In the close battle of the LMDh prototypes of the IMSA American Endurance Championship, there were many contenders for victory, but the race, still enamelled by numerous neutralizations, was initially a race by elimination.
Bourdais poorly rewarded for his efforts
Among the victims of mechanical problems, the most infuriating case was undoubtedly that of the Cadillac n°01 of Bourdais / Dixon / Van der Zande which saw its engine explode after 9:12 of the race. The Cadillac had taken a clear ascendancy over the competition, and led the greatest number of laps with 120 laps in the lead, thanks in particular to a great Sébastien Bourdais in top form and talent. As for the Acura ARX-06 of Meyer Shank Racing, it lost a wheel two hours from the finish, resuming the race in the end but with a lot of lost time and a 24th place. BMW reclaimed the race lead during the neutralization linked to the Acura incident, but the German manufacturer’s No. 25 was caught up in trouble when it came to the pit lane.
Strike!
Cadillac with the n°31 of Whelen Engineering (Aitken, Derani, Sims), Acura with the n°10 of Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport (Albuquerque, Taylor, Delétraz) and Porsche with its n°6 (Jaminet, Tandy, Cameron ) and No. 7 (Nasr, Campbell, Christensen) are still in contention for victory as the final half hour rolls around. At the end of the last restart, Jack Aitken is in the lead but he is overtaken consecutively by Jaminet (Porsche), Albuquerque (Acura) and Nasr on the 2nd Porsche.
19′ from the finish, Jaminet (Porsche) was slowed down by a compact group of GTs at the exit of the 1st long left of the circuit. Albuquerque is going all out and suddenly shifts to the left to overtake Jaminet, except that the latter does the same to dislodge the GTs. The two LMDH prototypes touch, the Acura d’Albuquerque leaves in the grass, hits the rail but becomes uncontrollable, rushing straight and returning to the track. It then collided head-on with Jaminet’s Porsche, which was taking the bend, and Nasr, who was following just a few lengths behind, could not avoid the two prototypes and in turn struck the Acura! Incredible, the 3 leading cars are eliminated, including the two Porsches!
Jack Aitken did not ask for so much and took the lead. obviously neutralized, the race was restarted 5 ‘from the finish but the short-lived Williams driver in 2020 (he had replaced George Russell who had himself replaced Hamilton suffering from Covid in Bahrain) did not leave the BMW n°25 of Sheldon van der Linde, Nick Yelloly and Connor De Phillipp come and steal this success that fell from the sky. The LMDH field having been decimated (only 3 out of 9 prototypes saw the finish), it was an LMP2 which completed the podium with the Tower Motorsport of John Farano, Scott McLaughlin and Kyffin Simpson!
In LM P3, Riley’s #74 Ligier JS P320 won with Robinson, Fraga and Burdon. Frenchman Patrick Pilet triumphed in GTD Pro with his Pfaff Motorsports teammates Klaus Bauchler and Laurens Vanthoor in a Porsche 911 GT3R. In GTD, the n°1 BMW M4 GT3 of Paul Miller Racing (Sellers, Snow, Lewis) crossed the line as the winner.
Full results here
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s) {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)}; if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′; n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’, ‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’); fbq(‘init’, ‘1886547431376571’); fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
