Yelloly, van der Zande and Meyer Shank Acura soar to Long Beach IMSA win

Acura Meyer Shank Racing’s Nick Yelloly and Renger van der Zande drove the team’s No. 93 Acura ARX-06 to victory in an incident-packed IMSA Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Since 2019, Acura has been the title sponsor of the Grand Prix of Long Beach, held not far from Honda’s U.S. headquarters in Torrance – but Yelloly and van der Zande’s victory was the first IMSA overall win for Acura or Honda at Long Beach since 2013, before the unification of American sports car racing.

Yelloly led from the green flag and after the first of four full course yellows for an incident between the GTD Corvettes of Orey Fidani and Henrik Hedman. But while negotiating traffic, Yelloly was held up behind Fidani’s 13 Autosport Corvette at turn 10, allowing the No. 31 Cadillac Whelen V-Series.R of Jack Aitken to swing around and take the lead.

Aitken pitted from a three-second lead, but Yelloly stayed out another three laps, and timed his stop perfectly, just before a bad-blooded incident between BMW M Team WRT’s Philipp Eng and JDC-Miller MotorSports’ Laurin Heinrich brought out the second yellow.

That allowed the No. 93 Acura, now in the hands of van der Zande, to cycle to the lead ahead of Frederik Vesti in the No. 31 Cadillac. They ran in that order for virtually the remainder of the race.

Contact between the No. 24 WRT BMW of Sheldon van der Linde and No. 23 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie of Roman de Angelis brought out an immediate third yellow just past halftime, and with 25 minutes to go, Ricky Taylor in the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac lost control over the Turn 5 curbs and hit the tire wall to bring out a fourth yellow.

Then, with eight minutes to go, the No. 66 Gradient Racing Ford Mustang GT3 of Corey Lewis was pushed into the wall exiting Turn 11 after contact from the No. 46 Pfaff Motorsports Lamborghini Temerario GT3 of Andrea Caldarelli. The damage to the silver Mustang spilled debris down Shoreline Drive, bringing out the last yellow.

In the end, van der Zande and the No. 93 MSR Acura had the upper hand, holding on after one more six-minute dash to the finish to win by 0.8s over the No. 31 Whelen Cadillac.

Even after significant Balance of Performance nerfs to the two Porsche Penske Motorsport 963s, the factory Porsches still finished third and fourth, led by the No. 6 of Kévin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor. Estre made a rocket start on the opening lap, grabbing three places and showing no signs of lasting damage from contact with the No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac.

Felipe Nasr and Julien Andlauer maintained their GTP championship lead after driving their No. 7 Penske Porsche to fourth place, while the No. 24 WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 (Dries Vanthoor/Sheldon van der Linde) completed the top five. The No. 5 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche of Heinrich and Tijmen van der Helm finished sixth, with Heinrich driving all but five minutes of today’s 100-minute sprint race.

Heinrich was in the wars with BMW’s Eng in the middle of the race: One lap, Eng blocked Heinrich hard down Seaside Way. On the following lap, Heinrich made contact with Eng at Turn 8, sending the BMW into the tire wall. But despite seeming like a retaliatory act at first glance, race control ruled that Eng shouldered the blame for the second incident.

After seeing off the DXDT Corvette, it was plain sailing for Vasser Sullivan Lexus's Benjamin Pedersen and Aaron Telitz. Michael Levitt/IMSA

30 years after Jimmy Vasser won the Grand Prix of Long Beach as a driver, his Vasser Sullivan Racing team took the GTD class win as Benjamin Pedersen and Aaron Telitz drove the No. 12 Lexus RC F GT3 to its first win of the year.

Telitz took the lead from the pole-sitting No. 36 DXDT Racing Corvette, the car that was the story of the first half of the race. Robert Wickens drove brilliantly in his opening stanza, and did all he could to give himself and co-driver Mason Filippi a chance to win the race.

But Filippi couldn’t hold Telitz and the pack at bay, and Telitz took control in the second half to clinch the win, finishing five seconds ahead of the No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Patrick Gallagher and Robby Foley. The No. 34 Conquest Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo (Manny Franco/Albert Costa) rounded out the GTD podium in third.

Behind them were the No. 70 Inception Racing Ferrari (Brendon Iribe/Frederik Schandorff), the No. 89 Vasser Sullivan Lexus (Frankie Montecalvo/Jack Hawksworth) which went from 17th on the grid to finish fifth, and the No. 36 DXDT Corvette in sixth. Caldarelli’s contact with Lewis warranted a drive-through penalty in the final minutes, which cost the Pfaff Temerario a chance at a top-five finish in the car’s second IMSA race.

Eduardo Barrichello held onto his GTD championship lead after he and Spencer Pumpelly finished 10th in the No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo, which lost ground after a drive-through penalty for pit lane speeding.

The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship returns on May 3 as the series travels north to WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca for the StubHub Monterey SportsCar Championship.

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