Prototype
It was a breakthrough win achieved at a breakneck pace, caution-free and milestone-marked. The team of Ed Brown and Johannes van Overbeek tamed a field of Prototypes, co-driving their No. 2 Tequila Patrón HPD ARX-03b/Honda to victory in the Continental Tire Grand Prix of Monterey powered by Mazda on Sunday – the first victory for a P2 Prototype in the inaugural TUDOR United SportsCar Championship.
This was significant – and fast, with the winners posting an average speed of 97.318 mph in the two-hour race on the 11-turn, 2.238-mile road course.
Brown and van Overbeek won the second of two races Sunday at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, featuring the TUDOR Championship’s Prototype (P) and GT Le Mans (GTLM) classes.
Sunday’s breakthrough win for the No. 2 came on the heels of an “adjustment of performance” made by IMSA that lessened horsepower capabilities for the Daytona Prototypes, which had won the season’s first three races.
Van Overbeek took the lead for good with 15 minutes remaining when he passed No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP driver Jordan Taylor in Turn 3. Taylor and his brother Ricky finished second; finishing third were Memo Rojas and Scott Pruett, in the No. 01 Telcel Ford EcoBoost/Riley.
Prototype Challenge
Sunday’s opening race in the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship doubleheader at the Continental Tire Monterey Grand Prix presented by Mazda featured a dominating victory in the Prototype Challenge (PC) class by Starworks Motorsport.
In the race combining the PC and GT Daytona (GTD) classes at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, Renger van der Zande brought Starworks’ No. 8 ORECA FLM09 home 12.234 seconds in front of the second-place No. 25 8Star Motorsports ORECA FLM09 of Sean Rayhall.
Rayhall had gotten reasonably close to van der Zande, but spun in Turn 10 with 11 minutes remaining.
Schultis started the No. 8 and ran 41 minutes, remarkably surviving an early-race incident in Turn 8 with the No. 54 CORE autosport entry of Jon Bennett, who co-leads the championship standings with co-drive Colin Braun.
Van der Zande would grab the lead with 23 minutes remaining, when the pole-sitting No. 09 entry driven by Bruno Junqueira of RSR Racing pitted for tires and fuel. Aside from Rayhall’s temporary challenge, it was routine from there.
GT Le Mans
Corvette Racing completed a California sweep Sunday, with Antonio Garcia and Jan Magnussen driving the No. 3 Chevrolet Corvette C7.R to its second consecutive TUDOR United SportsCar Championship victory, winning the Continental Tire Monterey Grand Prix powered by Mazda at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.
Garcia passed Giancarlo Fisichella’s No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari F458 Italia for the GT Le Mans (GTLM) class lead with 21 minutes remaining and drove to a 4.710-second victory ahead of Bill Auberlen in the No. 55 BMW Team RLL BMW Z4 GTE. Garcia and co-driver Magnussen scored the first TUDOR Championship victory for the Corvette C7.R one race ago at the Long Beach street circuit.
While Garcia cruised to victory, an intense battle ensued between the No. 55 BMW Team RLL BMW Z4 GTE of Bill Auberlen and the No. 911 Porsche North America Porsche 911 RSR of Nick Tandy for second.
After both cars found their way past Fisichella, the battle led to contact between Tandy and Auberlen on the second-to-last lap, forcing Auberlen off course. Despite the incident on the prior lap, Auberlen caught back up to Tandy and got past in the final turn to take second place.
After a review by IMSA officials, the No. 911 team received a post-race “stop, plus 60-second” penalty for the contact, moving the car to ninth and the No. 62 Ferrari of Fisichella and Pierre Kaffer to third.
GT Daytona
A would-be race for second wound up being the battle for the win in the GT Daytona (GTD) class in the Continental Tire Monterey Grand Prix powered by Mazda after the GT Daytona class-leading Audi R8 LMS of Spencer Pumpelly ran out of fuel coming out of the famed Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca Corkscrew on the final lap of Sunday’s two-hour race.
Pumpelly’s misfortune played right into the hands of Dane Cameron in the No. 94 Turner Motorsport BMW Z4 started by Markus Palttala. Cameron held off a hard-charging Christopher Haase in the final corner to pick up the win. Meanwhile, Pumpelly stopped approximately 100 yards short of the start-finish line for a heartbreaking sixth-place finish.
Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Fueled by Fresh From Florida GTD winners Andy Lally and John Potter finished third in the No. 44 Magnus Racing Porsche 911 GT America.
An early-race spin forced Turner Motorsport to alter its pit strategy and top off its fuel with one hour remaining, giving them more than enough fuel to make it the distance. The same could not be said for Pumpelly who took the lead on the first round of pit stops and quickly went into fuel conversation mode, saving fuel for much of his one-hour, 17-minute stint.
