Lime Rock Post-Race Notebook

Photo: Jake Galstad/IMSA

***Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet have extended their GTD Pro championship lead over the Corvette Racing pairing of Jordan Taylor and Antonio Garcia to 215 points following the fourth victory of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season for the Pfaff Motorsports Porsche pairing.

***The No. 9 Porsche 911 GT3 R won 50 years after Bob Bailey and Jim Locke co-drove a Porsche 911S to the first IMSA-sanctioned win at the Connecticut circuit. “That is cool to win with Porsche 50 years after a Porsche won the first IMSA race here,” said Campbell.

***Bailey served as grand marshal for the event, while Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal gave the call to to start engines to kick off Saturday’s FCP Euro Northeast Grand Prix.

***Corvette’s Garcia and Taylor finished fourth in class and 12th overall after contact between the No. 3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R and the No. 79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Jules Gounon that resulted in right-rear suspension damage to Garcia’s car. The car lost five laps in the pits undergoing repairs.

***The Spaniard said the incident “didn’t make any sense” to him. “When you are on mixed strategy with everyone and everyone is defending from you, it didn’t make any sense there,” Garcia said. “Could I have been more patient? Maybe, but I wasn’t here to finish second again or third. It was time to go.”

***Aston Martin has surpassed Chevrolet in the GTD Pro manufacturers standings, thanks to Alex Riberas and Ross Gunn’s runner-up finish on Saturday in the No. 23 The Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3. The British automaker now trails Porsche by 201 points with three rounds remaining.

***The WeatherTech Mercedes — running in GTD for the first time this season — was demoted to a seventh place class result after Gounon was deemed responsible for an incident with the No. 16 Wright Motorsports Porsche of Jan Heylen with three laps to go.

***A total of 23 seconds was added to the car’s elapsed time, equivalent to a drive-through penalty. Gounon initially crossed the line fifth in class.

***The Frenchman — in his Lime Rock Park debut — set the race’s fastest lap, a 51.733-second lap, breaking the previous record set by Campbell from 2019.

***The No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 of Frankie Montecalvo and Aaron Telitz appeared to be en route to GTD class win until a late-race yellow and restart that saw contact with the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Philip Ellis result in damage to the hood of the Lexus, requiring Telitz to stop for repairs.

***Montecalvo had started on GTD pole for the second consecutive race. “It’s our luck lately,” he said. “We had a race win with a 16 second lead over P2 and then the yellow came out and bunched it up and then we got taken out on the restart. It’s really frustrating.”

***Stevan McAleer maintained his points lead in GTD, thanks to a fourth place class finish for he and co-driver Mike Skeen. Skeen benefitted from Ellis suffering from a fuel pump failure on the final lap while in the class lead that handed the win to the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 of Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow.

***Sellers and Snow, meanwhile, now have a 212-point advantage over second-placed Roman De Angelis in the WeatherTech Sprint Cup standings, which will conclude next month at Virginia International Raceway.

***The No. 51 Rick Ware Racing Acura NSX GT3 Evo22’s day ended early when Ryan Eversley slid wide on the final corner and made contact with the tire barriers, bringing out the race’s only full course caution with 21 minutes to go. Eversley said he and co-driver Aidan Read were battling brake and tire issues from the start of the race.

***Two of the three BMWs failed to finish, with both Turner Motorsport and BMW M Team RLL citing “technical issues” to their cars. Both cars appeared to have been down on power before being pulled behind the wall.

***Michelin North America director of motorsports Tony Ménard was given a big send-off by the IMSA paddock, with the Frenchman waving the green flag for Saturday’s Michelin Pilot Challenge race and was also presented with an IMSA firesuit by series’ president John Doonan pre-race.

***Lime Rock was Ménard’s final race in his capacity, with Jason Anzalone to take over the role beginning on Aug. 1.

***After winning on Saturday, Pfaff drivers Campbell and Jaminet traveled to New York City to take in the second and final day of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship in Brooklyn on Sunday. The Porsche factory pilots were guests of the German manufacturer and enjoyed the full ‘VIP’ experience, including driving the all-electric Porsche Taycan Turbo S in demonstration laps.

***All five WeatherTech Championship classes will be back in action in the next round at Road America on Aug. 4-7.

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