Taylor, Albuquerque navigate mayhem to nab IMSA win at Road America

The No. 10 Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing V-Series.R of Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque broke the team’s two-year winless drought with a win in the Motul SportsCar Endurance Grand Prix at Road America.

It was a six-hour race that contained six weeks’ worth of mayhem, controversy and drama, the lasting image of which was printed on the final restart when, in a hot-tempered battle for second place, Kévin Estre of Porsche Penske Motorsport and Jack Aitken of Cadillac Whelen crashed into Turn 1, sending both the No. 6 Porsche 963 and No. 31 Cadillac V-Series.R off into the tire barriers.

Both drivers walked away with no major injuries, but the No. 31 Cadillac’s race was colored with controversy for the second race in a row. With two hours left in the race, Aitken and the No. 7 Penske Porsche of Felipe Nasr made contact into Turn 6, which sent Nasr off into the gravel. Race Control, for the second race in a row, ruled that no further action would be taken either way in a collision involving Action Express Racing’s car.

Only seconds after the incident between Aitken and Nasr was cleared, the No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Z06 GT3.R of Alexander Sims was hit into Turn 3 by the No. 65 Ford Mustang GT3 Evo of Frédéric Vervisch.

It was after the latter incident between Aitken and Nasr where Albuquerque took the lead, sending the blue No. 10 Cadillac up the inside of Aitken’s sister car into Turn 1.

Two more single-car incidents, one for the No. 120 Wright Motorsports Porsche of Tom Sargent, and the second for the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura of Tom Blomqvist, brought even more drama into the last hour of the race, building up to the climactic collision between Aitken and Estre.

Behind the race’s ninth Safety Car, Albuquerque took the checkered flag, giving Wayne Taylor Racing its first win since the 2024 Detroit Grand Prix, and first since joining Cadillac.

The late-race disorder could have yielded the No. 23 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie’s second IMSA podium, but Roman de Angelis was given a post-race time penalty for a late incident with the No. 93 Acura Meyer Shank Racing ARX-06 of Renger van der Zande, which knocked de Angelis and Ross Gunn down from second to fifth.

That penalty promoted the No. 5 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche 963 of Tijmen van der Helm, Kaylen Frederick, and Laurin Heinrich to second place, a result which keeps Heinrich’s bid for the GTP Drivers’ Championship very much alive with two races remaining in the premier class season. Heinrich now trails Aitken by only 108 points going into the Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing made it a double podium, as the No. 40 V-Series.R of Jordan Taylor and Louis Delétraz rallied to finish third despite Delétraz picking up a drive-through penalty for blocking early in the race, followed by a 60-second stop-and-go penalty for driving dangerously through Turn 8 when track workers were trying to repair a portion of the tarmac runoff. This same penalty was given to the No. 7 Penske Porsche when Nasr committed the same offense.

The No. 93 MSR Acura of van der Zande and Nick Yelloly was fourth, followed by the No. 23 Aston Martin, the No. 7 Porsche of Nasr and Julien Andlauer, and the No. 25 BMW M Team WRT Hybrid V8, the team’s sole-surviving finisher after the No. 24 car in its Spider-Man livery retired with a terminal brake issue.

The No. 6 Penske Porsche of Estre and Laurens Vanthoor will be classified eighth in GTP – pending any further penalties – while Aitken, Earl Bamber, and Frederik Vesti were ninth in the No. 31 Cadillac.

LMP2 was frought with carnage in the first hour, including a bizarre five-car incident coming back to a restart. But in the end, the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition ORECA 07-Gibson of Jeremy Clarke, Tom Dillmann and Bijoy Garg collected a relatively cool and collected win, the team’s second in a row following Clarke and Dillmann’s victory at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

In LMP2, the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition ORECA 07-Gibson of Jeremy Clarke, Tom Dillmann and Bijoy Garg snagged a relatively cool and collected win, the team’s second in a row. Brandon Badraoui/IMSA

The No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR ORECA (George Kurtz/Alex Quinn/Toby Sowery) holds on to its championship lead with a second-place finish. Before the Estre/Aitken collision, the No. 2 United Autosports USA car of Mikkel Jensen collided with the sister No. 22 of Paul di Resta coming out of the final corner, which sent Di Resta spinning off, and resulted in a post-race penalty for Jensen for incident responsibility.

The No. 11 TDS Racing ORECA (Tobias Lütke/Mathias Beche/David Heinemeier Hansson) was the benefactor of the No. 2’s penalty, moving up to third, followed by the No. 99 AO Racing ORECA (PJ Hyett/Dane Cameron/Jonny Edgar), which came back from damage which put the “Spike the Dragon” car a lap down.

Following the intra-team collision, the No. 22 of Di Resta, Daniel Goldburg, and Rasmus Lindh was seventh, and the No. 2 of Jensen, Phil Fayer and Hunter McElrea was ninth.

Another very popular victory in an otherwise chaotic race came in GTD Pro: Fan-favorite Canadian team Pfaff Motorsports broke its own three-year winless drought, as Andrea Caldarelli and Sandy Mitchell gave the No. 9 Lamborghini Temerario GT3 its first IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship win.

Fan-favorite Canadian team Pfaff Motorsports broke its own three-year winless drought, as Andrea Caldarelli and Sandy Mitchell gave the No. 9 Lamborghini Temerario GT3 its first IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship win. Jake Galstad/IMSA

Making the most of a new brake system upgrade, the red and white Pfaff Lamborghini showed competitive pace all weekend and took the lead with less than two hours to go. The flurry of late-race cautions prevented Caldarelli from building on what was becoming a significant lead over the pack, but the Italian driver still held off strong competition to pick up Pfaff’s first IMSA win since the 2023 Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.

Nick Tandy and Harry King finished second in the No. 77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R, followed by the No. 4 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Z06 GT3.R of Tommy Milner and Nicky Catsburg. These podium results proved vital after the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO crashed out of contention around the halfway mark.

Connor De Philippi and Neil Verhagen still lead the GTD Pro standings after De Phillippi’s accident at Canada Corner, but now the gap to Milner/Catsburg has been slashed to just 15 points, and Tandy/King now trail by just 31 points.

The No. 65 Ford Racing Mustang GT3 Evo of Vervisch and Christopher Mies finished fourth, staying within 100 points of the championship lead with their result.

And in GTD, mirroring LMP2, the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO of Russell Ward, Philip Ellis, and Indy Dontje has returned to its winning ways, following up a CTMP win with a win at Road America, their third of the season.

Ellis overtook the No. 023 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo of Kenton Koch on a restart with 27 minutes to go and drove on to the victory; Koch, Onofrio Triarsi, and Robert Megennis finished second.

In third was the No. 81 DragonSpeed Corvette (Casper Stevenson/Giacomo Altoè/Alec Udell), followed by the No. 068 Car Blanche Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo (Valentin Hasse-Clot/Trenton Estep/Marius Fossard).

The No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin (Eduardo Barrichello/Tom Gamble/Zacharie Robichon) finished fifth; Barrichello still leads the GTD Drivers’ standings by 124 points over Ward and Ellis.

RESULTS