The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship visited WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca Sunday afternoon in the Hyundai Monterey Sports Car Championship. Eight cars were competing in the DPi class, six in GTLM, thirteen in GTD, and one in LMP2.
Acura Team Penske’s Juan Pablo Montoya and Dane Cameron won the pole in the DPi class. PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports Simon Trummer and Patrick Kelly were the lone entry in LMP2 and by taking the green-flag won the LMP2 championship. Corvette Racing Jordan Oliver won the pole in the GTLM class, and Matt McMurry in the Meyer Shank Racing w/ Curb-Agajanian Acura won the pole in the GTD class.
Early in the race, Pipo Derani sprinted past Jonathan Bomarito, heading into turn one to take the fourth spot from Bomarito. With two hours and four minutes left in the race, classes began to make scheduled pit stops.
Derani came in for his stop, followed by both Montoya and Helio Castroneves, who changed drivers with Cameron and Ricky Taylor behind the wheel of both Penske cars. Montoya led all 26 laps before pitting, and Ryan Briscoe was now the new leader.
Once pit stops were complete, Dane Cameron resumed the lead in the DPi class while Fred Makowiecki led in GTLM and Mario Farnbacher in GTD. A heated battle for second place was on between Ricky Taylor and Felipe Nasr with a little over an hour left in the race.
Farnbacher came in for his final pit stop with an hour and six minutes left. A minute later, both Penske cars made their final pit stops with Harry Tincknell leading the race in the DPi class. The first caution came out with 23 minutes left for debris on the front stretch. Once the piece of debris was picked up, the race resumed with nineteen minutes left.
Immediately, both Penske cars took off on the restart with Nasr chasing them. The No. 912 Porsche of Earl Bomber was fending off both Corvette Racing cars while Mario Farnbacher drove away from Bill Auberlen. Late in the race, the No 63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari of Alessandro Balzan was hit from behind at turn one by the No. 16 Wright Motorsports Porsche of Patrick Long. Balzan recovered and continued the race.
Team Penske driver Ricky Taylor passed his teammate Dane Cameron at turn ten, coming to the white flag. Cameron tried to get back at Taylor, but Taylor would hold off Cameron to win the DPi class race. Earl Bomber in the No. 912 Porsche was able to hold off the No. 3 Corvette of Jordan Taylor to win the GTLM class, Mario Farnbacher won the GTD class by a comfortable margin of 10.119 seconds over Bill Auberlen, and Simon Trummer won the LMP2 class.
After the race, the No. 4 Corvette Racing GTLM car failed Post-race technical inspection due to a height infraction in the rear diffuser. The team initially finished in third place but would end up finishing in sixth place. As a result of the change in the finish. The No. 3 Corvette Racing team of Jordan Taylor and Antonio Garcia won the GTLM championship.
The final IMSA race will take place in two weeks from Sebring International Raceway on Saturday, November 14th, for the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring at 10 am on NBC Sports Gold Track Pass.
