Foley Left in “Disbelief” After Late-Race GTP Contact

Photo: Jake Galstad/IMSA

Robby Foley was left in “disbelief” after contact with a GTP car ultimately knocked him out of a likely win on Turner Motorsport’s record-starting race with BMW.

The BMW factory driver was leading the GTD class of Sunday’s Motul Course de Monterey presented by Hyundai N until side-to-side contact in Turn 4 in the closing minutes with the No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 of Jordan Taylor resulted in Foley’s BMW running off-course with less than five minutes remaining.

It handed the class lead and eventual win to the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Philip Ellis.

“Obviously, hugely disappointed with the last two laps of the race,” Foley told Sportscar365. “The 40 car was not really racing anybody and I had P2 right behind me.

“I was trying to defend a little bit not to lose time and then he got next to me to Turn 4, and I think he was annoyed that I defended a little bit before and he just never turned in and I got in the marbles.

“I even broke early, checked up and tried to tuck under him, but I’m not sure what happened there. I have to watch it again, but I was definitely on the aggressive side trying to keep him behind me just to say, ‘Hey, give me a second here. I’m racing.’

“So hugely unfortunate, but still P2 after that.”

Foley said he was glad to be able to salvage a second-place class finish in the car started by Patrick Gallagher.

“When I was in the sand, I was like, ‘Oh no, we’re going to go backwards here,’ but still going to salvage second. Yeah, disbelief for a second,” he said.

“Then you got to focus forward and you got to try to finish the race.

“Turn 5 was super sketchy. I had sand on the tires the next half lap was sketchy.

“It stinks. The guys deserved to win today. We had a great weekend, great car, but good points second’s still solid and try to keep this momentum going.”

The Will Turner-led team was making its 557th start in BMW machinery in Sunday’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race, breaking Schnitzer Motorsport as the team with the most starts in the German manufacturer’s equipment worldwide.

Turner said: “It was shaping up to be a great day for our 557th race, and we wanted to make it count. Unfortunately, this was one of the worst second place finishes we’ve had.

“We got to the lead and everything was going great until a prototype ruined our day with some contact and we got passed, but it’s not a reflection on the team or the drivers – we did great leading up to that. But that’s IMSA multi-class racing, and anything can happen.

“It’s disappointing but I’m happy for the guys because second place gives us good points.”

Foley and Gallagher leave WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca second in the season-long GTD points standings, 213 points behind Winward’s Ellis and Russell Ward, who picked up their third class victory out of four races this season.

Jonathan Grace contributed to this report

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