Refueling system error causes shocking double DNF at COTA

If you watched Race 1 of the IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge at Circuit of The Americas this past weekend, then the finish will have left you wondering: "How on earth did this happen?"

Gebhardt Intralogistics Motorsports' two Duqueine D08s driven by Valentino Catalano and Oscar Tunjo were dominating the show in LMP3, as had been expected going into the weekend. Catalano, the reigning Prototype Cup Germany champion, had swept both races at Daytona aboard the red No. 30 Duqueine.

2024 co-champion Markus Pommer had to withdraw from the event due to illness so Tunjo, who finished runner-up in the same series to Pommer in 2023, filled in admirably aboard the purple No. 31, taking pole position for the first race.

Tunjo led most of the first 45-minute race until he was overtaken by Catalano with seven minutes left. But with about 90 seconds left on the clock, and both cars almost a minute ahead of third-placed Jonathan Woolridge's Ligier JS P320, both Catalano and Tunjo slowed down simultaneously, then came to a stop as the other cars they'd left behind drove past them.

Woolridge and MLT Motorsports won the race, but all of the chatter after the race was about what happened to the two Gebhardt Duqueines. Having one car run out of fuel near the end of a sprint race is one thing. Maybe two, from different teams -- but two from the same team? Practically unheard of.

The initial thought was that both cars ran out of fuel. Those guesses proved correct, but not in the usual way. The Gebhardt team had done all the calculations correctly -- but there was another factor in play that caused Saturday morning's shambles.

"Unfortunately, we had a problem with our newly purchased refueling system in the USA," explains Fritz Gebhardt. "It hadn't calibrated the quantities correctly and pumped six liters less fuel into the cars' tanks instead of the calculated amount. As a result, both Duqueine rolled out at the same time without fuel."

It was a moment that was equal parts painful and humorous (the second, less so for the Gebhardt team) but ultimately Catalano was able to work out his frustration by rebounding that evening to take the win in the second race, his third VP Racing Challenge win of the season -- and extend his lead in the LMP3 drivers' championship.

Tunjo showed good pace all weekend and finished second behind Catalano, but only after nursing a gearbox problem and taking a 10-second drive-through penalty for breaching track limits.

As Gebhardt team manager Karl Jennings said after it all: "We can only be satisfied with the sporting performance of the race weekend -- we were consistently at the front of the field with our two cars, which makes us very happy. We are now preparing conscientiously for the next race weekend so that we can permanently rule out the problems at the end of the first race."

In IMSA, that next weekend is three months out at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, on June 6-8.