INDIANAPOLIS — Sunday’s first IMSA visit in nearly a decade mattered so much to Porsche Penske Motorsports that they not only took part in the two-day test here at the end of July, but they also conducted another private test between then and this weekend’s TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks too.
This is Penske’s home turf and he’ll be damned if anyone was going to come into his house and kick him around.
That proved to be the winning mentality. Penske went 1-2 in Saturday’s practice, 1-2 in qualifying and in the race itself, the most important of then all, they went 1-2 again.
Nick Tandy drove the No. 6 Porsche 963 to victory with a commanding 17.421-margin over teammate Felipe Nasr.
While it seemed Penske perfect, the day was far from it. Matt Campbell and Nasr were battling 1.000 coming into the race. Quickest on Friday. Quickest on Saturday. Pole. Campbell was nervous however on the opening lap. He made a mistake the last time he was on the pole in Turn 1. With how tight Turn 1 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is, he was leery going into it.
Campbell got into the opening corner too hot, laying blame to be slippery off line, which allowed Jaminet to sneak by for the top position on track. Behind them a stack up occurred Sebastien Bourdais and Colin Braun collected. Each would continue on but it was enough to spark a first lap caution.
On the restart, the Penske Porsche’s would pull away and settle in. They’d maneuver their ways through the slower traffic for all of the first stint until another caution about an hour into the race occurred on the main straight off the final corner.
The leaders came in to stop for the first time. This is when the driver changes occurred. With 1hr, 50m left, the race changed.
The Penske’s exited pit lane 1-2 but the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac Racing V-Series. R was right there with them as they were the only ones not to swap drivers. Race control worked for laps to get the lineup sorted and determined the No. 31 driven by Pipo Derani was to be placed in P1.
Derani would check out on the restart followed by the pair of Penske’s. With 1hr, 3m left, Derani overcooked it going into Turn 1 and the Penske’s pounced dropping Derani back to third.
This time the No. 7 was back out front with the No. 6 following.
The 7 pit for the final time on Lap 76. The 6 pit a lap later (Lap 77). That handed the lead over to the No. 25 BMW M Team RLL entry who would lead the next two laps before making their final stop. When they did on Lap 79, it handed the lead back over to the No. 6 of Penske Porsche in Tandy.
He held a 7.9 second lead on Nasr at the time. Connor De Phillippi sat in third, 9.6 seconds back in the No. 25 BMW M Hybrid V8 while the Alexander Sims now driving in the No. 31 Cadillac for Action Express was 15.3-seconds back in fourth. Braun was back in the No. 60 Acura ARX-06 for Meyer Shank Racing and was P5 (-21.7).
The lead only grew substantially from there. Over the final 33 laps, the gap was big enough for the Porsche’s to cruise to a 1-2 result giving Penske their third win of the season including two straight now.
Nasr brought the No. 7 car home second, De Phillippi third in the No. 25 BMW, Sims in the No. 31 Cadillac in fourth and Filipe Albuquerque got by Braun late to round out the top five.
LMP2
Mikkel Jensen and Steven Thomas brought their TDS Racing ORECA LMP2 car across the bricks first in LMP2 scoring their second win in the last four races. They’d lead the final 21 laps for their fourth podium in the last five races overall.
The pole winners of the class in the No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports entry led the opening 9 laps before the No. 04 Crowdstrike Racing by APR took over on Lap 10. They’d lead the next seven laps before the 52 got back out front. These two rides would combine to lead the first 42 laps.
That was the end of their dominance.
The No. 8 Tower Motorsports entry would take over the lead for a great length of time from Laps 43-72. That’s when the 11 joined the fray and between the 8 and 11, they’d lead the rest of the way.
Jensen beat Louis Deletraz by 19.909-seconds.
3 of the top 4 in points finishes in the top 4 on Sunday.
LMP3
Gar Robinson’s undefeated streak of being 4-for-4 in points paying races comes to an end on Sunday as he and Josh Burdon brought their No. 74 LMP3 home in second on Sunday. Wayne Boyd and Anthony Mantella came from 5th in class to win their second event of 2023. They won the Rolex 24 at Daytona which is a non points paying race for LMP3. The 74 of Robinson and Burdon won the rest of the way.
Until Sunday.
The 17 led the final 41 laps.
GTD Pro
The GTD class was the closest fights to the end with in GTD Pro, Daniel Juncadella and Jules Gounon coming from second to win their third race of the season. The No. 79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes AMG GT3 EVO came to Indy on the heels of three straight fifth place finishes but 34 laps en route to the victory.
Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas finished second in the No. 23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 for their third top two result int he last three races. They didn’t lead a single lap all race but were there in the end, 4.394-seconds back.
Ben Barnicoat brought the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 home in third as he and Jack Hawksworth still hold the points lead with one race remaining. They were over 17 seconds arrears in the end.
Pole sitters Klaus Bachler and Patrick Pilet were 37 seconds back in fourth while Jordan Taylor and Antonio Garcia were 43.5 seconds back in fifth out of five cars in the class.
GTD
Madison Snow and Bryan Sellers finished third in their No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 but due to the drivers chasing them all finishing behind, they’re one step closer to being champions. They just really need to show up to Road Atlanta and the title is theirs.
They led 24 of the first 31 laps and were well in control but Russell Ward and Phillip Ellis took home the class win in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes AMG GT3 EVO. With Misha Goikhberg and Loris Spinelli in second, it gave Snow and Sellers enough to clinch a title.
They have 5 podiums in the last 6 races.
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