Yellow-laden race has IMSA drivers seeing red after Road America

Tension over driving standards in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship began to reach the surface after Sunday's Motul SportsCar Grand Prix at Road America.

Sunday's two-hour, 40-minute race had over an hour and 12 minutes' worth of Full Course Yellow interventions, mostly caused by car-to-car contact. And while BMW M Team RLL's Dries Vanthoor and Sheldon van der Linde weren't directly involved in the carnage, they would have had to drive around some very hot-blooded battles in the GT classes.

"I think driving standards today were not the nicest for everyone." Vanthoor said. "It's something we have to look into, and then try to improve."

His counterpart van der Linde added, "I think that needs to be cleaned up by the Race Director. I think people love seeing close motorsports, people going in the gravel, and door-to-door racing. But at some point, for the fans to have constant racing, we need to tidy that up a bit."

It followed a two-hour Michelin Pilot Challenge series race on Saturday where more than half of the allotted time was spent behind a Safety Car.

And it led to questions from fans and observers, who started to wonder if extending next year's Road America race to a six-hour event next year would be worth it – even at such a beloved venue – if it meant 200 more minutes of rough driving and Safety Car interventions.

In particular, it was not a great race for any Corvette Racing driver, be it from the Pratt Miller Motorsports works team, or a GTD customer.

Both yellow GTD PRO Corvettes were spun out within seconds of each other mid-way through the race, and the No. 4 Corvette retired with about 10 minutes left due to a broken water pump caused by damaged in a subsequent collision.

Nicky Catsburg, who was at the wheel of the No. 4 Corvette, didn't single out any one competitor – because he had frustration with multiple parties. "I'm never shy with a little argy-bargy, But today – especially the No. 65 Ford... he was over the limit with driving standards," he said.

"The (AO Racing) Porsche moved under braking everywhere, and then the (Pfaff Motorsports) Lambo – they just shove you off like you're not there. I do feel like it needs to be addressed, otherwise, racing is not fair anymore. We also need to look at ourselves and improve."

Teammate Alexander Sims was hit at turn one by the No. 48 Paul Miller Racing BMW of Dan Harper, re-igniting the Corvette versus BMW conflict that lit up in the last few hours of this year's Rolex 24 At Daytona.

After the finish, Sims said: "I haven't seen a replay of the incident between the No. 48 BMW and us, but I felt like I was giving enough racing room to them. It's a shame that we got shoved off, and sustained damage that frankly hindered the rest of our race."

Sims and Antonio Garcia salvaged a fourth-place finish for the No. 3 Corvette despite the body damage.

Paul Miller Racing's Madison Snow, who won in GTD PRO, believes that the drivers in his category should not be discouraged from aggressive racing, but wasn't sure if what he observed was over the line.

"I think there's definitely a balance to be had," Snow said after the win. "And I don't know where this race was.

"I strongly think that the GTD PRO cars should be able to battle it out more than some of the other class cars; different cars, different standards. But there's a balance between having a fun race, and being taken out. I don't know where this race was, but I can tell you there was definitely a lot of action, and it was fun to watch on TV."

His co-driver Neil Verhagen wasn't involved in any contact, and felt that any incidents in front of him didn't look "egregious or intentional."

Over in GTD, race winner Kenton Koch shared his view of his block pass on DXDT Racing's Alec Udell, which propelled Triarsi Competizione to its first win – but deprived DXDT of the same.

"IMSA racing at the end of the race is always hard racing. You have to understand how the calls are made in Race Control. And I've spent enough time with Beaux (Barfield, IMSA Race Director) to understand how he calls the races," he said.

"I felt like the move that I did for the win there was fair, based on how they were calling the race. And they made the race interesting."

On the other side of the block pass at Turn 6, Udell lamented: "I was giving a little more courtesy than I should have, and that's on me. I'm not going to point any fingers besides at myself, and say that's how it's played here. It seems like it's good on the Race Control side, so there's nothing else [to do] besides muscle up and do the same.

"I think everyone was just on the limit, which is why there were no calls. Ultimately, that's how it is."

Udell and co-driver Robert Wickens dropped from the lead to eighth in GTD over the final eight minutes.