Call it dramatic, the WeatherTec SportsCar Championship race at Circuit Of The Americas gave fans a chance to see some hard good racing among the 4 categories running. Championship points are important but winning is in the driver’s DNA so even though they had the points thought in their minds they were looking for opportunities to pass the guy ahead. In the Prototype class, Ricky Taylor did a good job to keep the position at turn 1 and immediately started to pull away to make a gap that would eventually disappear after the first Safety Car period on lap 17 when the Visit Florida car No. 90 had an issue exiting turn 11. They kept the lead on the re-start and built a good cushion again towards the end but Jordan made a mistake and spun at turn 20 with a few laps to go which took almost all the difference away setting the backdrop of a good fight for the next laps with Wheelen’s Car No. 31 with Curran/Cameron but in the end Taylor managed to win it. Third place went to car No. 5 and team mates of Car No. 31 Sampling Corvette, they had an eventful race being involved in a meddle between team mates that caused him to spin and the No. 31 had a drive through penalty, both cars managed to recover a lot of ground by double stinting their tires and helped by the first yellow flag made up the ground lost.
In Prototype Challenge, Starworks car No. 8 came through the field from 4th to 2nd thanks to good strategy and steady driving but 2 laps from the end they managed to pass for 1st and held the position under increasing pressure of faster paced PR1 car No. 52 (Kimber-Smith/R. Alan) to finish less than a second ahead. Third place went to car No. 38 of Performance Tech Motorsports with drivers No. Boulle and J. French.
GTLM also brought a lot of exciting maneuvers from the drivers in the fight for the win. Risi Competizione’s Ferrari No. 62 took the early lead at the start passing Ford Chip Ganassi’s GT No. 67 pole sitter along with the two Porsches No. 911 and No. 912. Vilander finished his stint in front and then Fisichella took over, lost the position to Tandy but then pressured on and taking advantage of the traffic he got close enough and muscled his way through to re take the lead at turn 11 but then hit electric problems that forced him to go into pits, reset the car but lost all chances. Bamber in No. 912 went on to win it as Tandy gave him the position to make it a 1-2 for Porsche North America. Third place went to Corvette Racing’s car No. 3 with Magnussen and Garcia doing a very good race with a car that did not seem to have the pace in qualifying.
GTD had a very dramatic end as well when the pole sitter car No. 23 from Team Seattle could not match the strategy of Turner Motorsport’s No. 96 BMW an lost the lead, but on the last lap, at turn 14 it stopped, out of fuel…. Turner’s No. 96 went on to win with B. Curtis and J. Klingmann followed by the No. 48 Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 who escaped getting a pit penalty that was initially given and then rescinded by the Stewards with drivers B. Sellers and M. Snow. They finished 15 seconds off the lead in what was a really battled GTD group and were catching No. 23 quickly until the Porsche had the fuel issue. Third place went to the Ferrari 488 GT3 of Scuderia Corsa after a rough fight with the Audi R8 LMS GT3 No. 44 of Magnus Racing where Balzan managed to have the upper hand on Lally.
The Championship now will resume in the 10 hour race of Petit LeMans.
