The No. 6 Porsche 963 has been stripped of its third place finish in the Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway following IMSA’s extended post-race technical inspections, while the No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 has also been penalized.
Mathieu Jaminet and Nick Tandy had finished third in the six-hour Michelin Endurance Cup round at The Brickyard, behind the pair of BMW M Hybrid V8s.
However, IMSA announced on Thursday that both the No. 6 Porsche as well as the No. 40 Acura of Louis Deletraz and Jordan Taylor have been moved to the back of the class.
This came in the wake of extended post-race technical inspections, which had seen IMSA impound seven out of 11 GTP cars that had taken part in the race, including the race-winning No. 24 BMW.
During the inspections, it was discovered that the No. 6 Porsche had modifications to its wiring harness/loom that were outside of homologation, while the No. 40 Acura had modified components of the brake ducting system that were also outside of homologation.
As a result, the two cars were moved to tenth and 11th in class respectively, with Porsche and Acura each receiving a $10,000 USD fine.
A statement from Porsche, issued on Thursday in response to the penalty, read: “During the additional post-race scrutineering of the PPM No. 6 entry, a minor technical difference to the homologation documents was identified by IMSA technical staff.
“This technical difference has not led to a performance advantage. IMSA has applied a penalty to the No. 6 PPM entry which moves it to the back of class, losing the 3rd place finishing position. Porsche takes note of the decision.”
The penalty for the No. 6 Porsche is particularly significant with regards to the championship battle in GTP.
By finishing third at Indianapolis, Jaminet and Tandy had managed to close the gap to Porsche Penske Motorsport stablemates Dane Cameron and Felipe Nasr to just 14 points.
With the penalty applied, the points deficit grows to 124 points, giving Cameron and Nasr a significantly larger advantage heading into next month’s season-ending Motul Petit Le Mans.