Prototype Championship Fight Tightens With Two Races to Go

Photo: IMSA

Last weekend’s TUDOR United SportsCar Championship round saw the battle for the Prototype championship tighten up, with three driver combinations now within two points of each other heading into the final two races of the season.

VisitFlorida.com Racing’s Richard Westbrook and Michael Valiante, who entered Road America with a seven-point lead, left Wisconsin with it virtually all erased, thanks in part to an early race incident with the eventual race-winning No. 31 Action Express Racing Corvette DP.

“It was really, really disappointing at that stage of the race for the No. 31 to make that sort of move after the restart,” Westbrook said.

“He was completely out of control. It was a terrible move. And me I was trying to avoid his mistake it means I get knocked out for checking up. It is really, really disappointing. The team deserved better.”

Westbrook and Valiante’s fifth place finish, and a 1-2 for the Action Express team, has resulted in defending champions Joao Barbosa and Christian Fittipaldi closing to within a single point of the lead of the championship.

“You never want to finish second but [Sunday] was a great points day in our championship fight,” Barbosa said. “The guys gave us a good car and we were able to close the gap to one point in the standings.

“We’ve faced our share of adversity this season and it was great to have an afternoon where both cars were able to achieve the top steps of the podium.”

Dane Cameron and Eric Curran, who picked up their second win of the season, are also now in the thick of the hunt, only two points behind heading into next month’s penultimate round of the season at Circuit of The Americas.

While it’s unclear which team will take home the title in October, what’s nearly certain is that it will be a Corvette DP, in what’s been a dominant season for the Detroit manufacturer, having collected seven wins in eight races.

“I don’t think you can get much closer than three points,” Barbosa added. “It’s going to go down to the last lap of the last race to see who is going to win the championship.

“It’s going to make it very exciting. It’s going to be very intense.”

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