Acura, Corvette, Lexus claim Road America IMSA wins

Sunday’s wild IMSA race at Road America offered a fairly clear picture of which teams were headed for victory lane after just over 1h40m of the 2h40m race had been completed.

And then the skied opened, which threw expectations aside as a yellow flag, red flag, and green flag influenced a crazed sprint to the checkered flag. Adding to the unpredictable outcome, the finish came under caution as the leaders in GT Le Mans left the tarmac and the final results were shuffled once again.

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When it was over, the pole-sitting Acura Team Penske ARX-05 DPi driven by Ricky Taylor and Helio Castroneves were victorious, but only after the DPi lead changed hands moments before the yellow flag for excessive rain with approximately 55 minutes left to run as a hard downpour sent cars from all four WeatherTech SportsCar Championship classes spinning harmlessly or into the walls. Mazda’s Oliver Jarvis nipped by Castroneves moment before the rain hit, and was locked into first place when the yellow and red flags were thrown.

Credit the Penske team for calling Castroneves in for rain tires just as the yellow flag was being unfurled, and most of the DPi teams followed the Acura onto pit lane for the same changeover from dry Michelins to wets. As the red flag lifted, the Mazda’s Jarvis circulated in the lead along with DragonSpeed LMP2 driver Ben Hanley, Porsche GT Le Mans driver Nick Tandy, and Lexus GT Daytona driver Townsend Bell.

A huge strategy error saw Mazda fail to pit Jarvis for rain tires once the pits opened as the field prepared to make a seven-minute dash for victory. Called to the pits as the race went green, Jarvis watched as Wayne Taylor Racing’s Renger van der Zande inherited the lead with Castroneves in hot pursuit entering Turn 1. Running wide at the final corner, van der Zande’s Cadillac surrendered the position to Castroneves, and from there, the three-time Indy 500 winner checked out and scored Acura’s first win of the year.

The victory also turned a year of misfortune around for Castroneves and Taylor, whose best finish across the opening three races was seventh in a class with eight cars.

It was all sunshine and rainbows to Castroneves and Ricky Taylor after their well-executed victory. Michael Levitt/Motorsport Images

“Hats off to all the Acura Team Penske guys,” Taylor said. “Rain or shine today, we were really strong. Helio did an unbelievable job. It’s been a long time coming for us.”

With the finishing order preserved under the caution on the last lap, the WTR Cadillac held onto second, and Action Express Racing’s Pipo Derani -- after crashing and destroying the nose when the rain hit -- rallied to take third, despite losing time in the pits for bodywork replacement. JDC-Miller Motorsports’ Sebastien Bourdais, coming off three consecutive third-place finishes, missed his first podium of the year after taking fourth.

Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor didn't look likely winners at Road America when Porsche and then BMW took charge, but events played into Corvette's hands. Jake Galstad/Motorsport Images

If the DPi swing from Acura to Mazda to Cadillac back to Acura wasn’t enough fun at Road America, the GT Le Mans class had its own silliness in store for fans as the pole-sitting Porsche 911 RSR of Laurens Vanthoor lost the lead on Lap 1 to Jordan Taylor, but Vanthoor eventually fought back to recapture the lead before the first round of pit stops. In full control, he turned the car over to teammate Earl Bamber who maintained the lead and appeared to be cruising for the brand’s maiden GTLM win of 2020. Until the showers blanketed the first few corners of the 4.0-mile circuit.

Porsche’s ownership of GTLM met its end as Bamber went for a wild hydroplaning ride entering Turn 1. Bamber’s big advantage in GTLM was traded for a spinning trip through the gravel where his 911 RSR lightly nudged the tire barrier. Although the Porsche was largely undamaged, Bamber was left stuck in the gravel. Losing two laps during the extrication process, the 911 RSR would go from the lead to finishing next-to-last in class.

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But all hope was not lost for Porsche as the sister entry was in position to take the lead and keep that first win in sight as the race went from red to green. BMW Team RLL’s John Edwards had something different in mind, however, and motored his BMW M8 GTE to the front of GTLM as Tandy fell to third behind the Corvette of Antonio Garcia.

The presence of Garcia in second was a particular surprise. A brutal pit stop on Lap 40 dropped the car from second to sixth and last in GTLM when a series of wheel gun issues left the C8.R sitting stationary on pit lane as a replacement gun was gathered to tighten the left-front wheel. An apparent issue with the replacement gun added more time to the stop when it was time to change the right-front tire. With the right-rear wheel gun retrieved from the back of the pit stall, the right-front Michelin was secured and Garcia charged out of the box with a need to re-do all of the work he and Taylor had completed.

Once more, rain helped to shuffle the GTLM cars, and with the Corvette holding second, a trouble at the nearly flooded Kink resulted in BMW’s Edwards and Porsche’s Tandy flying off the circuit, which promoted Garcia to the lead and the sister Corvette of Tommy Milner and Oliver Gavin to second. In an instant, BMW’s grasp on an out-of-nowhere win disappeared and Corvette Racing captured its third straight 1-2 finish. A frustrated Edwards was able to get the M8 GTE turned around and drive it across the finish line in third.

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"Finally!” Garcia exclaimed. “It took me forever to win here. How wild was that? I don't know how I got through the Kink there. From the Carousel, Tandy and I were navigating and we had to go around the GTD cars... their leaders probably. I was risking a lot and obviously Nick was risking a lot too, as I saw later on. I don't know how I made it through and I saw the [BMW] spinning too. It was just amazing. We will take it. Another Corvette 1-2 today is just awesome!"

The Lexus squad battled the conditions and each other before Bell and Montecalvo gained the winning edge.

And for good measure, GT Daytona made sure every IMSA class was visited by drama on Sunday. AIM Vasser Sullivan’s Aaron Telitz took command from pole position with Lexus RC F GT3 teammate Frankie Montecalvo in tow. A traffic-challenged lap on the way to the pits and handing over the lead Lexus to Jack Hawksworth erased any advantage Telitz held, and with Montecalvo stopping one lap earlier to swap Lexus seats with Townsend Bell, the internecine battle of hot and cold tires would play out in Bell’s favor.

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In hindsight, Hawksworth might lament his decision to leave an inside lane open on the long run down to Turn 5; had the door been closed, it’s unlikely Bell would have gotten by. With the pass made, Hawksworth struggled to match Bell’s pace as the stint continued, and when the rains arrived, the Lexus 1-2 was preserved until Meyer Shank Racing’s Mario Farnbacher went on a passing spree in the wet.

First it was Hawksworth, and then it was Bell, whose first GTD win in many years looked like it had been snatched away by the Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3 driver with under three minutes remaining, thanks to a bold move exiting Canada Corner. Good fortune smiled on Bell, though, who reclaimed the lead when Farnbacher left the circuit seconds before the last yellow flag, and with the order reversed, Bell was elated to win, Farnbacher was deflated after the loss, and Hawksworth salvaged third.

“It was a lot going on in those last three laps," Bell said. "The red flag came out and I thought there is no way we’re going back to green. We had to get back in and get out there. The first lap to be fair was OK. The Michelins were incredible in those conditions and then the skies just opened up. It was particularly bad in the carousel and the kink. Farnbacher, he was going big round the outside and got by us kind of easily.

"We kind of hung in there and I was coming out of the carousel looking up the road and there he was sliding out in the grass near the wall. I hit that standing water and thought I was going to lose it. For a split second I thought I was just going to lift and coast and I saw him off there. I just put my foot down and just started grabbing gears. The Lexus just barely hooked up and I got by him, that’s all it took and then the yellow came out."

Ben Hanley and Henrik Hedman weren't quickest in the DragonSpeed ORECA, but they avoided the decisive mistake of their LMP2 rival when the heavens opened. Jake Galstad/Motorsport Images

Where the Castroneves and Taylor Acura dominated the majority of the DPi contest, LMP2 was a tale of two races. Prior to the rain, PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports’ Patrick Kelley opened the event from pole and proceeded to display his mastery, running more than two seconds per lap faster than his rivals. Kelly built a lead of more than 12 seconds after six laps, moved it out to 35 seconds after 15 laps, and took it up to a ridiculous 48 seconds after 23 tours.

Handing over to teammate Simon Trummer, Kelly’s margin was mostly preserved with DragonSpeed’s Ben Hanley unable to reduce the gap below 40 seconds. But rain would intervene when Trummer crashed, smashing the nose on his ORECA 07-Gibson. Trummer and Kelly finished last in LMP2 as Hanley and Henrik Hedman got to celebrate the win after their recent victory in Sebring was taken away for a minimum drive-time infraction. Both one-lap down to DragonSpeed, the ORECA 07-Gibson entries from Performance Tech Motorsports and Era Motorsport completed the LMP2 podium.

"The team made a crucial call and got Ben in early to get the wets on and that was probably what won the race today," Hedman said. "We probably should have won the race at Sebring but we didn’t. And the [PR1 Mathiasen car] should probably have won this race today, but they didn’t. So we’re happy to take it. Today we were lucky but a win is a win, so I’m happy.“

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