Long Beach Post-Race Notebook

Photo: Brandon Badraoui/IMSA

***Porsche Penske Motorsport maintained its undefeated run in the 2025 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season with Nick Tandy and Felipe Nasr’s third consecutive victory of the season in Saturday’s Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.

***Tandy and Nasr became only the second driver pairing in the modern history of the WeatherTech Championship to win the first three races of the year, after Ricky and Jordan Taylor achieved a five-race win streak to open the 2017 season in their Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R.

***It proved to be another banner day for Porsche, with Laurens Vanthoor, who teamed with Tandy and Nasr for victories at the Rolex 24 at Daytona and Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, coming out victorious in GTD with co-driver Jonny Edgar in a guest Porsche 911 GT3 R entry.

***Porsche factory driver Pascal Wehrlein, meanwhile, won Saturday’s ABB FIA Formula E World Championship Miami E-Prix. The German will join Tandy and Nasr in a third Porsche 963 for the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June.

***Porsche Motorsport boss Thomas Laudenbach, who was on-site at Long Beach, said: “What a banner day for Porsche! I’m incredibly proud of our drivers, the strong teams, our loyal partners, and everyone at our Weissach R&D center who contributed to these successes. Congratulations to our customer team AO Racing on winning the GTD class with the 911 GT3 R. The season can continue like this.”

***Porsche Penske once again executed split strategies in the pits, with the No. 6 car of Mathieu Jaminet and Matt Campbell taking on fresh rear Michelin tires, whereas the race-winning No. 7 Porsche took underwent a driver change and energy only.

***Porsche Penske managing director Jonathan Diuguid added: “The pit work was decisive in our victory today. Thanks to skillful and quick handling, we got both our cars in the lead, which put us in a position to win. In the nail-biting finale, Felipe and Matt delivered superb performances. We’re performing at our peak right now and want to continue that way.”

***It marked the 42nd victory in IMSA competition for Team Penske and its 23rd 1-2 finish for the team.

***Tandy and Nasr extended their points lead over Jaminet and Campbell to 123 points, with BMW M Team RLL’s Dries Vanthoor and Philipp Eng, who scored their first podium finish of the season, currently in third but a hefty 265 points behind after only three races.

***Both the No. 25 BMW and No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 of Tom Blomqvist stayed out for one additional lap during the first yellow flag pit stop that saw all the other GTPs pit for their one-and-only scheduled service. It dropped Marco Wittmann to tenth, although the German rallied to finish fifth.

***Wittmann said: “We were in first and second place in all practices and qualifying, so you naturally expect more than third and fifth places in the race. We made a strategic mistake with the timing of our pit stop during the yellow phase with our number 25, which almost threw us to the back of the GTP field. We need to learn from this and convert the strong pace that the BMW M Hybrid V8 has into top results next time.”

***Earl Bamber and Jack Aitken’s fourth place finish came after the No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac’s seventh place qualifying position was re-instated by IMSA after it was initially disallowed due to working on the car during qualifying. It’s understood the team changed tires during the session, which is allowed in the qualifying regulations.

***Saturday’s race marked Bamber’s 75th IMSA start. The Kiwi will miss the next WeatherTech Championship race at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca due to his FIA World Endurance Championship commitments with Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA. As previously announced, Frederik Vesti will serve as Bamber’s sub.

***Fellow Cadillac squad Wayne Taylor Racing had another race to forget, with sixth and seventh place finishes. “Unfortunately, I feel like we’re just a half a step behind each time we go on track, and every time we leave the track we say we wish we had one more session,” said Ricky Taylor. “I think that was the case again this weekend.”

***Both of the MSR Acuras finished behind the eighth-place finishing Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Valkyrie of Ross Gunn and Roman De Angelis, which had the car’s best outing to date in GTP/Hypercar competition.

***It was reported that the No. 60 MSR car of Colin Braun lost a wheel on the cool down lap.

***The No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 of Jack Hawksworth and Parker Thompson scored first-place points due to the class-winning No. 177 AO Racing Porsche being a one-off entry.

***Laurens Vanthoor credited the team’s decision to double stint its Michelin tires as key to GTD class victory, which saw the AO Porsche leapfrog from third to first following the green flag pit sequence.

***Vanthoor said: “We’d put a plan in place before the race, which worked brilliantly. We didn’t mount new [tires] during the pit stop, but we had the advantage of still-warm tires on the out lap, which meant we could fend off the competition.”

***Winward Racing, which finished fourth in class but scored second-placed points as a result of the No. 89 Vasser Sullivan Lexus also being a guest entry, continues to lead the GTD standings with Russell Ward and Philip Ellis, who now hold a 91-point advantage over Hawksworth and Thompson.

***Hawksworth said: “In terms of a points day, it was really good… The first half of the race was going really well and then we just were on the wrong side of the strategy there. We pitted too early, ended up in the prototype traffic and then they had clean air and were able to put in a couple laps and jump out ahead of us. I tried to put him under pressure for a while there.”

***The No. 34 Conquest Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 was the race’s only retirement after Manny Franco sustained left-front damage early in the running of the 100-minute race, which featured two full course cautions.

***Next up for WeatherTech Championship competitors is the Monterey SportsCar Championship at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca on May 9-11, where GTD Pro class cars will rejoin the series alongside GTP and GTD.

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