Wayne Taylor Racing wins at Road America

Despite the rain in which the start of this 10th round of the season was given, Filipe Albuquerque put several lengths between him and his pursuers from the start. The day before, the Portuguese had impressed in qualifying to take pole position. “The car was great” he admitted to us after enjoying his performance. Having made a mistake on Saturday and the last of the DPi at the start, Sébastien Bourdais had gone back like a clock and quickly rose to second place. The conditions trapped the first competitors, notably Steven Thomas at the wheel of the No. 07 Oreca 11 of PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports who was going to get into the gravel while trying to get back on the track in the right direction.

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Championship leader, Meyer Shank Racing lost a lot of time during the first wave of stops under Full Course Yellow to make significant set-up changes to the suspensions and rear wing. At the restart, Bourdais got the better of Ricky Taylor, now installed in the No. 10 WTR Acura DPi, but Richard Westbrook emerged from fifth place to take the lead in the race! The JDC-Miller MotorSports team had indeed tried to use rain tires and the pouring rain had allowed the Englishman to survive in these conditions. His pursuers ended up also putting on these tires, but came out a little less than a lap behind the leader, and even behind the first LM P2s.

Duel between Wayne Taylor Racing and Meyer Shank Racing

This significant advantage was reset by a second Full Course Yellow, due to debris on the track. The weather having calmed down, the protagonists put on Slicks again. In LM P3, pole sitter Malthe Jakobsen (Sean Creech Motorsport) crashed out at the start of the last hour of the race and triggered another neutralization. This one was going to reshuffle the cards. Tristan Vautier entered the pits in the lead, but a poor stop by JDC-Miller MotorSports allowed the two Acuras to pass in front. Oliver Jarvis and Filipe Albuquerque met for a final duel in the last half hour. In this important battle both for the victory of the day and for the championship, the Portuguese released a new classy maneuver from his repertoire. In GT traffic, the driver of the Acura in Konica Minolta colors chose the least obvious and riskiest path. While Jarvis got around a laggard on the right, Albuquerque rushed in from the left, two wheels in the grass, to find himself in the best position at the next corner and take the lead! 

The last ten minutes were marked by Oliver Jarvis' spectacular accident in traffic. On defense to contain the return of Earl Bamber's Cadillac, the Briton entered a right turn too quickly and lost control in the grass, hitting the wall on the other side of the track. The front right of the Acura was destroyed, but the prototype was able to stay on the track and the driver continued. The event ended under a new Full Course Yellow and the #10 of Wayne Taylor Racing scored an important victory in its duel for the title with the #60 of Meyer Shank Racing, which will be decided at Petit Le Mans, October 1. 

In the LM P2 category, after spending a majority of the race in the lead, Louis Delétraz (Tower Motorsport no. 8) finally lost to Ryan Dalziel for a victory for the No. 18 Oreca from Era Motorsport. Felipe Fraga and Gar Robinson won in LM P3 with the No. 320 Riley Motorsports Ligier JS P74.

Du côté du Grand Tourisme, Ben Barnicoat et Jack Hawksworth s’imposaient avec la Lexus RC F GT3 n°14 devant Mathieu Jaminet et Matt Campbell sur la Porsche n°9 de Pfaff Motorsports. Antonio Garcia et Jordan Taylor complétaient le podium avec la Corvette C8.R n°3. La Mercedes-AMG GT3 from Winward Racing of Russell Ward and Philip Ellis won the GTD category.