Michelin Pilot Challenge – Page 4

Morad, Ward claim maiden MPC victory on streets of Detroit

The GM Renaissance Center serves as one backdrop of the Detroit Street Course, while the Canadian flag serves as another thanks to nearby Windsor, Ontario. It was the latter backdrop that held true in Saturday’s Chevrolet Detroit Sports Car Classic, …

The GM Renaissance Center serves as one backdrop of the Detroit Street Course, while the Canadian flag serves as another thanks to nearby Windsor, Ontario.

It was the latter backdrop that held true in Saturday’s Chevrolet Detroit Sports Car Classic, as Canadian Daniel Morad won in the shadow of his home country in the fourth round of the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge season.

Morad and Bryce Ward shared the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT GT4, using a bit of strategy, Morad’s relentless attack on a restart and eventual overtake to secure the victory in the Grand Sport (GS) class-only, 100-minute race. It is both drivers’ first victory in Michelin Pilot Challenge competition.

Ward started 11th and pitted shortly after the 33-minute mark, three minutes after the minimum drive time window of 30 minutes opened. The Winward Racing team swapped in Morad, took rear Michelin tires and resumed on course shortly behind the No. 95 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT4 and No. 28 RS1 Porsche Cayman 718 GT4 RS CS, which had been the dominant cars in the opening stanza of the race.

The No. 28 car, started by Eric Filgueiras, went for a fuel-only stop and swapped the car to Stevan McAleer. Meanwhile, the No. 95 car, started on pole by Cameron Lawrence, matched the strategy and flipped over to Robert Megennis after leading the opening 28 laps.

It was there the complexion – and visuals – of the race changed.

Megennis sought to lap Rory van der Steur in the No. 19 van der Steur Aston Martin Vantage GT4 heading into the primary passing opportunity on the bumpy, 1.645-mile, nine-turn new downtown street course.

It all went awry when Megennis drove into van der Steur, with the momentum carrying his BMW up and over the Aston Martin in a spectacular incident. Megennis’ car hit the top of the tire barriers before he continued onto the pit lane, while van der Steur’s car was significantly impacted on the driver’s side and roof of the car. Both drivers made it back to pit lane.

The resulting full-course caution shuffled the order as a handful of cars, including the points-leading No. 72 Murillo Racing Mercedes-AMG GT GT4 of Kenny Murillo and Christian Szymczak, had not yet pitted and subsequently lost track position when it did stop.

The race resumed with McAleer cycled to the front ahead of Marc Miller in the debuting No. 78 Thaze Competition by MC Squared Mercedes-AMG GT GT4 and Morad third in the No. 57 Winward Mercedes.

Morad took off behind the leaders, as McAleer had a gap of a couple lapped cars between himself and Miller. After charging past two lapped cars on the first restart lap (40), Morad had the gap down to just a second behind McAleer by lap 43.

Morad made the winning move on lap 46, sizing up McAleer into Turn 1 and going past him on the inside on the run to Turn 2.

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“I knew the best opportunity would be right at the beginning when track was unknown with oil and coolants,” Morad said.

“I had a good idea of where the grip was and went full attack and didn’t hesitate. The moment you hesitate on a street circuit, you run into trouble, so I went for it, full send.”

While Morad began to stretch his gap in front, McAleer put on a defensive driving clinic behind him to keep a bevy of cars in his rearview mirror, in the form of Miller, Jeff Westphal (No. 39 CarBahn by Peregrine Racing Porsche Cayman 718 GT4 RS Clubsport), Elliott Skeer (No. 47 NOLASPORT Porsche Cayman 718 GT4) and the recovering Szymczak.

Despite multiple attempts, Miller was never able to get past McAleer. The two were former teammates with another program and know each other’s racing styles well, so a healthy level of respect was present.

McAleer and Filgueiras finished second with Miller and Michael Di Meo completing a dream debut for Birmingham, Michigan-based Thaze Competition, finishing on the podium in both the team’s and Miller’s home race.

Westphal and Sean McAlister were fourth, ahead of Jeff Mosing and Eric Foss in the No. 56 Murillo Racing Mercedes. Mosing and Foss capped off an eventful weekend where Mosing needed to reverse down the backstraight in a Friday session after a spin. For Foss, the opportunity to race in Detroit was special as he caught the racing bug going to the Formula 1 race with his dad here in the 1980s. Points leaders Murillo and Szymczak finished seventh, behind Skeer and Adam Adelson in sixth.

For Morad and Ward the win was sweet, particularly for Ward whose Winward team has been a Michelin Pilot Challenge stalwart for several years.

“It’s awesome,” Morad said. “Driving with Bryce is such a good opportunity for me this year. He’s been the best team owner and teammate. There’s no pressure except for what I put on myself. And I want to win. Winning is fun!”

Ward added, “It’s an amazing day, and I can’t say enough for the team. The pit stop was perfect. The call from engineering was perfect. It was key to be clean and get it over to Daniel!”

The Michelin Pilot Challenge resumes with both the GS and Touring Car (TCR) classes back in action at Watkins Glen International on Saturday, June 24.

RESULTS

Lawrence takes stunning MPC pole on streets of Detroit

Cameron Lawrence will lead the field to green for Saturday’s fourth round of the 2023 IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge season, the Chevrolet Detroit Sports Car Classic. This is the first street course race for the series since 2010 and a showcase race …

Lawrence lapped the 1.645-mile, nine-turn Detroit street course in 1m16.236s. He set the flyer on his 10th lap turned. Lawrence will share the No. 95 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT4 with Robert Megennis, a street course veteran across multiple series.

Times tumbled in the final three minutes of the 15-minute session as Grand Sport (GS) class drivers got more heat into their tires and more laps after an early red flag, with the provisional pole time changing hands several times.

Lawrence had nearly a full second gap to the field before Eric Filgueiras uncorked a lap within 0.150s. Filgueiras will start second in the No. 28 RS1 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS CS he’ll share with Stevan McAleer.

Rounding out the top five qualifiers were Jenson Altzman (No. 13 McCumbee McAleer Racing with AEROSPORT Ford Mustang GT4), Kenny Murillo (No. 72 Murillo Racing Mercedes-AMG GT GT4) and Rory van der Steur (No. 19 van der Steur Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT4). This ensured five different manufacturer brands qualified in the top five positions amidst the backdrop of Motor City and the GM Renaissance Center.

Murillo and Christian Szymczak enter Saturday’s race with a 90-point lead on Robby Foley and Vin Barletta in the No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT4. Barletta qualified 17th in the 22-car field.

Prior to qualifying, Mercedes-AMG GT GT4 cars led both practice sessions. Daniel Morad (No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG) topped the first session while Scott Andrews (No. 27 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG) ran quicker in the second.

The 100-minute race streams live on Peacock with a start time of 4:10 p.m. Saturday, June 3.

Murillo, Szymczak break through for first Pilot Challenge win

Kenny Murillo moved from third place to first in the space of a single lap 35 minutes into the WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca 120 on Saturday, and co-driver Christian Szymczak preserved that lead in the No. 72 Murillo Racing Mercedes-AMG GT GT4 until the end of the two-hour IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge race to claim the overall victory and Grand Sport (GS) class honors.

Fastest qualifier Austin McCusker led from the start in the No. 19 van der Steur Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT4 but encountered Touring Car (TCR) class traffic coming down the hill from WeatherTech Raceway’s famous Corkscrew on Lap 23. That allowed Murillo, who had passed Eric Filgueiras (No. 28 RS1 Porsche 718 GT4 RS Clubsport) for second place earlier the same lap, to make an over-under move on McCusker in Turn 11.

Murillo’s Mercedes exited the tight left-hand corner level with the Aston Martin, then he pulled ahead under acceleration up the front straight while Filgueiras followed Murillo past the compromised McCusker into second place.

Szymczak took over the No. 72 from Murillo for the final 55 minutes, reclaiming the lead with 35 minutes remaining when the No. 39 CarBahn with Peregrine Racing Porsche, running an alternate strategy with drivers Sean McAlister and Jeff Westphal, made a second planned stop during the only full-course caution of the event.

The No. 72 Mercedes was unchallenged in the closing laps, with Szymczak winning by 1.876 seconds over Stevan McAleer in the No. 28 Porsche. Daniel Morad drove a storming final stint to advance to third place in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes shared with Russell Ward. Mercedes-AMG also claimed fourth place with the No. 27 Lone Star Racing entry driven by Anton Dias Perera and Scott Andrews.

It was the first Michelin Pilot Challenge win for Murillo and Szymczak, who earned a pair of podium finishes in 2022. The duo led 29 of 41 laps of the Alan Jay Automotive Network 120 at Sebring International Raceway in March, only to be eliminated by contact in the final corner of the last lap, dropping them to 18th place in class. On Saturday at WeatherTech Raceway, they led 35 of 74 laps, including the last 23.

The victory vaulted them from sixth to first in the GS standings with a 40-point lead over Dias Perera, Andrews and the No. 27 Mercedes.

“The monkey is off our back!” exclaimed Murillo, the 26-year-old son of Murillo Racing team owner Ken Murillo. “Just really happy; the Murillo Racing crew really deserves this result. It’s been a long time coming, and hopefully we can follow these results. I’m just lost for words. My stint was exciting towards the end, and Christian did a great job to bring it home.

“What an incredible weekend,” he added. “I’ve been coming to IMSA races with my father for probably 15 years, and I’ve always dreamed of winning in IMSA. To get that monkey off our back is an incredible feeling.”

“No better place to win — this track is home to me,” added California native Szymczak. “I didn’t know we could win, honestly. But now I know.

“Those were the longest 40 or 50 minutes of my life,” he added of his climactic stint in the car. “I didn’t know this race would pan out the way it did without many yellows, and that helped our car and our platform shine. We did the best we could, and we just happened to do it right today.”

Wilkins holds off former co-driver Wickens for TCR victory

The battle for victory in Touring Car (TCR) came down to two familiar drivers and one familiar team.

Mark Wilkins held off a late challenge from his former co-driver, Robert Wickens, to claim the class victory in a battle between two Bryan Herta Autosport with Curb-Agajanian entries.

Wilkins and current co-driver Mason Filippi teamed to bring the No. 98 BHA Hyundai Elantra N TCR home in front of the No. 33 BHA Hyundai Elantra N TCR shared by Wickens and Harry Gottsacker. The victory put the No. 98 entry 60 points ahead of the No. 33 after three races.

“I’m proud of this team,” said Wilkins, who teamed with Wickens to win twice last year. “Robert was pushing me hard, and I wanted to try to keep a gap, but he kept closing in and trying to get a bit more. … It was cued up perfectly. This is special.”

After Filippi wrested the lead from Gottsacker near the end of their opening stints, Wickens pursued his former partner throughout the second half of the race, all while being chased by Ryan Eversley. Eversley held on for third place in the No. 37 LA Honda World Racing Honda Civic FL5 TCR, the car making its series debut that co-driver Mat Pombo had put on the TCR pole Friday.

For Filippi, the victory reiterated the bond between the new teammates.

“We’re super stoked that we got paired up together this year,” Filippi said. “We’ve got a bit of that mojo. We text each other every day. It just kind of follows into race weekend. We’re always ready, always prepping and competing with each other.”

The Michelin Pilot Challenge season resumes June 3 for the GS class at the Chevrolet Sports Car Classic in Detroit. Both the GS and TCR classes are in action June 24 in the Watkins Glen International 120.

RESULTS

Foley and Barletta ride new BMW to lead Turner Motorsport MPC sweep at Sebring

Robby Foley took the lead after a restart with a little more than 20 minutes remaining in the Alan Jay Automotive Network 120 at Sebring International Raceway, and his No. 96 Turner Motorsport teammate Cameron Lawrence followed him home to complete …

Vin Barletta ran the first 47 minutes of the two-hour contest in Turner’s No. 96 BMW before handing off to Foley in a green flag pit stop. The timing of the stops worked well, because as other teams’ strategies played out during a series of full-course cautions, Foley found himself running second and in position to attack leader Christian Szymczak (No. 72 Murillo Racing Mercedes-AMG GT GT4).

“Brilliant strategy from our guys,” said Foley after his fourth career victory in Michelin Pilot Challenge competition. “It looked like we might have been off strategy during the first couple yellows, but that was all to plan to play out later. You can never predict them exactly, but there’s a high probability of yellows here. This race played out like many before, and it’s a testament to our guys on the box. They’ve been doing this for so long that they’ve seen these scenarios a hundred times.”

Foley passed Szymczak with 22 minutes left on the race clock, then held on through one final restart to win by 0.601 seconds over Turner’s No. 95 entry shared by Lawrence and Robert Megennis. Robin Liddell rallied from seventh to third in the closing laps in the No. 71 Rebel Rock Racing Chevrolet Camaro GT4.R.

It was the first race win in Michelin Pilot Challenge action for the G82-generation of the legendary BMW M3, and the second for Barletta, for whom Foley serves as a mentor and driving coach.

Barletta noted that he is benefitting from also competing for Turner in the IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge, a series of sprint races for GT4 sedans and LMP3 prototypes. The VP Racing Challenge was in action at Sebring last weekend.

“Where I am, with Robby coaching me, every lap is important at this point to get experience and push myself to improve as a driver,” Barletta said. “It’s very valuable.

“I just tried to stay clean,” he added. “I feel I did my job and we had great pit stops by the team. There was a lot of stuff going on out there today, and Robby had the pace at the end when it counted.”

Foley fell back on the old adage that track position is king.

“I’m not sure we had the fastest car, but I know we had a fast car when it counted,” he said. “The new car for us takes a little longer to come in, and you really have to be aggressive with your tires under yellow. So, I was ready to go for every restart. I don’t think I had a lot of pace on the guys behind, so it was a matter of opening up a little gap on that first lap. That was the difference for me.”

Late pass puts Lewis and Block back in victory lane with No. 5 Alfa Romeo in TCR

The Touring Car (TCR) class win went to Florida-based KMW Motorsports with TMR Engineering. Driver Tim Lewis made his move to the lead in the No. 5 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Veloce TCR RS3 after several corners of intense side-by-side racing with Bryan Herta Autosport driver Robert Wickens – pulling ahead just before the race’s final full-course caution came out – with a little more than 10 minutes remaining in the two-hour event.

Wickens had taken the race lead with about an hour remaining when his No. 33 BHA Hyundai pitted ahead of a caution period near the race’s midpoint. While the rest of the TCR class came in for driver changes during that ensuing yellow, the No. 33 had already completed its service and driver change and assumed the lead.

Wickens held off Lewis and the 15-car TCR field by nearly a second at one point with Lewis fighting back and ultimately pulling up to challenge Wickens corner after corner as the caution flag came out.

“I don’t think it was side-by-side,’’ Wickens said. “To be honest, the visibility in these cars is quite challenging and I could see that he was close and wasn’t sure if I was exactly clear, so I left him some space and then I saw the flashing light [signifying a caution flag] in my car so I lifted. And he proceeded to overtake me.

“So, in my mind, he definitely wasn’t ahead of me.’’

Wickens said IMSA told the Bryan Herta team that the overtake “was in progress before the yellow” so that’s why Lewis was allowed to keep the position, ultimately taking a 1.671-second victory. The No. 98 Bryan Herta Autosport with Curb Agajanian Hyundai Elantra N finished third with drivers Mark Wilkins and Mason Filippi.

“There was a disabled car on the side of the track for two laps before, and conversing with my team, they said ‘Hey, if you’re going to go for it, you need to go for it now,’’’ Lewis said, “And that’s when Robbie made just the slightest mistake and we went side-by-side for three turns.’’

Lewis said there was no question he had made the pass prior to the yellow flag, noting his team also called into race control during the caution period to verify his position out front.

This is the sixth win for the No. 5 driver pairing — Lewis, of Boca Raton and his co-driver Roy Block, of Winter Park — and their first at the famed Sebring International Raceway.

RESULTS

Hyundai targets Nurburgring 24 with a slate of IMSA MPC drivers

Hyundai is taking IMSA Michelin Pilot TCR champions Michael Lewis and Taylor Hagler, along with fellow Bryan Herta Autosport racers Mason Filippi and Harry Gottsacker, to one of the world’s toughest 24-hour races, the ADAC TotalEnergies 24 Hour Race at Germany’s Nurburgring circuit in May. Hyundai Motor America alongside Hyundai Motorsport GmbH will partner with Target Competition to field a single Elantra N TCR entry piloted by the veteran lineup of Hyundai drivers from BHA.

“Hyundai and Bryan Herta Autosport give us such great opportunities,” said Lewis. “It is cool to compete in a historic, unique, and crazy event where we can showcase Hyundai’s vehicles amongst the great competition out there. 24 hours around probably the most difficult circuit out there, but we love it and that’s the kind of stuff we look to do. Thank you to Hyundai for making this happen for us and we will do our best and have fun.”

Since 1970, the Nurburgring 24 Hours has been a staple on the European racing network that highlights touring cars and GT endurance racing. Team Target Competition is no stranger to the world of TCR racing in Europe and gives a familiarity to the Hyundai BHA drivers ahead of their debut.

Target Competition has earned championship accolades, including back-to-back drivers and team championship titles in the TCR International Series (2015) and in ADAC TCR Germany series (2016, 2017) as well as capturing the TCR Europe Trophy in 2017.

The Hyundai Elantra N TCR that the racers will drive is a clone to the Elantra Ns that they drive in IMPC, where Lewis and Hagler have taken the drivers championship two years straight and Hyundai has claimed he manufacturers championship as well.

“I look forward to representing Hyundai USA in an international program for the first time in Germany,” said Hagler. “We will have the opportunity to sample a wide range of the race-prepared versions of the N vehicles as we work to qualify for the race. It will be a busy spring balancing the logistics of our IMSA and Nurburgring 24 schedules and spending time on the simulator to prepare for the race!”

To be eligible to compete, all four Hyundai BHA drivers are required to participate in informative classes, Nürburgring Endurance Series (NLS) races and a specific qualifying race ahead of their entry into the ADAC TotalEnergies 24 Hours event. Within the required NLS races, all four drivers will pilot a Hyundai i30 N streetcar featuring only slightly modified safety equipment in co-driver pairings of Hagler and Lewis then Gottsacker and Filippi. Given the eligibility requirements, the drivers will be taking six trips to Germany leading up to the start of the 24 Hours weekend. Immediately after the checkered flag waves at Sebring, drivers will depart to ensure their timely participation in their first NLS race.

“I am very grateful for Hyundai making this happen, and it’s an honor to represent Team America at the Nürburgring,” Filippi said. “I cannot wait for each of the six trips and to run as many laps as possible to learn such a grueling, but fun track. Hyundais are fun to drive and it will be exciting to get behind even more N models while roasting around the Nordschleife. The Nurburgring is my favorite track I’ve ever driven, and I am fulfilling one of my dreams by competing there over the next few months.”

Expanding on Hyundai’s international reach around the Nürburgring 24 Hours, Jeff Ricca of Ricca Autosport will represent Hyundai Motor America within the VT2 class of the Hyundai i30 Fastback N Cup as the sole driver from the United States via Hyundai’s “Dare to Dream” global program. Ricca currently drives a Hyundai Elantra N in the TC class of the 2023 SRO TC America Powered by Skip Barber Racing School championship and has previous experience at the 24-hour event providing key knowledge of European competition.