Madison Snow of the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 charged to victory in the IMSA SportsCar Championship sprint round at the Virginia International Raceway.
The ninth race of the year set aside solely the GTD and GTD Pro categories for a thrilling sprint around the 3.27-mile, 17-turn VIR course.
For the final sprint of the year at 2-hours and 40-minutes, a grid of 23 cars fought around the demanding twists and curves with factors such as tyre degradation playing a part to put the ‘challenge’ in GT Challenge.
Paul Miller Racing’s Madison Snow and Bryan Sellers turned victorious overall as their rivals encountered a mixture of heartbreak and triumph, concluded by an intense sprint at the end.
The race start was clean and tidy in GTD Pro, especially for Snow and his #1 BMW M4 GT3 after he retained his 13th IMSA career pole position.
Meanwhile closely behind him, the #64 Ford Multimatic Mustang GT3 of Harry Tincknell took advantage of a gap on Antonio Garcia’s #3 Corvette Z06 GT3.R into Turn 1.
Tincknell showcased strong pace from his Mustang as he attempted to stay within proximity to Snow’s #1 BMW at within 0.800 seconds, both running near-identical lap times.
Further down in seventh position, eighth overall, Jack Hawksworth in the #14 Lexus RC F GT3 made his way passed the two GTD front-runners as he looked to close the gap to the BMW, Corvettes and Mustangs at the sharp end of the order.
Joey Hand in the #65 Ford Multimatic Mustang eventually made his way into fourth position after passing Tommy Milner’s #4 Corvette on the back-straight.
The #77 AO Racing ‘Roxy’ Porsche 911 GT3.R dealt with an uphill climb with firstly a black flag for incorrect tyre pressures which prompted them to change all four tyres and allow Laurin Heinrich to get behind the wheel from Klaus Bachler.
Secondly, as the #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus of Hawksworth emerged ahead of Heinrich’s pink Porsche, the #14 was soon tapped into a spin by Heinrich after attempting a move on the inside.
With too small of a gap to justify the manoeuvre, Heinrich was quickly awarded a drive-through penalty for incident responsibility.
There was misfortune for both Corvette and Ford which compromised a strong performance across all four GTD Pro cars, with the #65 Ford of Dirk Mueller forced to serve a drive-through soon from the pit stop in which he got into the car, after the Multimatic team did not adhere to the minimum refuelling time.
Despite putting the #65 down to eighth in-class behind the #77 of Heinrich, it was the #3 Corvette which suffered a greater loss of their momentum after Alexander Sims – having recently got into the car – slowed down on the back-straight.
The British driver stopped to perform a power reset, however, this did not bring the power steering back into play. Before Sims dived behind the wall and into the garage to replace the power steering pump, he fell from an encouraging second place and down towards the back.
After the #3 won in dominant fashion last year, this misfortune brought a contrasting tone for Corvette at VIR this year.
As the race entered its second hour, Ross Gunn in the #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR Evo took the lead after pitting early in comparison to their GTD Pro competitors.
Unfortunately for them, the #23 later lost the lead after a failure to adhere to the minimum refuelling time which incurred a drive-through penalty, halting their progress after emerging closely behind the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW of Madison Snow which had lesser fuel inserted which earned their re-entry to P1.
The #23 dropped to third, so this instance proved vital but not critical for the championship standings as they stayed ahead of their (championship) rivals.
Heartbreak continued at the final round of pit stops with the #4 Corvette of Tommy Milner, as he encountered a starter problem. He eventually got away from his pit box after being briefly pushed by his mechanics, but the time was costly as they emerged towards the back of the GTD Pro order.
In dramatic fashion, the only caution period was declared after the #70 GTD McLaren 720S GT3 EVO2 poured a great deal of smoke and oil out of the back with Frederik Schandorff driving.
This was a major moment which brought down some key gaps like Snow’s 14-second lead on (#64 Ford) Mike Rockenfeller behind, followed by Gunn’s #23 back into contention.
With no class-split, the race resumed with 22 minutes remaining as Snow continued his form with a stunning restart ahead of Rockenfeller, whilst Mueller (#65 Ford) and Gunn (#23 AMR) were side-by-side on the start-finish straight as the Mustang came out the better of the pair.
Madison Snow, with the help of his co-driver Bryan Sellers and his stint midway through, charged en route to Paul Miller Racing’s first victory since they moved from GTD to GTD Pro.
Mike Rockenfeller brought the #64 Ford Multimatic Mustang in second position with co-driver Harry Tincknell, earning the first podium for the new Mustang.
Third place was claimed by Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas of the #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin AMR Vantage Evo, followed by the #65 Ford Multimatic Mustang GT3 of Joey Hand and Dirk Mueller.
Fifth place in GTD Pro was taken by Pfaff Motorsports’ #9 McLaren 720S GT3 EVO2 of Oliver Jarvis and Marvin Kirchhofer.
In GTD, their race was filled with excitement with an encouraging top level performance by their class winner.
Whilst their start was also clean, pole-sitter Giammarco Levorato (#55 Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3) could not retain his lead after Kenton Koch (#32 Korthoff/Preston Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3) and Mike Skeer (#120 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3.R) overtook the 21-year-old.
Kyle Marcelli suffered a loss of his rear-bumper bodywork although the pace of his #45 WTRAndretti Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 did not suffer noticeably, even possibly granting better straight-line speed on VIR’s long straight.
The fight at the sharp end of GTD continued with Skeer making a mistake after going wide and outbraking himself into Turn 11, thus giving Levorato P2.
Championship-leader Winward Racing were in no vital pressure to produce risky driving moves with their dominant points situation, although Russell Ward enjoyed a fight with Sheena Monk’s #66 Gradient Racing Acura NSX GT3 EVO in P10 and P11.
Meanwhile Levorato went wide at T11 which not only cost his P2 running, but also causing him to fall to P5.
From thereon in, the midfield of GTD brought on brief yet gripping scraps for position as VIR provides difficulty for drivers to pull off overtaking moves.
Teams were penalised for respective infringements, such as incorrect tyre pressures which implied that teams anticipated hotter weather during the early stages of the race – before temperatures heated up towards the latter half, therefore adding importance on tyre management.
Gradient Racing unfortunately went behind the wall with a toe-link issue with Stevan McAleer at the wheel.
Schandorff put up a duel against Loris Spinelli’s #78 Forte Racing Lamborghini, which continued to assert marvelous pace in comparison to the overall field.
This was until his engine failure, which began after he exited T11 slowly as he changed gears early, backing off his pace considerably before the moment itself.
A caution period brought back a fight for the GTD lead, although Corey Lewis (#55 Proton Ford) was unable to earn back the top spot after going wide at T11-12 with the car slippery due to the dirty tyres.
Mikael Grenier took the win in the #32 Korthoff/Preston Motorsports Mercedes-AMG along with his co-driver Kenton Koch.
Second place was secured by co-drivers Romain De Angelis and Zach Robichon in the #27 Aston Martin Vantage AMR Evo, as Heart of Racing took two podium finishes.
Third was finalised by Loris Spinelli and his co-driver Misha Goikhberg in the #78 Forte Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2.
Philip Ellis brought the #57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 in fourth along with his co-driver Russell Ward, as the #96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 of Robby Foley and Patrick Gallagher finalised the top-five.
See here for the unofficial results of the 2024 IMSA GT Challenge at the VIRginia International Raceway..
