Mosport IMSA: Cameron and Curran snatch win in wild race

Prototype

Ricky Taylor led the early stages in the Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R ahead of Misha Goikhberg in the JDC Miller Oreca, the two ESM Racing Nissan DPis of Scott Sharp and Johannes van Overbeek but Jonathan Bomarito’s #55 Mazda RT24-P was soon in fourth and hassling Sharp, until a slightly slower pitstop dropped him back to fifth.

Finally Goikhberg, after relentless pressure on the leader as they hit traffic, was able to sweep down the inside of the black Cadillac at the penultimate turn as Taylor got wrong-footed by a Corvette going for the pits, and he grabbed the lead with 1h40min to go.

When it came time for their next pitstops, with Goikhberg handing over to Stephen Simpson, Ricky handing over to brother Jordan, the Wayne Taylor Racing squad showed its class and escaped out of pitlane some three seconds quicker.

Simpson worked hard to close the gap, setting fastest lap of the race, and with 62mins to go, Taylor was momentarily caught behind two GT cars up the Mario Andretti straight. Simpson trimmed the grass on the right hand side of the track to make it three wide and elbowed his way through and into the lead in a sensational move.

Just as rain started to fall with under an hour to go, Pipo Derani in the #22 Nissan had to pull off at Turn 2 with his car on fire, triggering a fullcourse caution. In the restart that followed, Taylor dropped back to fourth having stayed on slicks, behind leader Simpson, Ryan Dalziel in the #2 Nissan, and Tristan Nunez in the #55 Mazda he shares with Bomarito.

However, those lead three had changed to wets in the previous yellow, and as the track started to dry, they had to switch back to slicks, handing the lead to the Taylors, who had a 24sec advantage over the Action Express Racing Cadillacs of Dane Cameron and Eric Curran, and Jose Barbosa and Christian Fittipaldi. Dalziel then spun under pressure from Nunez with 25mins to go.

So, after a second superb showing for the JDC Miller Oreca, it looked like this race would become a Cadillac 1-2-3. However, with around 20mins to go, Taylor collided with the #4 Corvette of Milner on the run to Turn 4, while Milner was on the outside of Muller’s Ford. Taylor started to turn in from the outside when he hadn’t quite cleared the other GM car, and the pair of them plowed off the course and into the tire barrier.

Taylor extricated himself and limped onto the course but given that there had been fewer than 15mins since the previous caution, he’d be receiving a penalty for pitting again under yellow. However, with parts of rear bodywork either missing or askew, he’d need to stop but he couldn’t even do it at the end of the full-course yellow period. Nonetheless, Taylor then drove responsibly and kept largely out of the way while trailing around for one more lap.

Cameron was straight into the lead at the drop of the green with 10mins to go, but Simpson was pressuring Barbosa in an interesting reverse of their fight at the end of the Watkins Glen race. This time a desperate/oblivious maneuver from Barbosa, as he saw Simpson was going to pass him around the outside of Turn 3 and box him in behind a GT car, saw the veteran drive into the side of the JDC-Miller Oreca. Thankfully the maneuver bit the perpetrator and the #5 Cadillac half spun onto the grass, handing third to Dalziel, and fourth and fifth to the Mazdas of Nunez/Bomarito and Joel Miller/Long.

The rain returned with just  five minutes to go, which sent David Ostella flying into a tire barrier, flipping his PR1/Mathiasen Motorsport Ligier, thankfully without hurt to the Canadian driver. However, it did mean that the white flag lap was run under yellow. Despite Action Express Racing being anonymous for most of the race, Cameron and Curran chalked up AXR’s second consecutive win, ahead of Simpson and Dalziel.

Patricio O’Ward and James French, despite a mid-race collision with a tire carcass, won Prototype Challenge.

GT Le Mans

The animals ran two by two at the start, with Bill Auberlen and Martin Tomczyk heading the field in their BMW M6s ahead of the Porsche 911 RSRs of polesitter Dirk Werner and Laurens Vanthoor, the Ford GTs of Joey Hand and Ryan Briscoe and the Corvette C7.Rs of Jan Magnussen and Oliver Gavin.

Bruni suffered a puncture on his stint in the #912 Porsche he shared with Vanthoor, prompting an unscheduled pitstop, but Patrick Pilet in the #911 had at least split the BMWs by mid-distance, but Edwards was battling hard to try and get back into second.

In the second half of the race, Garcia was doing a strong job to run the #3 Corvette he shares with Magnussen in fifth, ahead of Richard Westbrook’s Ford GT. Given that the Corvettes had stopped after 60mins rather than 40 of their rivals, it meant the next stops for the Vettes should be shorter.

Following the rainshower, Pilet and Edwards beat Sims out of the pits and the Porsche and BMW were side by side at the restart with 38mins to go, and it was Edwards who grabbed the lead in class. Sims was immediately threatening the Porsche, too, and quickly passed to make a BMW 1-2 before going on to pass Edwards for the lead in class. As the track dried, Pilet also rediscovered his pace and demoted Edwards to third. This trio were chased by Westbrook in the #67 Ford, Garcia in the #3 Corvette, Muller in the #66 Ford and Tommy Milner in the #4 ’Vette.

Very disappointingly for Pilet and Werner, after taking the fight to the BMWs all day, Pilet had to pit in the final eight minutes with an engine issue, handing third place to the Westbrook/Briscoe Ford.

GT Daytona

Positions were maintained over the first half hour, with Sage Karam converting pole into the lead in the Lexus RC F, chased by Andrew Davis in the Stevenson Motorsports Audi R8 LMS and the Acura NSXs of Jeff Segal and Katherine Legge split by Bryan Sellers’ Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini Huracan.

However, Karam/Scott Pruett’s race was turned upside down by a long pitstop as Karam struggled to get the car in neutral and the team received a penalty for equipment outside the pitbox. This promoted Lawson Aschenbach/Andrew Davis Audi into the lead ahead of Segal, Sellers and Alessandro Balzan who’d been able to get his Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 ahead of the second Acura of Legge/Andy Lally.

Following the late stop during the caution, Aschenbach retained the lead but Lally got the #93 Acura up to second ahead of Balzan’s Ferrari and that’s how they finished, ahead of Jens Klingmann in the Turner Motorsports BMW, the recovering Karam in the Lexus and Jeroen Mul in the Change Racing Lamborghini.