Two first-time winners celebrated jubilantly on the top step of the podium in the Michelin GT Challenge at VIR. The ninth round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, the 2h40m GT-only event at VIRginia International Raceway, saw the first victory for Paul Miller Racing since moving to GTD PRO, and the first GTD win for Korthoff Preston Motorsport in its third full season.
Madison Snow led from pole in the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 and then went long in the first stint before handing over to Bryan Sellers. Stopping for fuel and tires much earlier, Alex Riberas handed the No. 23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo over to Ross Gunn in position to take the lead once the first round of stops was done, thanks to the undercut. However, Sellers’ short stint in the middle meant a shorter fuel time, and he returned the car to Snow, and Snow returned the car to the track in front, a lead he would never relinquish. The victory came at the same track the pair scored their last GTD triumph as they sailed to the championship in 2023.
“It’s an overall win in GT at VIR. It’s pretty spectacular, so it’s going to take a while to sink in, but I’m glad I was able to do it with my best friend Bryan,” said an emotional Snow before the podium celebrations began.
The No. 23 had a drive-through penalty for not meeting minimum refuel time on their final stop that dropped Gunn and Alex Riberas to third. That left the No. 64 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang GT3 of Harry Tincknell and Mike Rockenfeller in second, the Mustang’s first podium finish.
Snow had scored the pole position with a new GTD PRO track record. The No. 1 was the last car to pit in the first round of stops. The No. 23, having pitted early in the first stop, needed fuel with an hour to go. PMR followed a lap later, but having gone only a little over 40m in the stint, the team was able to fill the car, give it fresh Michelins and install Snow back in the car in a shorter time.
After Heart of Racing served its penalty, Snow had a 15s lead over Rockenfeller in the No. 64 Mustang, but that lead was erased by the race’s only full-course caution with 35m to go, brought out by the No. 70 Inception McLaren losing its engine in spectacular fashion. Snow steadily pulled away from Rockenfeller after the restart, finishing with a 3.368s margin of victory. GTD PRO had been a tough transition for the team, but as they adapted to a new style of racing, the results kept improving.
“I think you just have to have resilience,” said Sellers. “You have to have fight. I think that’s what we’ve had so far up until this point. You’ve got to ride the waves, the ups and downs, and you’ve got to be able to take advantage of wins when they’re presented to you. What you saw from the team today was just that. Madison delivered a great performance all weekend, and I’m just super proud of everyone at Paul Miller Racing.”
Dirk Mueller brought the No. 65 FMM Mustang that was started by Joey Hand fourth to make it both GTD PRO Mustangs in the top five. Oliver Jarvis and Marvin Kirchhofer were fifth in the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports McLaren 720S GT3 Evo.
It was a rough day for championship leader Laurin Heinrich. An early black flag for tire pressures outside the limit put the AO Racing squad onto a three-stop strategy. Then, after taking over from Klaus Bachler, Heinrich had contact with Jack Hawksworth’s No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3, spinning it and earning himself a drive-through penalty. All that led to a seventh-place finish for Heinrich and Bachler.
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That tightened up the GTD PRO points considerably. The third-place finish for Heart of Racing means Gunn now has only a 17-point deficit to Heinrich’s 2519 total. Snow and Sellers moved past Hawksworth and Ben Barnicoat, who finished sixth, into third in the points at 2408, 111 points out of the championship lead.
As bad a day as Heinrich had, it was worse for Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports. A power steering issue for the No. 3 Z06 GT3.R saw the car need a full reset on track before it went behind the wall for repairs. Alexander Sims would later have an off-track excursion, ending the No. 3’s day with a broken suspension. The No. 4 had a starter issue on its final pit stop, putting it out of contention and into an eventual eighth-place finish.
Kenton Koch took the GTD lead from second place at the start and, saving fuel through two stints before handing the No. 32 Mercedes AMG GT3 over to Mikael Grenier, helped deliver Korthoff Preston Motorsports its first victory in IMSA competition. It was Grenier’s first as well, and Koch’s first WeatherTech Championship win since 2016 when he took the Rolex 24 at Daytona victory in the Prototype Challenge category. Koch and Grenier have been partners for only two races – Koch was the endurance addition to Grenier and Mike Skeen in the No. 32, but took the full-time seat at Road America as Skeen moved to strategist.
“Man, that feels good,” declared Koch “I knew we had a good car, and I knew it was going to be tough, but it was just all down to strategy and me saving some fuel at the beginning that gave us the track position to be able to stay ahead of the guys behind.
“It feels really good to give a win to these guys and Mik did a phenomenal job at the end. We’ve got a good little Korthoff PrestonAMG GT3 race car here. Hopefully we can do better and keep improving, and continue this momentum into Indy and Road Atlanta.”
Grenier was aided through the restart and final run to the checker by having Jarvis in the Pfaff McLaren between him and fellow Canadian Roman De Angelis in the No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo. De Angelis got alongside Jarvis on the restart, but couldn’t make the pass stick. That left him with no chance to attack Grenier for the lead, and De Angelis and Zacharie Robichon finished second, 0.897s behind the No. 32 Mercedes AMG.
Loris Spinelli made a late-race charge in the No. 78 Forte Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2 to go from seventh to the podium and landing a third-place finish for himself and Misha Goikhberg.
Winward Racing was looking like it was going to leave VIR with a smaller lead in the GTD points until late in the race, as the No. 57 Mercedes AMG moved steadily up. Philip Ellis made a late-race move to pass Robby Foley in the No. 96 Tuner Motorsport BMW and score a fourth-place finish for him and Russell Ward. That allowed the Winward pair to put another 20 points between them and Turner’s Foley and Patrick Gallagher. The 2698-point total for Ellis and Ward has them 284 points ahead of Foley and Gallagher with two races left. Grenier moved into third in the points, another 236 back from the Turner pair, and 74 points ahead of Vasser Sullivan Racing’s Parker Thompson.
The polesitting No. 55 Proton Competition Mustang of Giammarco Levorato and Corey Lewis looked to be headed for a podium in GTD, but the full-course caution brought their pursuers close. Lewis first got passed by Foley, and then had a tank-slapper at the exit of Turn 4 and dropped down the order, eventually finishing eighth.
Attention now turns to the final two races of the season where all four IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship classes will again be featured, the six-hour Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.