IMSA | In Detroit, Acura won over Porsche with a final overtaking

In the series debut on the tight and twisty nine-turn temporary road circuit in downtown Detroit, Taylor beat Porsche’s Mathieu Jaminet after making a big pass in the final 25 minutes in the GTP Class.

Seb Priaulx and Laurin Heinrich of AO Racing won the GTD Pro class with their Porsche 911.

After the Penske Motorsport Porsche duo took the front row in qualifying, polesitter Nick Tandy’s #6 car preceded Dane Cameron’s #7 963 to the green flag.

The #10 Acura of Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti of Albuquerque braked late and went around the outside of a cautious Cameron into turn one to take second, while Sebastien Bourdais (#01 Cadillac V-Series.R – Chip Ganassi Racing ) moved to the inside to take third.

The first neutralization occurred at the end of the first lap, when Harry Tincknell’s GTD class Ford Mustang stopped before even tackling the first corner.

At the restart, Tandy preceded Albuquerque, Bourdais, Cameron and the two BMW M Hybrid V8s of Philipp Eng and Nick Yelloly. But Eng suffered a drive-through penalty, losing his hard-earned fifth place for changing lines before the start.

Tandy took off, despite struggling with a malfunctioning radio, leaving Albuquerque, Bourdais and Cameron to vie for second place. Pipo Derani, having performed poorly in qualifying, abandoned the #31 Cadillac run by Action Express Racing after 10′ to pass the baton to Jack Aitken, with a bold strategy.

After 25 minutes, and having predicted problems in GTD traffic before the race, Tandy went off track at Turn 3 and sent the Ferrari of Daniel Serra (Conquest Racing) into a spin. The collision led to a drive-through penalty for the race leader.

Albuquerque then took the lead from Bourdais and Cameron, although the Frenchman pitted after 30 minutes to pass the baton to Renger van der Zande. The call was made late, however, and Bourdais had not loosened his seatbelts, leading to a slow driver change.

Albuquerque pitted to give way to Ricky Taylor a lap later, who returned to the track with a larger lead. Cameron did one more lap before stopping to give way to Felipe Nasr, who rejoined ahead of Taylor.

Yelloly remained in the lead longer and pitted after 37 minutes. He passed the baton to Connor De Phillippi, who crashed into the tire pylon at Turn 3 on his out lap.

This put the penalized Tandy back in the lead, who put together a series of fast laps before passing the baton to Jaminet, just before the second neutralisation, when De Phillippi collided with the BMW again hitting the wall of the curve with his left rear 2.

Jaminet returned to the lead, ahead of teammate Nasr, Ricky Taylor, van der Zande and Jesse Krohn in the surviving #24 BMW. But Nasr had to pit under yellow flags to replace a punctured tyre, causing him to drop from second to eighth place.

The race restarted with 47 minutes to go, with Nasr immediately gaining three positions by moving around the outside of Richard Westbrook’s JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche 963, plus that of Gianmaria Bruni’s Proton and Krohn’s BMW at Turn 3, before passing Louis Deletraz’s Acura #40 (shared with Jordan Taylor) during the lap.

But the race was quickly neutralized once again, when Westbrook was spun by Aitken and blocked the track. The race restarted shortly after the hour mark, with Jaminet escaping from Taylor, van der Zande and Nasr. Taylor remained a second behind the leader, while Van der Zande and Nasr pulled away.

Taylor took the lead into Turn 3 with 25 minutes to go, with a bold lunge around the inside of the hairpin, after Jaminet was slightly hampered in overtaking a Mustang GTD.

The yellow flag waved again with 20 minutes to go due to debris on the main straight. The go-ahead with 15 minutes to go saw Jaminet seeking revenge on Taylor, while Nasr attacked Van der Zande.

Bruni managed to pass Krohn and take sixth position, followed by Aitken. But the Roman was rear-ended by Aitken and hit the wall near turn 4. This led to the fifth ‘caution’.

Taylor survived a restart with seven minutes left to score the #10 Acura’s first win since Road America in 2022.

GTD PRO: Corvette disaster, Porsche beats Lexus

In GTD Pro, under the shadow of the gigantic towers of the General Motors Renaissance Center that dominate the skyline of this area, the Corvette was clearly under pressure and after achieving a 1-2 in qualifying, the #3 Z06 GT3.R of Antonio Garcia kept Tommy Milner’s #4 behind him at the start, ahead of Jack Hawksworth (Lexus RC F #14 Vasser Sullivan) and Seb Priaulx in the #77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R.

But everything went wrong almost immediately for Garcia, who pitted at the end of the first lap with an alternator problem. New leader Milner passed the baton to Nicky Catsburg after 40 minutes, changing just one tire during the stop. Ben Barnicoat took over from Hawksworth in the Lexus, while Laurin Heinrich replaced Priaulx in the “Rexy” Porsche.

Soon after a mid-race restart, leaders Barnicoat and Catsburg collided in Turn 3, with the Lexus sending the Corvette into a spin after hitting the inside wall.

This promoted Heinrich (who had hit the Corvette and suffered splitter damage) to the lead, but he had to stop to avoid Westbrook’s spin and was almost hit by Barnicoat, who continued to remain in second place despite the pieces flying off .

Barnicoat successfully battled bent steering and a loose bonnet to chase Heinrich to the finish, while Marvin Kirchhofer’s McLaren 720S (#9 Pfaff) was on the verge of taking third place when he was clipped by Alex Riberas (Heart of Racing, Aston Martin Vantage) at Turn 3 in the final stages.