JDC-Miller earns first overall IMSA win at the Glen; Ganassi, Turner earn class victories

The No.99 GAINSCO JDC-Miller ORECA 07 Gibson took the first LMP2 overall win in the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship in almost a year after an enthralling Sahlens Six Hours of the Glen on Sunday.

As Watkins Glen sweltered in near 100-degree temperatures, the major LMP2 runners finally had the upper hand after much discussion over the disparity in pace between the ‘spec’ Gibson-engined LMP2s and the DPi-spec cars.

The winning car, brought to the finish by Stephen Simpson, and shared with teammates Chris Miller and Misha Goikhberg, left it late to take the lead, with Simpson making a hero pass for the lead after a full-course yellow with 40 minutes to go saw the newly confirmed American citizen take advantage in dramatic fashion of a door-to-door battle between Jordan Taylor and Juan Pablo Montoya as the No.10 Konica Minolta Cadillac and No.6 Acura Team Penske men tried to make a decisive break as the race went green.

Results

As Montoya tried around the outside of Taylor, Simpson, running third in the train, saw space up the inside and went three-wide to grab the inside line, taking a lead that was never threatened in the final stages to bring the JDC-Miller squad a long-awaited first overall IMSA win by almost two seconds.

The No. 99 crew celebrates (Image by Michael Levitt/LAT)

“I don’t really know what to say,” said Simpson, who put the GAINSCO colors back in victory lane for the first time since a GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series race at Circuit of The Americas in 2013. “Setting me up for that restart was the guys in the pits. I mean, we jumped a bunch of cars. I wasn’t sure if we could get there on fuel, but the guys weren’t saying anything to save extra fuel in my car, so I thought, ‘I’m going to go for it.’

“I don’t know who the guy was in the Penske car, but him and [Taylor] slowed each other down enough going up the Esses. I don’t know, I might have had some wheels on the grass there, but I wasn’t lifting off. After that, I really expected a lot of hard work from the Penske behind me, and after a lap or two, I realized that I had a bit more speed than he did. I wanted to build a gap and make sure that when I got to some GT traffic, I had a bit of a gap. I learned from last year. I’m just so proud of this team.”

Montoya was left to push hard to try to hang on, but ultimately the ex-IndyCar and Formula 1 star would lose second position in the final turn as the Acura coughed -- low on fuel -- and Romain Dumas, fresh from his win at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb last weekend, found a way by to beat the Acura DPi home by 0.142s in the No. 54 CORE autosport ORECA 07 Gibson shared with Jon Bennett and Colin Braun, clinching an LMP2 one-two with the overall podium featuring a trio of ORECA chassis.

The CORE team had opted pre-race to cede their pole position to strategically place Jon Bennett in the car from the start. The gamble paid off as Bennett stayed on the lead lap in his opening stint and found a fortunately timed full-course yellow allowed him to rejoin the back of the Prototype train and repeat the performance for a second stint that would qualify him for the Trueman Akin award, the winner (determined among non-Pro drivers in the four IMSA endurance races) qualifying for an entry to the 2019 Le Mans 24 Hours.

The other major player in the dramas that raged throughout the six hours for the overall win would come home a very disappointed fourth -- ex-F1 and current DTM star Paul Di Resta brought home the No.32 United Autosports Ligier JS P217 Gibson off the podium in a race that the whole team will believe they should have won after leading on multiple occasions with all three drivers, Di Resta joined by Bruno Senna and impressive 18-year-old Englishman Phil Hanson in the car entered by the U.S.-flagged team co-owned by Richard Dean and McLaren F1 CEO Zak Brown.

That prospect was made much tougher as Di Resta and Braun pushed hard to catch the then-leading No.6 Acura DPi deep into the fifth hour. With the Ligier ahead and dealing with traffic, there was contact from the rear by the ORECA -- both cars would pit, the Ligier requiring attention to deal with bodywork rubbing on the left rear tire.

That left United Autosports having to gamble on not fitting new tires in the final stop, and ultimately that was a gamble that didn’t pay off, Di Resta holding off Dumas until the final few minutes before dropping back to retain a comfortable fourth over a trio of Cadillac DPis that, on pace, were never a threat.

The Tequila Patron ESM Ligier Nissan DPis were both in early trouble, caught up in a first lap drama as the No.90 Spirit of Daytona Cadillac DPi in the hands of Tristan Vautier made light contact with the No.31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac of Felipe Nasr, sending the No. 90 half-spinning and triggering major avoidance from the field behind. Vautier managed to hold the spin, recovered the car despite light contact to the front from the No. 55 Mazda, but was then collected by the No.2 of Scott Sharp who moved to the inside in avoidance and lost control, sending both cars spinning.

At the same moment, Pipo Derani in the sister No.22 ESM Ligier Nissan went to the outside and lost control, clanging the barrier and going behind the wall for attention to the nose, but while the pits were closed for the inevitable safety car they would rejoin 10 laps down.

Mazda had another day to forget; the No.77 Mazda RT24P DPi suffered early electrical (engine management) trouble and never featured, and the sister No.55 couldn't finding sustainable pace to threaten the dominant players here.

The No.7 Penske Acura led early on, but before halfway was in trouble with an electronic glitch that left the car tumbling down the order.

GTLM

Winning GTLM Ford GT (Image by Michael Levitt/LAT)

GTLM fell to the No.66 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT of Dirk Mueller and Joey Hand after a race that Mueller described afterward as “a roller coaster.”

That seemed an appropriate description, given that the car suffered an upshifting glitch mid-race that dropped the No.66 from the lead to sixth in class before it was dealt with in a routine pit stop -- but not before Mueller was left to battle with a car without effective traction control for a full stint.

“We leapfrogged everybody when we came in a little shorter and got lucky on that yellow [with under 40 minutes minutes to go for debris],” said Mueller. “My team manager told me, ‘buddy if you want to win that race you have to give us your best ever out lap in your life. We need it in order to jump ahead of the Corvette.’ And again we were low on [tire] pressure. I know we always get told not to really push hard there but I pushed like crazy and that basically jumped us ahead of the Corvette and just sailed it home. Sounds easy. But it wasn't. I gave it all. I was a sweaty one.”

“All these guys, all our boys who did these pit stops today did such a great job, it was a flawless race for us,” said Hand. “I love this race, I love this Independence Day week Fourth of July. I'm so thankful to be American. So thankful to drive for Ford and Chip Ganassi Racing.”

The race, seemingly dominated by the Fords in the opening stages, saw periods when the Porsches and the Corvettes moved into contention.

The No.3 Corvette of Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia would come home a deserved close second, just 1.6 seconds back from the winning Ford with the two CORE autosport-run Porsche 911 RSRs next up after battling performances from both. The No. 911 car took the final podium place after Nick Tandy and Patrick Pilet won a race-long duel with the sister car.

The BMW Team RLL M8 GTEs were never in real contention, the No. 24 car behind the wall early on with electrical trouble, the sister No.25 finishing a lap off the class leaders in a frustrating run for the Bavarian manufacturer.

GTD

Turner Motorsport BMW M6 GT3 en route to victory in GTD (Image by Jake Galstad/LAT)

The No.96 Turner Motorsports BMW M6 GT3 was victorious in GTD, with Finnish driver Markus Palttala due most of the plaudits for repeated stints of pace and consistency after teammates Don Yount and Dillon Machavern produced solid, error-free runs and the BMW gradually drove into contention as other front-runners hit trouble.

“It’s a real accomplishment to beat some of the best drivers in the world with up-and-coming race drivers that just did a fantastic job,” team owner Will Turner said. “Markus was the last one and he came over the finish line, but he didn’t win the race for us. All my drivers won the race, all our pit stops won the race for us. It just came together. We took care of the tires, they did great at the end of the race for us and we were able to pull ahead. It’s a great feeling.”

Principal among those having issues was the leading No.29 Montaplast from Land Motorsport Audi R8 LMS GT3, which was dealt a stop and 60-second hold penalty in the final half hour for working on the car when the pits were closed. The team attempted to protest the penalty but were eventually handed an additional drive-through for failing to observe the first penalty. They opted to park the car -- another unhappy conclusion to an event for the team after their fuel-rig-related traumas at Daytona.

That left the podium to be completed by the hard-charging No.86 Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3 of championship leader Katherine Legge and Alvaro Parente, the NSX battling hard throughout the race with all comers, and by the No.48 Paul Miller racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 of Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow, another pairing that pushed hard all day, a podium finish a deserved reward.

Jack Hawksworth finished just off the podium in the No.15 3GT Racing Lexus RC F GT3 that the Englishman shared with David Heinemeier Hansson and Mario Farnbacher. The car led for significant periods from its pole position start but fell back after Hawksworth was understood to have misheard a pit call for a penalty actually assessed against another car.