Click HERE for updated GTP results after a post-race penalty was applied to the class-leading Porsche 963 late in the evening.
The last half of the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen featured intense battles and four different manufacturers fighting for the victory, with strategy eventually taking hold to set up the final battle. That strategy put the No. 25 BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8 of Connor De Phillippi and Nick Yelloly out front, pursued by the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsports 963 of Nick Tandy and Mathieu Jaminet. Pace and traffic, though, eventually brought Tandy and Jaminet their second win of the season to help them pad their IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTP lead.
“What a race, honestly,” declared Tandy. “It didn’t fail to live up to promise and it was as good to drive as it was to watch. Watching Mathieu out there… I mean, that last stint, it was … I love racing, and that was fun to watch. When your car is involved with it, it’s even better – when you come out on top, of course. We had a big change in track conditions from the beginning to the end. And I think you saw a difference in the relative performance of the cars. We were really strong in the beginning. Of course, it was great to run one–two and come to be out front, kind of controlling the race, but you always know there’s a chance of a full-course yellow to kind of reset of the strategy as such that you have to make sure the car is good and you have some information for the run to the flag.”
While the early second-half driver stints featured Jack Aitken doing a masterful job keeping the No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac in front and maintaining a gap over Colin Braun in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06, it was strategy in the final 90 minutes on which the race turned, setting up a BMW vs. Porsche battle as De Phillippi did everything he could to keep the BMW ahead of Jaminet’s Porsche while the gap steadily decreased. Both were pushing their cars to 1m33s laps with victory was on the line.
Traffic was the determining factor. Jaminet was able to close as De Phillipi was held up by battling LMP2 and LMP3 cars. With Jaminet on his tail, De Phillippi came up on GTD leader Aaron Telitz, who was being passed by a couple of other prototypes. Jaminet went right, De Phillippi went left. Right was correct; De Phillippi got bottled up, and Jaminet was through. De Phillippi went wide in the following corners, dirtying his tires and ending any opportunity to counter-attack. The final aria was Bill Auberlen crashing and rolling the No. 95 Turner Motorsport BMW with three minutes left, bringing out the final caution under which the race would end.
The strategy that put the polesitting Porsche and the BMW back out front started to unfold with 90 minutes left. Both BMW Team RLL and PPM gambled, bringing in their cars to split the remainder of the race into equal stints requiring less time on both stops. MSR and AXR, on the other hand, appeared to be going for a long stint followed by a shorter one. However, AXR was the first to reverse that strategy, bringing Pipo Derani in after 30 minutes to try to force BMW and Porsche to change their plan. MSR followed suit, but choosing to take energy only, no tires.
It almost worked, but not quite. BMW M Team RLL brought De Phillippi in a lap later for energy and tires, squeezing him out ahead of Derani. PPM kept the No. 6 out, then with Nick Tandy at the wheel, risking disaster should a yellow come out. With 40m left, PPM brought the 963 in, gave it energy and tires, and installed Jaminet in the driver’s seat. The Porsche now had fresher tires and the chase was on.
“I come out of the pits, knew the gap was quite big,” explained Jaminet. “But as we know, there’s just so many cars out there on pure pace, so it was all about traffic. So we just said, ‘OK, let’s take full risk.’ We agreed, let’s not think about the championship and let’s just go all in and see what happens. And I just saw that with the traffic lap after lap. I was just slightly coming, tenths after tenths. And then I started to see him; It starts to feel good when you start to see the car in front of you. And then I also know the feeling when you are the car behind and it doesn’t feel as comfortable when you’re the leader and you see that you’re hunted. We came to Turn 7 and there was traffic in front of us and I saw a small gap on the inside. So just basically went in and just hope it works and back on power, hope we have traction and it works on the exit. I made the pass and he gave me just the space for it, so it was a fair drive from from Connor and worked out.”
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With the race ending under yellow, De Phillippi and Yelloly finished second, their third second-place finish of the season in a race they were in good position to win.
“For sure, it’s frustrating. I mean, given the action where we were after the first hour or so, with the contact and a lot of other chaos, I think at that point if you would have asked if we would be happy with second we’d say yes,” said De Phillippi. “But obviously once you get yourself in position … Nick drove a fantastic triple stint to the middle of the race. He definitely Iron Man’d that. I knew when I got in I had to drive the wheels off it. We did a great undercut. We came up with great strategy, came out in front, opened a gap and I really was was confident with the car. Everything felt totally in control.
“But it’s multi-class racing. All it took was two laps where I had LMP3 cars driving next to each other for like two-and-a-half corners; you’re going to lose two or three seconds and there’s nothing you can do about it. When you’re the chaser you have a 50-50 shot, you just got to go opposite of the guy ahead of you and you have a higher chance of getting it right. And when you’re the leader you you have a bigger chance of getting caught out, so that’s just how it is. I’m for sure frustrated with myself but in the end it’s it’s racing. The team is doing a great job, we’re making steps in the right direction. I know the win is coming so we’ve just to keep our heads down, keep it professional and keep moving forward.”
Derani, Aitken and Alexander Sims were third in the No. 31 AXR Cadillac followed by the No. 60 MSR Acura of Braun and Tom Blomqvist.
The rest of the GTP field fell out of contention in a variety of incidents and issues. The No. 24 BMW of Argusto Farfus and Philip Eng was the first out, Farfus spinning the car into the barrier at the exit of Turn 1 at the start, bringing out the race’s first caution
An incident just past the one-hour mark put a damper on a couple of efforts, notably the No. 01 Chip Ganasssi Racing Cadillac. Sebastien Bourdais misjudged a corner exit and caught a GTD Porsche more quickly than expected. He balked and juked, losing the rear end in the process. The sudden loss of speed had Connor de Phillippi, who was right behind him in the No. 25 BMW, making contact, damaging the nose of the BMW. The Cadillac, however, spun and hit the barrier, needing a lot of work to get it race-able again. That came about through a series of pit stops, starting with one for emergency service to get a new nose (the BMW received the same), but the car also needed a new tail section, engine cover and other bits that put them three laps down.
Second place was a bad position to be in the third hour. With Porsche running one-two, Felipe Nasr brought the No. 7 PPM 963 into the pits from second, went straight through and headed toward the paddock. Unfortunately, the safety light indicating that the car was safe to touch was not on, and it was a long time before the crew could get it back to work on it. The crew was eventually able to return it to the track, 100 laps down.
The Porsche exit put Filipe Albuquerque into second, but with about 30 minutes left in the first half of the race, the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura lost a wheel.
Albuquerque made it back to the pits, but had to take the NASCAR shortcut that bypasses the Boot, and thus lost a lap. Adding insult to injury, after the crew put a new wheel on without issue, Albuquerque was handed a drive-through penalty for a pit lane speed violation. The No. 10 would experience a variety of other issues and eventually retire with about 30 minutes left.
Aside from starting on points because qualifying was canceled due to a sudden downpour, the race threw another curve at competitors – a choice in tire compounds, which was a late decision by IMSA and Michelin based on lower-than-typical temperatures seen so far during the weekend. Most teams were hesitant to use the newly available softer compound since they didn’t have any experience with them, but there was speculation that the Porsche had those tires on for the final stint, although neither Tandy nor Jaminet would confirm and said they didn’t know.
With the victory, Tandy and Jaminet have 1692 points to lead the championship. Derani and Sims are 78 points back, and De Phillippi and Yelloly are 158 points off the lead.
LMP2 competitors started taking themselves out early. The biggest incident that affected several frontrunners happened just a little more than half an hour into the race. Salih Yoluc in the No. 8 Tower Motorsports ORECA, subbing for John Farano, dive bombed Ben Keating’s No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen machine, spinning Keating. Steven Thomas was next on the scene and, in trying to avoid the incident, put the No. 11 TDS Racing ORECA into the barrier. Thomas and Mikkel Jensen were leading the points in the class.
In the end, George Kurtz backed up his 24 Hours of Le Mans LMP2 Pro-Am class win with his first LMP2 win in the IMSA WeatherTech Championship. Kurtz, Ben Hanley and rising star Nolan Siegel took victory in the No. 04 Crowdstrike Racing by APR ORECA over the No. 18 Era Motorsport ORECA of Dwight Merriman, Ryan Dalziel and Christian Rasmussen.
“It’s been a great month and the team did a fantastic job,” said Kurtz. “I’ve got to recognize my co-drivers who are mega. When you look at the level of competition in P2, this is a stout field and to be able to come away with the win here is incredibly gratifying and it shows the teamwork that we have and and the drivers and the program we put together. So overall, I couldn’t be happier. It’s been a great month and want to keep the momentum going.”
The No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports team with Ben Keating, Paul-Loup Chatin and Alex Quinn was third. The LMP2 points battle three races in is extremely tight. Jensen and Thomas still lead with 1005 points, but Hanley and Kurtz are only four points behind them and two points ahead of Keating and Chatin.
Gar Robinson, Felipe Fraga and Josh Burdon still have a perfect record in LMP3 in 2023, having added the Six Hours of the Glen victory to their Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring title. The No. 75 Riley Motorsports squad beat the No. 30 Jr III Racing Ligier of Garrett Grist, Dakota Dickerson and Dylan Murray, who only got the call to step into the car this morning.
Fraga emerged from the final pit stop behind Grist, but a masterful move that saw the pair side-by-side through the Inner Loop got the No. 74 back in front. The No. 17 AWA Duqueine of Anthony Mantella, Wayne Boyd and Nico Varrone was third.
With two wins, the trio have a perfect 765 points, 129 ahead of lars Kern, Matt Bell and Orey Fidani.