BMW M Team RLL had a prior opportunity to celebrate a win, the day after it was earned. The team has now finally had a post-race celebration in the most fairytale way possible, a 1-2 finish in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s inaugural six-hour race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Philipp Eng in the No. 24 M Hybrid V8 led Connor De Phillipi in the No. 25 to the checker in the Battle on the Bricks by 1.647s to claim victory for himself and Jesse Krohn. The No. 24 had not only not captured a win prior, but its drivers had never stood on the podium. This time they stood on the top step, with De Phillippi and Nick Yelloly, who inherited a win in last year’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen after the first-on-track Porsche 963 was moved to the back for excessive skid plank wear. This was their best finish since, and the first podium this season.
“This is huge. This is what you really work for,” said team principal Bobby Rahal. “I have to say, I think going into Petit Le Mans, we have to think very positively about that. That’s a long race, as this one was. But this may be, outside of my Indy 500 win, the most important win we’ve had, and because it’s just so timely and it just represents all the effort that all of us have put in – these guys, RLL and of course BMW Motorsport. Great day for us.”
In a race punctuated by a long period of heavy rain and six full-course cautions for a total of 2h22m running under yellow, it all came down to a perfect 55-minute run to the checker after the final caution, meaning that it was nearly a straight-up fight for the GTP, GTD PRO and GTD classes, all of which can run about an hour on a full load of fuel. The leading cars had already run 15 minutes under yellow before the green flag flew, meaning it was going to be tight.
Louis Deletraz in the No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 led the field to the final restart ahead of De Phillippi, but when De Phillippi got held up in the final turn leading onto the front straight, Eng had a good run and passed him into Turn 1 and headed after Deletraz.
Eng took the lead with an impressive move inside Deletraz at Turn 13 – a tight left-hander where almost no one attempts a pass – with 47m to go. De Phillippi followed him past Deletraz less than a lap later.
“I set it up already in Turn 7, I believe, and it went all the way down to Turn 12,” Eng explained of the pass for the lead. “I just tried to get a good exit out of Turn 12. In the laps earlier, I saw that he always tried a round line into that corner, into Turn 13. Once I was as close as I was, that lap, I just took a chance and went for it, and it paid off. He was very fair. Very hard racing, but very fair racing with him.”
Deletraz was holding station – and holding off Mathieu Jaminet – behind the BMWs until, with less than half an hour left, he had contact with the No. 75 SunEnergy1 Mercedes AMG GT3 driven by Chaz Mostert, knocking the Mercedes off track. Deletraz received a drive-through penalty for incident responsibility, taking the No. 40 out of the fight.
From there, the two BMWs simply had to hold off Jaminet while making sure they could go to the end on fuel.
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“There was a lot of talk about the fuel, what the competitors are doing and how much fuel we have to save if we are going to make it at some point,” said Krohn. “It sounded like there’s no chance, but Philipp just drove on fumes. I don’t know how he had the pace with the fuel numbers he was achieving, but this was really a great, great drive by Philipp and shows what a driver he is.”
Jaminet held on for third for himself and Nick Tandy, with the No. 85 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche 963 of Tijmen van der Helm, Richard Westbrook and Phil Hanson scoring fourth ahead of the No. 40 Acura driven by Deletraz and Jordan Taylor. The good result for the No. 6, along with trouble for the sister No. 7 and the No. 01 Cadillac Racing crew turned the championship into a two-way, intra-squad fight at Motul Petit Le Mans.
Felipe Nasr, who qualified the No. 7 963 in eighth, made a quick charge to the front at the start, but his efforts were for naught after a drive-through penalty for a pass under yellow and a later trip through the gravel. Nasr and Dane Cameron ended up ninth, several laps down, after the car stopped on the front straight, bringing out the final caution of the race with 1h15m left in the contest. Nasr got going again but the struggles continued.
Hope for victory for the polesitting No. 01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R, which had certainly been a contender, ended with a right rear puncture just after what would have been the car’s penultimate pit stop as Renger van der Zande handed the car back to Sebastien Bourdais. As Bourdais was trying to turn into Turn 12, the low tire made him miss the corner and continue on the oval. Because pit-in is at Turn 13, Bourdais had to go around slowly with a tire shredding the bodywork. A new tire, rear wing and bodywork solved the problem but Bourdais was three laps down by the time he was back on track and up to speed.
With trouble for two of the championship contenders, plus a DNF for the No. 31 Whelen Cadillac Racing V-Series.R, Cameron and Nasr only have a 14-point lead over Jaminet and Tandy. Everyone else is effectively out of the fight.The only way Cadillac Racing can win the title is if neither PPM Porsche starts at Petit Le Mans.
The No. 63 Lamborghini Iron Lynx SC63 had its best IMSA race since its Sebring debut, including leading a number of laps and being the fastest car in the wet in the hands of Romain Grosjean. In tricky, changing – but always wet – conditions, Grosjean worked magic to get the SC63 to the front, although slight contact with then-leader Jaminet in the No. 6 963 helped. A penalty for too many crew over the wall during a pit stop hurt the team’s chances, but it was still running strong before the run ended when Andrea Caldarelli had contact with the No. 55 Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3 and broke the SC63’s right-rear suspension.
TDS Racing is now two-for-two in LMP2 at Indianapolis after Mikkel Jensen, Steven Thomas and Hunter McElrea used strategy and the yellow flag pass-arounds to recover from being a lap down and take the victory over the polesitting and championship-leading Inter Europol by PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports squad of Nick Boulle, Tom Dillmann and Jakub Smiechowski.
“I think this is a very satisfying race,” said Thomas. “Whenever a Bronze is driving around the rain, everyone’s pretty nervous, so it was a lot of fun for me. I love the rain, so it was a great experience today. Now we’re tied for first place in the Endurance Cup, so we really have something to shoot for at Petit Le Mans, one of my favorite tracks.
“The emotions of coming back here and being able to kiss the bricks again, one of the highlights in my recent career, and to be able to do it with Mikkel Jensen, who I think is the best P2 driver in the world — maybe the best WEC driver in the world too — and Hunter, who has proven to be the fastest silver, it’s really been a pleasure driving with them,” he continued.
McElrea proved critical to the victory, thanks to his experience in the rain at Indianapolis, where he’s raced in Indy NXT and other series on the open-wheel ladder.
“Steven has given me a very good opportunity to where I’ve had a lot of testing, so I don’t necessarily feel like I’m unprepared when I come to the race, but I’ve never driven any track on the schedule, apart from here,” McElrea said.
“Indy lights, the car’s a little different to P2 in a way, but similar. I didn’t want to assume that we’re going to be fast, but I kind of knew halfway through the first day of testing we were doing … ‘Okay, we just need to get the basics right, and we’ll probably win. It’s never easy, but the pace will be there.’ It helped me a lot, I would say, truthfully. Even in the wet, knowing where the grip was … I had a really fun stint in the wet, and it was all stuff I already knew, which was nice, because usually I’m just trying stuff and learning on the go.”
Era Motorsport had its own difficulties to overcome to claim a third-place finish for Dwight Merriman, Ryan Dalziel and Connor Zilisch. Third keeps them in the fight for the championship, even as Boulle and Dillmann stretched their lead.
The No. 99 AO Racing ORECA was running second in the final stint until Nicklas Nielsen in the No. 88 AF Corse ORECA, which was a lap down, hit the No. 99 and spun Matt Brabham, knocking him down to fifth, a long way back. Then trouble hit the No. 22 United Autosports entry when the No. 18 Era Motorsports ORECA driven by Connor Zilisch had contact with Paul Di Resta in the No. 22. The United Autosports car had tire rub and had to visit the pits, and Era’s attempt to pull itself from a lap down into the fight was ended with a drive-through penalty, but it was still a valuable third-place finish.
A tough race for the No. 74 Riley crew of Felipe Fraga, Gar Robinson and Josh Burdon, along with the second-place finish for Inter Europol mean Boulle and Dillmann extended their championship lead to 98 over Fraga and Robinson. Dalziel sits third, another 25 points back.
