Bamber Hails Detroit Win As ‘One of Those Special Weekends’

Photo: Mike Levitt/IMSA

Earl Bamber has hailed Action Express Racing’s dominant victory in Saturday’s Chevrolet Detroit Sports Car Classic as “one of those special weekends.”

Bamber, who topped two of the three practice sessions, converted his pole into victory in the No. 31 Cadillac V-Series.R that he shared with Jack Aitken, marking the first win for Cadillac on the downtown Detroit street circuit in the car and team’s third attempt.

The duo combined to lead 73 of the 82-lap race, in one of the most commanding performances in recent IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship history.

Bamber, who started the 100-minute contest, bridged out into an early lead over the No. 93 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 of Nick Yelloly, who along with Renger van der Zande, were seeking their third consecutive street course win.

However, the Whelen Engineering-sponsored car appeared to be in a class of its own, with Aitken having opened up as much as a 15-second lead prior to a series of two late-race yellows.

Ultimately, the margin of victory was 6.023 seconds over the second-placed No. 25 Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8.

Bamber credited the work behind the scenes in having been able to unload with a car already within the window.

“When we’ve got such an amazing car it makes it a lot easier,” he said. “But there’s a huge amount of work going on behind the scenes.

“The simulator work, the tire correlation stuff we do with Michelin. It’s paying dividends.

“I think I spent 60 days last year in the sim. When we can roll out on track and the car matches, we can do a lot of pre work and that shows at these sort of tracks.

“It’s through all the hard work, which also is going on at the [GM] tech center as well.

“We just get to execute on a weekend like this and get the glory on the podium, but there’s a whole army of people behind us that make it happen too.

“It was one of those special weekends.”

Aitken and Bamber scored their first WeatherTech Championship victory of the season after finishing on the podium in every race this season.

It also resulted in Aitken taking over the GTP points lead, by a commanding 144 points over Laurin Heinrich, heading into the midpoint of the GTP season.

“It’s a win we’ve been searching for for a while,” said Aitken. “Since this program started, with Detroit being the home for all of GM and so many of the people in the program, it was very meaningful.

“We’ve come close with podiums but to get the win on the same day the Corvette managed to the same, it’s pretty overwhelming but amazing.

“I’m very grateful to have the team around me that I do. From Earl, who was just incredible with his pace this weekend, from his pole position to handing me the car in the lead.

“It made my life very easy, which is nice. But the car was very, very impressive.”

Aitken echoed Bamber’s sentiments on being able to capitalize on pre-race prep, but also said a significant amount of work was done during the weekend itself.

“The nature of this circuit, like a lot of street circuits, when you find your rhythm and you’re in it from early on in the weekend, you can’t really take your foot off the gas at all,” he said.

“It was a very satisfying weekend because we kept working between every session to keep improving the car, from the driving side, trying to improve everything we can as well.

“That translated into a fantastic performance. But we were working hard all the way through. There was no cruising because on a track like this, when you start to ease up, it can bite you quite quickly.”

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