Richard Dole/Motorsport Images
Porsche Penske to protest Watkins Glen penalty
BMW was handed the victory in the Sahlen's Six Hours of the Glen on Sunday night after the skid block on the apparently-victorious No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 was found to be out of tolerance, and the car driven by Nick Tandy and Mathieu Jaminet was moved to the rear of the GTP class. However, PPM isn't ready to concede, and BMW isn't celebrating yet – despite Twitter feeds to the contrary.
PPM has stated it will protest the ruling from IMSA that the wood skid block under the car was out of tolerance in post-race inspection. IMSA specifies a minimum thickness in order to keep teams from running the cars too low – if the skid block is worn too thin, the assumption is that the car was bottoming out too much.
“Following post-race inspection at Watkins Glen International, IMSA has penalized the No. 6 entry in the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen citing that the front skid wear of the No. 6 Porsche 963 was less than one millimeter outside the legal tolerance,” Porsche Penske Motorsport said in a statement. “The rear skid wear was noted to be well within the legal tolerance. Porsche Penske Motorsport plans to collect all of the data and follow the protest procedures.”
Jaminet made a dramatic late-race pass on Connor De Phillippi in traffic to initially claim the victory for the No. 6, while De Phillippi and Nick Yelloly in the No. 25 BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8 believed they had been denied the marque's first GTP victory. However, five hours after the checkered flag, IMSA announced that the No. 6 963 had failed post-race technical inspection and the BMW was promoted to first.
If PPM's protest is denied, it will have a significant affect on the championship, as it represents a 120-point swing for the No. 6 team. The No. 31 Action Express Cadillac squad with Pipo Derani and Alexander Sims would move back into first in the championship, with the No. 25 in second.
Sources at BMW, however, indicate that they believe PPM will come well armed with data to the protest, and aren't quite ready to celebrate the marque's first GTP win until the protest has been settled. The IMSA sporting regulations do not give a specific time period for when such a protest must be decided.
In the meantime, though, a BMW victory means that in the span of only five races, each of the four manufacturers participating in GTP has won this season – a somewhat remarkable statistic given the state of BMW and Porsche at the season-opening Rolex 24 at Daytona, won by Acura.
Richard S. James
Richard James is motorsports journalist living in Orange County, Calif, who has been involved in the sport to some degree for three decades. He covers primarily sports car racing as a writer and photographer, with occasional forays into off-road and other forms of racing. A former editor of the SCCA’s publication, SportsCar, he has a special love for the grass-roots side of the sport and participates as a driver in amateur road racing.
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