Ricky Taylor and Felipe Albuquerque have won the IMSA Detroit Sports Car Classic, beating polesitters Porsche and Cadillac.
The race is being held in downtown Detroit, around the Renaissance Centre, which houses the global HQ of General Motors’, Cadillac’s parent company.
Albuquerque started the #10 WTRAndretti Acura ARX-06 from fourth, moving up to second as the green flag waved, with Dane Cameron in the #7 Porsche slipping down to fourth from second on the grid. Albuquerque also overtook Sebastien Bourdais in the #01 Cadillac V-Series.R, who was now third, with polesitter Nick Tandy, in the #6 Porsche, still leading.
However, almost immediately there was a full course yellow as Harry Tincknell, in the #65 Ford Mustang GT3, stopped on track, requiring assistance and a tow rope to be moved off the racing surface.
When the race went green again, Tandy retained the lead and then began to extend a gap. He’d got this up to almost 5 seconds and was looking solid out front in the Porsche.
But then, disaster: as he came up to lap Daniel Serra in the #35 Conquest Ferrari 296 GT3, he inadvertently went into the back of the Ferrari, sending the Brazilian backwards into the barriers. While Serra did get going again, Tandy received a drivethrough penalty for avoidable contact, pushing him down to sixth position and promoting Albuquerque to the lead of the race.
Soon, both Albuquerque and Bourdais, who had been hot on the Portuguese’s tail, pitted. Albuquerque pitted first hoping to gain an advantage on the yellow Cadillac, with Bourdais attempting an overcut to take the lead.
However, Cadillac’s strategy did not work and Albuquerque gained time on Bourdais when both had returned to the track.
In the meantime, Cameron, who had been third for Porsche, now led, using the overcut strategy that hadn’t worked for Cadillac to great effect to retain the net lead.
The only other car not to stop was the delayed Tandy in the sister Porsche, giving the German manufacturer a 1-2.
The race’s second FCY then struck, as Connor de Phillippi, in the #25 BMW M Hybrid V8 hit the wall on drivers’ right with the rear of his car, breaking the suspension and putting the car out of the race on the spot. A visibly frustrated de Phillippi, who’d also hit the barriers with the front of the car a few laps earlier and had only climbed in a few minutes before that, got out of the car as the marshals moved the stricken BMW off track.
In amongst all this Tandy still needed to pit, and the FCY had come at the perfect time. He pitted under yellow and retained the lead from his teammate Nasr, giving Porsche a now-legitimate 1-2.
The race went green with 47 minutes remaining, but almost immediately went back under yellow. Jack Aitken, in the #31 Action Express Cadillac, had dived down the inside of #5 JDC Miller Motorsports’ Richard Westbrook, in a rather ambitious move. However, it hadn’t worked, instead pushing the Briton into a spin.
With the Detroit track so narrow,m Westbrook’s car, lying across the track, was blocking anyone, including Aitken, from passing. Eventually the JDC Miller driver managed to do a multiple point turn and right the car, carrying out, which unblocked the track, but the race was still under yellow.
Aitken would later receive a drivethrough penalty for this incident.
When the race went green, Taylor was all over the back of the leading Jaminet. The American, who along with Albuquerque hadn’t won an IMSA race for 668 days, was visibly quicker. He saw an opportunity at turn 3, the hairpin, and feigned right then dived left, down the inside, to take the lead, one he’d never relinquish.
There were another two short FCYs — one for debris and one because Aitken and Gianmaria Bruni, in the #5 Proton Competition Porsche 963 came together, with Bruni ending up worse off, going nose-first into the barriers and having to retire.
However, Jaminet couldn’t find a way past Taylor, with the American crossing the line to win with a 1.132 second gap to the Frenchman in the Porsche.
Behind these two was Renger van der Zande in the #01 Cadillac, with the GM machine not having quite enough pace to challenge for victory in the American conglomerate’s back yard.
Fifth was Felipe Nasr in the #7 Porsche. He had, at one point, been second behind Tandy and then Jaminet, but during the FCY for Connor de Phillippi’s stricken BMW, the Brazilian had a right rear slow puncture and had had to pit. He’d rejoined eighth but had managed to climb back up to fourth by the flag.
Fifth was Louis Deletraz in the sister #40 WTRAndretti Acura, a solid if anonymous run to round out the top 5.
