at Daytona using BMW power.

The Prototype portion of the race was filled with drama behind the No. 01 Ganassi Ford as multiple hits, spins, and penalties shaped the event's final outcome – and the championship standings.

An aggressive move on lap 38 by Action Express Racing's Dane Cameron saw the championship contender fly over a curb in his No. 31 Corvette DP, hit PC driver Renger van der Zande, and send both cars into spins. Cameron, in fourth after taking over from teammate Eric Curran, fell to sixth due to his error. He'd later serve a drive-through penalty, but recovered to fifth place when the sister AXR Corvette DP was embroiled in a mid-race controversy.

A needless hit by Townsend Bell in the Scuderia Corsa Ferrari F458 spun Joao Barbosa in the No. 5 AXR car, and with Barbosa thoroughly incensed, he waited and retaliated by striking Bell's car in side-to-side contact. The payback would come with a stop-and-60-second hold, cost the No. 5 AXR car a lap, and cause the No. 5 to fall to 10th-place at the checkered flag.

Because of Barbosa's red-misted actions in No. 5 and subsequent poor finishing position, the No. 31 AXR car moved up one spot in the championship – both AXR cars are tied for second. The Championship-leading duo of Westbrook and Michael Valiante were well adrift at the finish, crossing the line 44.2 second behind Hand on their way to third, but their limited pace was mitigated by AXR's woes.

Due to the penalties taking place behind them, the No. 90 team's 1-point championship lead coming into COTA has expanded to six points over the Nos. 5 and 31.

Next page: GTLM, GTD, PC

The GT Le Mans class was also affected by hits and spins, but the path to Victory Lane was most heavily influenced by impeccable race strategy and miserly use of fuel by the No. 25 BMW Team RLL Z4 (ABOVE) driven by Dirk Werner and Bill Auberlen.

Polesitter Patrick Pilet was in command of the race in his Porsche North America 911 RSR, and held a 6.6-second lead over Wolf Henzler in the Falken Tire Porsche 911 RSR until being tipped into a spin by John Pew's P2 car on lap 36, which temporarily allowed Henzler to find his way past. Henzler and Pilet banged fenders and shoved each other twice during the completion of lap, which saw Pilet retake the lead and Pew head to pit lane for a drive-through penalty.

Thanks to multiple caution periods and the high volume of contact, the BMW team set to rectify Porsche's dominance by sending the No. 25 on an alternate pit strategy that would require Werner to nurse the throttle pedal until the finish. Werner executed perfectly, and watched as the pair of factory Porsches pitted with less than three minutes remaining for splashes of fuel.

Giancarlo Fisichella gave everything he had to try and catch Werner, but fell 1.9 seconds short in the Houston-based Risi Competizione Ferrari F458 he shares with Pierre Kaffer. Pilet's teammate Nick Tandy was able to resume in third and hold onto the position after their untimely fuel stop.

"Holy cow!" Auberlen said. "We were on the edge of our seats. We knew a long time ago we were going to be on the edge of fuel. Sure enough the Porsches had to come in and we might have to push the car in [to Victory Lane]. Thanks to BMW Team RLL."

Pilet and Tandy held a 5-point championship lead over Werner and Auberlen before the race, yet lost two points after their messy afternoon in Austin.

The PC class win was captured by CORE Autosport's Colin Braun and Jon Bennett after Braun recorded a stunning performance while dealing with a power steering failure in the extreme ambient conditions. Coupled with the high-downforce aero package used on the ORECA FLM09-Chevy chassis, Braun's gutsy drive to earn CORE's second win of the season also helped the team to extend their lead to a commanding 12 points in the PC championship.

"We lost power steering about 15 minutes into my stint," Braun said. "We lost it at Mosport and won the race, so maybe it's our good luck charm!"

The pole-sitting No. 11 RSR PC driven by Bruno Junqueira and Chris Cumming was second at the finish, and Conor Daly and James French were third in the No. 38 Performance Tech Racing entry.

Another 2014 COTA race winner repeated on Saturday as Texan Ben Keating and Jeroen Bleekemolen mastered the 3.4-mile, 20-turn road course in their No. 33 Riley Technologies Dodge Viper. Bleekemolen was chased home in the final minutes by Turner Motorsport's Markus Palttala, who drew down the GTD leader's gap to 1.0-seconds in the No. 97 BMW Z4 he shares with Michael Marsal. Paul Miller Racing's Christopher Haase recovered from a spin to place third in the No. 48 Audi R8 LMS that Dion von Moltke drove to pole on Friday.

"It was really tough out there, particularly as the tires fell right off at the end of a stint," Bleekemolen said. "I got into the car with an hour to go under yellow with all of our competitors ahead on the road and from there on in I pushed hard.

"Some of [the GTD drivers] got penalties, a couple spun off but we had to pass a lot of cars to get to the front. It was hard but it's always good to win after a hard race."

Haase and von Moltke are just two points behind TRG-AMR's Christina Nielsen in the battle for the GTD Drivers' championship.

Up next for the TUDOR Championship is Petit Le Mans where the 2015 will draw to a close and champions will be crowned after 10 hours of racing at Road Atlanta.

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