Action Express Wins Chaotic Battle on the Bricks at Indy

Photo: Mike Levitt/IMSA

Jack Aitken, Earl Bamber and Frederik Vesti claimed Cadillac’s first victory of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season following a chaotic Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Aitken steered the pole-sitting No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac V-Series.R to the win of the six-hour Michelin Endurance Cup round following a green-white-checkered finish after an accident for the No. 04 CrowdStrike by APR Oreca 07 Gibson of Toby Sowery with nine minutes to go.

It came after a largely dominant run for the Whelen Engineering-sponsored Cadillac, which came under an early race challenge from the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac of Ricky Taylor but saw Aitken re-take the lead on Lap 28.

Aitken, however, had late-race pressure from both Taylor and the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 of Tom Blomqvist prior to the race’s seventh full-course caution, and crossed the line 0.988 seconds ahead of the No. 10 WTR machine for a Cadillac 1-2 finish.

With the win, Action Express claimed its 30th victory in IMSA competition.

The No. 10 Cadillac bounced back from a left-front puncture as the result of a brake lock-up by co-driver Filipe Albuquerque in the third hour, which put the car off-sequence on pit stops and not able to finish the race on energy without the yellow in the final ten minutes.

Blomqvist, who started from the rear of the 12-car GTP field due to a technical infraction after qualifying on pole, completed the podium with co-driver Colin Braun.

The No. 60 Acura came back from a drive-through penalty for blocking the No. 7 Penske Porsche 963 of Nick Tandy in the fourth hour.

Dries Vanthoor drove his No. 24 Team RLL BMW M Hybrid to a fourth place result, in a car that also had a blocking penalty in the third hour with co-driver Philipp Eng at the wheel.

The No. 93 MSR Acura of Renger van der Zande finished fifth, despite the Dutchman brushing the wall on the final corner with 32 minutes to go.

Co-driver Nick Yelloly ran second early on after an impressive start from fifth on the grid, while Kaku Ohta enjoyed a strong middle stint that saw the Honda Racing Corporation driver challenge Vesti for the lead.

Sheldon van der Linde crossed the line sixth in the No. 25 BMW, with the GTP championship leaders Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet seventh.

The duo provisionally hold a 131-point lead over Porsche Penske Motorsport teammates Tandy and Felipe Nasr, who had a race to forget after multiple drive-through penalties for incident responsibilities, as well as a shifting issue that relegated the No. 7 Porsche 963 to dead last in class.

While the No. 85 JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche came home eighth, the No. 40 WTR Cadillac of Louis Deletraz finished ninth after being the only GTP entry to top up on energy in the closing stages of the second-to-last yellow, with the hope the race would have gone caution-free to the finish.

The factory Lamborghini SC63 was on a similar strategy, with Romain Grosjean having pitted for fuel-only with 46 minutes to go under green flag conditions after running inside the top-five. Grosjean and Eduardo Mortara finished tenth.

LMP2 class honors went to the No. 11 TDS Racing Oreca of Mikkel Jensen, Steven Thomas and Hunter McElrea, which picked up its third consecutive class victory in the race.

Peugeot factory driver Jensen was in the virtual class lead, on a fuel conservation run, behind Sowery at the time of a dramatic three-car clash between the two United Autosports entries of Paul di Resta and Ben Hanley and the Tom Dillmann-driven No. 43 Inter Europol Competition entries while battling for third at the time with 30 minutes to go.

Di Resta’s No. 22 United entry ended up in the grass, while race control declared no further action.

Hanley, in the No. 2 car, was then pushed off by Sebastien Bourdais in the No. 8 Tower Motorsport Oreca five minutes later, also resulting in no penalties.

Dillmann managed to finish second in class, less than a second behind Jensen, with Felipe Fraga, in the No. 74 Riley completing the class podium after Sowery’s late-race crash.

Multimatic Ford, Inception Ferrari Take GT Class Honors

Seb Priaulx held off Albert Costa and Max Hesse to take the GTD Pro win in the No. 64 Multimatic Motorsports Ford Mustang GT3, in an equally hard-fought contest in the top production-based class.

Priaulx and co-driver Mike Rockenfeller took their second class win, in an enduro that saw the pair of Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVOs control the class for much of the middle stages of the race.

The class-winning Mustang GT3 overcame a drive-through penalty for a pit lane infraction to claim the factory Ford Racing squad’s third class victory of the season.

Costa, which finished second in the No. 81 DragonSpeed Ferrari 296 GT3, provisionally closes the margin to championship leaders Alexander Sims and Antonio Garcia to just 18 points heading into next month’s title-deciding Motul Petit Le Mans.

Hesse and class pole-sitter Dan Harper finished third in their No. 48 Paul Miller BMW, while Garcia and Sims were fourth in class, barely preserving their points lead.

The No. 1 Paul Miller BMW of Connor De Phillippi was served with a drive-through penalty on the final lap for contact with the No. 77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R of Laurin Heinrich, who finished seventh.

GTD class honors, meanwhile, went to the No. 70 Inception Racing Ferrari of Frederik Schandorff, Ollie Milroy and Brendan Iribe, their long-awaited first WeatherTech Championship victory.

Schandorff finished 2.276 seconds ahead of second-placed Elliott Skeer in the No. 120 Wright Motorsports Porsche he shared with Adam Adelson and Tom Sargent.

The class points-leading No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Philip Ellis held control of the class until receiving a drive-through penalty for a pit lane speed violation in the final hour, which handed the class lead to Schandorff.

The No. 34 Conquest Racing entry of Daniel Serra put two Ferraris on the GTD podium with a third-place class finish, while Ellis rebounded from the penalty to finish fifth and maintain his and Russell Ward’s points lead heading to Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.

RESULTS: Battle on the Bricks

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John