IMSA Detroit: Acura beats Porsche with stunning pass in wild street fight

On the series’ debut on the tight and twisty 1.654-mile, nine-turn temporary street circuit in downtown Detroit, Taylor beat Porsche’s Mathieu Jaminet after pulling off a great overtaking move inside the final 25 minutes in GTP.

AO Racing’s Seb Priaulx and Laurin Heinrich won the GTD Pro class in their Porsche 911.

After the pair of factory-backed Porsche Penske Motorsport 963s swept the front row in qualifying, poleman Nick Tandy’s #6 car led Dane Cameron’s #7 entry to the green flag.

Albuquerque’s #10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 braked late and went around the outside of a cautious Cameron at the opening turn to grab second, as Sebastien Bourdais (#01 Chip Ganassi Racing-run Cadillac V-Series.R) went down his inside to claim third.

The full-course yellow caution flew at the end of the opening lap as Harry Tincknell’s GTD class Ford Mustang ground to a halt before even making the first corner.

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

Tandy pulled away, despite battling with a malfunctioning radio, leaving Albuquerque, Bourdais and Cameron to scrap over second. Pipo Derani, who crashed in qualifying, exited the #31 Action Express-run Cadillac after 10 minutes to hand over to Jack Aitken in a bold strategy play.

After 25 minutes, and having predicted issues in GTD traffic ahead of the race, Tandy outbraked himself at Turn 3 and punted factory Ferrari racer Daniel Serra’s Conquest Racing 296 into a spin. The collision led to a drive-through penalty for the race leader.

“I just missed when they were checking up, I apologize to them,” said Tandy, who explained he was fiddling with his radio leads as he couldn’t hear his pits clearly.

That left Albuquerque leading Bourdais and Cameron, although Bourdais dived for the pits after 30 minutes to hand over to Renger van der Zande. The call was made late, however, and Bourdais hadn’t loosened his belts, which led to a slow driver change.

Albuquerque pitted to hand over to Ricky Taylor a lap later, and he rejoined with an extended advantage. Cameron went a lap longer before stopping to hand off to Felipe Nasr, who rejoined ahead of Taylor.

Yelloly ran longer in the lead and pitted after 37 minutes. He handed over to Connor De Phillippi, who promptly stuffed the car into the Turn 3 tire stack on his out lap.

That cycled the penalized Tandy back to the lead, and he rattled off a sequence of fastest laps. He dived into the pits, to hand over to Jaminet, just before the second caution period, as De Phillippi crashed his BMW again, smashing its left-rear corner against the Turn 2 wall.

Jaminet rejoined in the lead, ahead of stable-mate Nasr, Ricky Taylor, van der Zande and Jesse Krohn in the surviving #24 BMW. But Nasr had to pit under yellow to switch a punctured tire, dropping him from second to eighth.

The race restarted with 47 minutes remaining, with Nasr immediately gaining three spots by driving the outside of Richard Westbrook’s JDC-Miller Porsche 963, Gianmaria Bruni’s Proton-run variant and Krohn’s BMW at Turn 3, and he then sliced past Louis Deletraz’s #40 Acura (shared with Jordan Taylor) further around the lap.

But the race was quickly neutralized once again, when Westbrook was pushed into a spin by Aitken and blocked the track.

The race went green again just past the hour mark, with Jaminet scampering away from Taylor, van der Zande and Nasr. Taylor stayed within a second of the leader, as van der Zande and Nasr fell away.

Taylor grabbed the lead at Turn 3 with 25 minutes to go, making a bold lunge down the inside of the hairpin, after Jaminet had been slightly hampered while lapping a GTD Mustang.

The yellow flew again with 20 minutes to go to deal with a debris that was accruing on the main straight. It went green again with 15m to go, with Jaminet keen to avenge Taylor, while Nasr attacked van der Zande.

Bruni made a move on Krohn to snatch sixth, with Aitken following suit. But as Bruni attacked Deletraz, he got swiped by Aitken and slammed into the wall approaching Turn 4. That led to a fifth caution, as Bruni’s car was stranded.

Taylor survived the final restart with seven minutes remaining to record the #10 Acura’s first win since Road America in 2022.

#77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R: Laurin Heinrich, Sebastian Priaulx

Photo by: Josh Tons / Motorsport Images

Disaster for Corvette, Porsche beats battered Lexus in GTD Pro
In GTD Pro, under the shadows of General Motors’ giant Renaissance Center towers that dominate the skyline here, the pressure was on Chevrolet’s Corvette squad to perform.

After scoring a 1-2 in qualifying, Antonio Garcia’s #3 Corvette Z06 GT3.R led Tommy Milner’s #4 to the green, ahead of Jack Hawksworth (#14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F) and Seb Priaulx in AO Racing’s #77 Porsche 911 GT3 R.

But it all went wrong almost immediately for Garcia, who pitted at the end of the opening lap with an alternator issue.

New leader Milner handed over to Nicky Catsburg after 40 minutes, changing just one tire during the stop. Ben Barnicoat took over from Hawksworth in the Lexus, with Laurin Heinrich in for Priaulx in the ‘Rexy’ Porsche.

Straight after a mid-race restart, leaders Barnicoat and Catsburg clashed at Turn 3, the Lexus punting the Corvette into a spin after hitting the inside wall.

That promoted Heinrich (who had tagged the spun Corvette and suffered splitter damage) to the lead, but he had to come to a halt to avoid the spun Westbrook, and was almost collected by Barnicoat – who continued in second despite pieces falling off it.

Barnicoat successfully battling bent steering and a loose hood to chase Heinrich to the finish, while the Pfaff McLaren 720S of Marvin Kirchhofer was set to take third when he was punted off by Alex Riberas (Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage) at Turn 3 in the closing stages.

Cla 
 Nº 
 Driver 
 Entrant / Car 
 Laps 
 Time 
 Delay/Retirement 

1
10 
Ricky Taylor
F.Albuquerque
Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti
Acura
75
1:40’02.133
 

2
6 
Nick Tandy
Mathieu Jaminet
Porsche Penske Motorsport
Porsche
75
1:40’03.265
1.132

3
01 
R.van der Zande
S.Bourdais
Cadillac Racing
Cadillac
75
1:40’06.331
4.198

4
7 
Dane Cameron
Felipe Nasr
Porsche Penske Motorsport
Porsche
75
1:40’07.275
5.142

5
40 
Jordan Taylor
Louis Delétraz
Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti
Acura
75
1:40’12.253
10.120

6
31 
Pipo Derani
Jack Aitken
Whelen Cadillac Racing
Cadillac
75
1:40’12.492
10.359

7
24 
Jesse Krohn
Philipp Eng
BMW M Team RLL
BMW
75
1:40’12.926
10.793

8
85 
T.van der Helm
R.Westbrook
JDC-Miller Motorsports
Porsche
74
1:40’16.425
1 lap /14.292

9
77 
Laurin Heinrich
Seb Priaulx
AO Racing
Porsche
74
1:40’28.354
1 lap /26.221

10
14 
Jack Hawksworth
Ben Barnicoat
Vasser Sullivan
Lexus
74
1:40’31.239
1 lap /29.106

11
23 
Ross Gunn
Alex Riberas
Heart of Racing Team
Aston Martin
74
1:40’33.223
1 lap /31.090

12
15 
Parker Thompson
F.Montecalvo
Vasser Sullivan
Lexus
74
1:40’33.819
1 lap /31.686

13
1 
Bryan Sellers
Madison Snow
Paul Miller Racing
BMW
74
1:40’44.260
1 lap /42.127

14
65 
Joey Hand
Dirk Müller
Ford Multimatic Motorsports
Ford
73
1:40’47.978
2 laps /45.845

15
35 
Daniel Serra
Albert Costa
Conquest Racing
Ferrari
72
1:38’11.000
Not running

16
9 
M.Kirchhöfer
Oliver Jarvis
Pfaff Motorsports
McLaren
71
1:36’57.349
Not running

17
4 
Tommy Milner
Nicky Catsburg
Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports
Chevrolet
69
1:40’48.643
6 laps /46.510

18
5 
Gianmaria Bruni
Bent Viscaal
Proton Competition
Porsche
65
1:27’07.954
Not running

19
3 
Antonio García
Alexander Sims
Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports
Chevrolet
59
1:40’47.282
16 laps /45.149

20
64 
Harry Tincknell
M.Rockenfeller
Ford Multimatic Motorsports
Ford
51
1:40’49.244
24 laps /47.111

21
25 
C.De Phillippi
Nick Yelloly
BMW M Team RLL
BMW
33
39’49.265
Not running