BMW M Team RLL Takes Strategic Road America 1-2 Win

Photo: Jake Galstad/IMSA

BMW M Team RLL scored a strategic 1-2 finish in Sunday’s Motul SportsCar Grand Prix at Road America, keeping their IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTP title hopes alive following an incident-filled race.

Philipp Eng drove the No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8 to a 2.524-second win over teammate Marco Wittmann in the No. 25 entry after both cars made green-flag final pit stops with one hour to go.

The race’s fifth full-course caution for a spin by the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Series.R of Ricky Taylor, after contact by Nick Tandy, saw the two BMWs remain on track and all other GTP cars pit under the yellow.

Eng and Wittmann moved into the top two positions and took the restart with 37 minutes to go, where they cruised to the team and manufacturer’s first win of the season.

While it was Eng’s second career GTP victory, it marked co-driver Dries Vanthoor’s maiden class win.

Sheldon van der Linde, who started the No. 25 BMW in second, meanwhile, earned his best-ever WeatherTech Championship result of second.

The pole-sitting No. 93 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 of Renger van der Zande and Nick Yelloly completed the podium after a move by van der Zande on the two Porsche Penske Motorsport entries on the race’s final restart.

Tandy in the No. 7 Penske Porsche took the restart in third but was passed by teammate Mathieu Jaminet before the Englishman was handed a stop-and-hold plus 60-second penalty for incident responsibility with the No. 10 WTR Cadillac.

Earl Bamber got around Jaminet in the closing ten minutes to give the No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac a fourth place result.

Jaminet and co-driver Matt Campbell, meanwhile, completed the top-five in GTP, which saw their points lead increase to 75 over Tandy and Felipe Nasr, who were classified 22nd overall and 11th in class.

The No. 23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Valkyrie of Ross Gunn and Roman De Angelis finished sixth, the best result for the car to date in top-class prototype competition.

Seventh went to the No. 60 MSR Acura of Colin Braun and Tom Blomqvist, which was forced to serve a drive-through for a pit lane infraction.

The No. 10 WTR Cadillac of Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque recovered to come home eighth, ahead of the sister No. 40 machine of Jordan Taylor and Louis Deletraz.

LMP2 class honors for the second consecutive race went to the No. 99 AO Racing Oreca 07 Gibson of Dane Cameron and PJ Hyett, who took over the points lead as a result of an opening lap accident by championship leader Daniel Goldburg.

Goldburg spun in Turn 3 after slight contact with the No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR entry of George Kurtz, which was deemed a racing incident, and took the No. 22 United Autosports Oreca out of contention.

Hyett led through the majority of his opening stint before handing over to Cameron for the run to the flag.

Cameron finished 4.176 seconds ahead of the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition Oreca of super sub Connor De Phillippi and Jeremy Clarke.

Mikkel Jensen got around Felipe Fraga on the second-to-last lap to complete the class podium in the No. 11 TDS Racing entry. Fraga and Riley co-driver Gar Robinson was classified 11th in class after slowing on the final lap.

BMW Doubles Up With GTD Pro Win for Paul Miller Racing

A late-race pit stop for the No. 77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R handed the GTD Pro class win to the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Neil Verhagen and Madison Snow in a rough-and-tumble race in the two production-based classes.

Laurin Heinrich, who appeared to have been hoping for several late-race yellows, dived into the pits for energy with 14 minutes to go, handing the lead and eventual class win to Verhagen, who picked up his first series victory.

The No. 64 Multimatic Motorsports Ford Mustang GT3 of Seb Priaulx and Mike Rockenfeller was second in class, followed by the No. 81 DragonSpeed Ferrari 296 GT3 of Albert Costa and class pole-sitter Giacomo Altoe.

Antonio Garcia made a comeback drive to finish fourth in class in the No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R., which was in the Turn 1 gravel trap after contact from the No. 48 Paul Miller BMW of Dan Harper, who spun Alexander Sims to bring out the race’s fourth yellow on a restart.

Harper was handed a drive-through penalty for incident responsibility.

Sims and Garcia remain in the class championship lead but now only 30 points ahead of DragonSpeed’s Costa with three races to go.

The class saw a significant amount of contact and incidents, and subsequent penalties for a number of contenders.

The No. 4 Corvette of Nicky Catsburg stopped on track near the Turn 4 cut-out in the final ten minutes with apparent damage following contact from the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 of Andrea Caldarelli, which resulted in a drive-through penalty to the Canadian squad.

Kenton Koch made a late-race pass around Alec Udell to give Triarsi Competizione its maiden win in the GTD class, meanwhile.

Koch took his No. 021 Ferrari to a 1.168-second win over the No. 78 Forte Racing Lamborghini of Mario Farnbacher after Udell, in the car he shared with Robert Wickens, slowed on the final lap.

It marked Koch’s co-driver, Onofrio Triarsi’s first career WeatherTech Championship win.

The No. 34 Conquest Racing of Manny Franco and Daniel Serra completed the class podium in third, in the wild second half of the race.

RESULTS: Motul SportsCar Grand Prix

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