Felipe Nasr and Dane Cameron, behind the wheel of the #7 Porsche 963 have won the IMSA Six Hours of the Glen, a topsy-turvy race with heavy rain causing a red flag and a range of incidents over the 6 hours.
Renger van der Zande crossed the line second in the #01 Cadillac V-Series.R, a second-placed finished for the South African and his teammate Sebastien Bourdais.
Third was the sister #6 Porsche 963 of Mathieu Jaminet and Nick Tandy. The three were only separated by 2.8 seconds as the race went green for the final time with around 15 minutes to go.
Louis Deletraz started the race on the pole in the #40 WTRAndretti Acura ARX-06, but he slipped back almost immediately behind a fast-starting van der Zande, and then Phil Hanson in the #85 JDC Miller Porsche.
After a full course yellow for a stricken LMP2, the race went green again and Hanson promptly took the lead off van der Zande, with the South African losing second to Jack Aitken, onboard the #31 Cadillac V-Series.R as well.
Under the next full course yellow for another incident in the lower classes, the top 11 GTPs pitted. The only one who didn’t was Connor de Phillippi in the #25 BMW M Hybrid V8, who had started from the pitlane.
His teammate Philipp Eng, in the sister #24 BMW, emerged from the pits first, followed by Aitken and Tijmen van der Helm, who had replaced Hanson in the #85 JDC Miller Porsche.
Aitken soon took the lead off Eng, with van der Zande soon doing the same, moving up to second.
When the pitstop cycle started again, this put Nasr’s teammate Cameron into the lead. It had begun to rain, meanwhile, and some cars were pitting for wets.
With 3 hours to go, the race’s fourth full course was called as a heavy incident involving two GTDs at the final corner neutralised the race.
Cameron was leading at the time but he hadn’t pitted for wets, while the cars behind him, including teammate Nick Tandy, had. However, the rain began to ease off behind the safety car, and when Cameron did pit, Porsche elected not to fit the car with wets, but new slicks.
When the race restarted, Cameron, who had retained the lead, led from Deletraz’s teammate Jordan Taylor in the #40 WTRAndretti Acura. Matteo Cairoli in the #63 Lamborghini SC63 was third.
After yet another short yellow for an incident involving the GTD Iron Dames Lamborghini, the race restarted again with Cameron building a two second gap. However, in the #10 Acura WTRAndretti, the team car to the Deletraz and Jordan Taylor machine, Filipe Albuquerque was catching Cameron. He eventually caught the American and the two tussled for the lead, with Albuquerque besting Cameron up the hill, the Portuguese driver marginally on the grass into the bus stop to take the lead.
However, it began to rain again, much heavier than before. As cars aquaplaned off the circuit at seemingly every corner, the race was red flagged to ensure everyone’s safety.
Through this, as cars pitted for wets, Deletraz had taken the lead from Ricky Taylor, who ad replaced Albuquerque in the #10 Acura. Third was de Phillippi in the #25 BMW. The two Porsches were fifth and sixth, Jaminet ahead of Nasr.
When the cars went back out on track with around 40 minutes to go, the pit lane opened so they could refuel and change tyres. As they rejoined the racing surface, Deletraz had retained the lead, from Nasr, van der Zande, and Jaminet in fourth.
The race was preparing to return to green with just under half an hour to go, but disaster struck the #10 WTRAndretti. The car had gone into the esses but Ricky Taylor then lost the rear wheel of the car, with the American having to park it on driver’s left as he retired the car, unable to return it to the pits.
The race resumed with around 15 minutes to go. Deletraz immediately lost the lead, just the same as at the start of the race, to Nasr. He then lost second to van der Zande, and Jaminet slipped by too in third.
With a Porsche 1-3, separated by the Cadillac of van der Zande, all three were pushing in an attempt to take the win. Nasr and Jaminet were trading fastest laps multiple times, with Nasr setting a fastest lap and then Jaminet taking it off him seconds later.
The three battled through the GT and LMP2 traffic, with the gaps fluctuating, but neither could make inroads or close up enough to change positions. And that was how it finished, Nasr from van der Zande and Jaminet in third.
Deletraz was a disappointing fourth for the WTRAndretti team, while the BMWs of Eng and de Phillippi were fifth and sixth. Gianmaria Bruni was seventh in the #5 Proton Competition Porsche 963, a lap down, while Aitken was eighth, a short way behind Bruni.
In LMP2, factory Ferrari driver and recent Le Mans winner Nicklas Nielsen, Luis Perez Companc and Lilou Wadoux took the win in the #88 Richard Mille AF Corse Oreca 07-Gibson. The car started ninth, in the hands of Perez Companc, and was at the sharp end for much of the race.
They climbed through the field in the first half of the race, and were second at the halfway mark, with Wadoux at the wheel. Nielsen climbed in for the second half and took the lead before the red flag, then didn’t look back. He kept it on track amid the rain and then retained the lead at the restart.
Before the end of the race, however, Felipe Fraga, in second in the #74 Riley Oreca 07-Gibson, tried to pass for the lead and likely the win. Nielsen defended and retained the lead, but unfortunately Ben Hanley, in the #2 United Autosports Oreca 07-Gibson, got caught up in this as an innocent party and had to pit, losing out on a potential podium place.
Nielsen, then, crossed the line to win, 38 seconds ahead of Colin Braun in the #04 Crowdstrike by APR Oreca 07-Gibson. Third was Fraga, a further 2.6 seconds off Braun.
