Long Beach IMSA: Nasr, Derani dominate in Cadillac 1-2-3

DPi

AXR’s Felipe Nasr converted his pole position into the lead ahead of Chip Ganassi Racing’s Cadillac driven by Kevin Magnussen while Filipe Albuquerque in the Wayne Taylor Racing Acura ARX-05 managed to break up the Caddy 1-2-3 by moving up to third ahead of Loic Duval in the JDC Miller MotorSports machine.

Magnussen muscled past the AXR car with an opportunistic move at the Fountain turn on Lap 8 as they came up to lap John Potter in the GTD Acura NSX, but Nasr stayed on the Ganassi car gearbox and down to Turn 1 on Lap 10, Magnussen slightly missed his braking point, scraped the tire wall and the concrete wall, allowing the #31 Whelen Engineering-sponsored car back in front. That left debris on the track, prompting a caution flag and leaving Magnussen without a right-side wing mirror or a right-rear fender.

The restart on Lap 13 went without incident, and Magnussen’s visibly injured car didn’t appear to be lacking much pace, able to stay within two seconds of Nasr. In fact, it was Albuquerque holding up Duval creating a highly entertaining battle for third, until Duval used GTD traffic at the final hairpin to nip past on entry and then outaccelerate the WTR Acura behind.

This pair had been dropping Dane Cameron – who pitted the Meyer Shank Racing Acura for fuel and tires on Lap 19 – and the Mazda RT24-P of Oliver Jarvis, but now Jarvis closed up on the demoted WTR car to battle for fourth.

At the 40mins down/1hr-to-go mark, Nasr held a 5sec lead over Magnussen, with Duval another seven seconds down but already 15sec ahead of the Albuquerque/Jarvis battle.

With 48mins to go, Nasr pitted to hand off to Pipo Derani, who emerged in front of the off-strategy MSR Acura of Cameron but within a couple of corners was demoted to second. This was of no consequence to AXR of course, which was four seconds ahead of the Ganassi Cadillac which was now steered by Renger van der Zande, who had nine seconds on Tristan Vautier who had replaced Duval. R

Ricky Taylor now piloted the WTR Acura and that car’s battle with the Mazda had been rejoined, although now with Harry Tincknell driving the Multimatic machine.

The second stop for the MSR car saw Cameron hand off to Olivier Pla, and rejoined sixth but with no fuel worries. This could work out well… unless another yellow aided the five rivals ahead.

In the closing 25mins, Derani looked serene up front, 8.5sec ahead of the opposition, but Van der Zande was only one second ahead of Vautier. Well over half a minute back, Taylor had pulled 5sec on Tincknell who was 11sec ahead of Pla.

With 16mins to go, however, van der Zande got within six seconds of Derani and had now pulled four seconds on Vautier.

On Lap 68, Pla, while lapping the GTLM Corvette of Garcia who was passing the GTD Ferrari of Braun, tried to get back onto the racing line for Turn 1 before he had fully cleared the ’Vette. He squeezed the two GT cars together and then spun himself down the escape road. He would limp the MSR car back to the pits with heavy damage to the rear.

Derani eventually won by 11sec ahead of van der Zande, with Vautier five seconds down but completing a Cadillac 1-2-3.

GT Le Mans

Jordan Taylor maintained the #3 Corvette C8.R’s advantage over its sister car piloted by Tommy Milner from the drop of the green with Cooper MacNeil running third in the WeatherTech Racing Porsche 911 RSR.

On Lap 36, Milner passed Taylor for the lead in class, and following their pitstops to hand off to Nick Tandy and Antonio Garcia respectively, the #4 remained ahead.

Despite the assault from Pla, Garcia was able to hang on to claim second at the checkers, but Milner and Tandy deserved their victory.

GT Daytona

Madison Snow’s polesitting Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini Huracan had to hold off Robby Foley’s Turner Motorsports BMW M6 right from the start, with Richard Heistand in the Carbahn Peregrine Audi R8, Zacharie Robichon in the Pfaff Porsche, Trent Hindman’s Wright Porsche 911 GT3 R and Aaron Telitz of Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus giving chase.

On Lap 16, Foley missed the apex at Turn 8 and nosed heavily into the tires, falling to 12^th in class. That left Heistand 2.5sec adrift of Snow, who had a second deficit to Robichon.

The Grasser Racing Team Lambo of Misha Goikhberg struck a wall, just as the GTD fuel window opened, triggering a flurry of stops. When the order shook out, Bryan Sellers had kept the PMR Lambo in the lead, but Telitz had delivered some hot in-laps, allowing co-driver Jack Hawksworth to emerge second in the #14 Lexus, albeit 9sec down on the leading Lambo

Behind them, Heistand’s co-driver Jeff Westphal dived down the inside of Laurens Vanthoor who was now steering the Pfaff Porsche, and tagged the rear of the Wright Porsche now driven by Pat Long, but fortunately all he did was help the #16 car pivot on exit, and Long retained third, with Westphal still in fourth.

Colin Braun had taken over the the Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 from Daniel Mancinelli and was running fifth, just ahead of Vanthoor. However, as Long battled to pass Hawksworth for second on Lap 45 – the pair of them now 14sec behind Sellers – behind them Vanthoor and Braun got around Westphal to push the Audi down to sixth.

In fact, Vanthoor closed on the tail of fellow Porsche driver Long, and claimed third on Lap 48, before setting off to try and zap Hawksworth. Leader Sellers wouldn’t be caught without the aid of a caution period.

Vanthoor finally passed Hawksworth with seven minutes to go for second, and Long took only another couple of minutes to also pass the Vasser Sullivan-run car to claim third.

Behind them, Braun made a splash n dash, ensuring Westphal would claim fifth, and the Heart of Racing Aston Martin would take sixth.

Sellers crossed the line 11sec to the good, to score PMR Lamborghini’s first win since the 2020 Rolex 24 Hours (fact courtesy of IMSA Radio).

Cla	Class	Driver	Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap	Retirement	Pits
1	DPi	Felipe Nasr Pipo Derani	Cadillac DPi	78	1:40'46.781			2
2	DPi	Renger van der Zande Kevin Magnussen	Cadillac DPi	78	1:40'57.733	10.952		2
3	DPi	Tristan Vautier Loic Duval	Cadillac DPi	78	1:41'02.650	15.869		2
4	DPi	Ricky Taylor Filipe Albuquerque	Acura DPi	78	1:41'37.347	50.566		2
5	DPi	Oliver Jarvis Harry Tincknell	Mazda DPi	78	1:41'59.966	1'13.185		2
6	GTLM	Tommy Milner Nick Tandy	Corvette C8.R	75	1:41'11.579	3 Laps		2
7	GTLM	Antonio Garcia Jordan Taylor	Corvette C8.R	75	1:41'12.330	3 Laps		2
8	GTLM	Cooper MacNeil Mathieu Jaminet	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	74	1:41'05.788	4 Laps		2
9	GTD	Bryan Sellers Madison Snow	Lamborghini Huracan GT3	73	1:41'17.351	5 Laps		2
10	GTD	Zacharie Robichon Laurens Vanthoor	Porsche 911 GT3 R	73	1:41'28.431	5 Laps		2
11	GTD	Patrick Long Trent Hindman	Porsche 911 GT3 R	73	1:41'28.817	5 Laps		2
12	GTD	Aaron Telitz Jack Hawksworth	Lexus RC F GT3	73	1:41'36.907	5 Laps		2
13	GTD	Richard Heistand Jeff Westphal	Audi R8 LMS GT3	73	1:41'38.706	5 Laps		2
14	GTD	Roman De Angelis Ross Gunn	Aston Martin Vantage GT3	73	1:41'39.288	5 Laps		2
15	GTD	Steven Aghakhani Jacob Eidson	Mercedes-AMG GT3	73	1:42'00.210	5 Laps		2
16	GTD	Till Bechtolsheimer Marc Miller	Acura NSX GT3	73	1:42'00.768	5 Laps		2
17	GTD	Rob Ferriol Katherine Legge	Porsche 911 GT3 R	72	1:41'02.069	6 Laps		3
18	GTD	Colin Braun Daniel Mancinelli	Ferrari 488 GT3	72	1:41'09.858	6 Laps		3
19	GTD	Matt McMurry Mario Farnbacher	Acura NSX GT3	72	1:41'22.181	6 Laps		2
20	GTD	Ian James Alex Riberas	Aston Martin Vantage GT3	72	1:41'27.372	6 Laps		2
21	GTD	Frankie Montecalvo Zach Veach	Lexus RC F GT3	72	1:41'28.059	6 Laps		3
22	GTD	John Potter Andy Lally	Acura NSX GT3	71	1:41'05.891	7 Laps		2
23	GTD	Kyle Washington James Sofronas	Porsche 911 GT3 R	70	1:41'57.645	8 Laps		2
24	GTD	Bill Auberlen Robby Foley	BMW M6 GT3	69	1:41'15.083	9 Laps		3
25	DPi	Dane Cameron Olivier Pla	Acura DPi	68	1:30'45.786	10 Laps	Retirement	4
26	GTD	Mikhail Goikhberg Franck Perera	Lamborghini Huracan GT3	25	36'33.246	53 Laps	Retirement	2
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