DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — GEBHARDT Interlogistics Motorsports’ Valentino Catalano overcame an off-course excursion to take his second straight IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge victory Sunday (Jan. 19) at Daytona International Speedway. Of the 47 laps of racing this weekend in the series, Catalano led all but one of them.
“It was good. I was really happy with my car,” Catalano told Frontstretch after the race. “The situation was really tricky. It was wet in the beginning. The grip was there, then the track dried up. With the new rain tires, the grip was going down and down all the time [which] made the track worse and worse.”
Catalano won by 2.273 seconds over teammate Markus Pommer. MLT Motorsports’ Jonathan Woolridge was third, then Forte Racing’s Brian Thienes and Jon Hirshberg.
The start of the race was delayed by a few minutes due to heavy rains that resulted in the previous IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship session getting cutoff early. By virtue of the fastest second-best lap in qualifying Saturday morning, Catalano once again started on pole.
LMP3 cars are historically tricky in the wet. They do not have an anti-lock braking system and a much more rudimentary version of traction control as compared to the GTDX and GSX cars.
Catalano led until he slid off the track in the International Horseshoe. He later explained that this was the moment where the grip started to go away.
That gave the lead to Pommer. However, Pommer locked up his brakes at turn 6 and slid off, giving Catalano the lead back. While Pommer did not slide into the tires, he had to back up in order to continue. As a result, he ended up falling back to fifth overall.
Shortly afterwards, MishuMotors’ Mirco Schultis slid off-course and hit the tires in the International Horseshoe to bring out a full course yellow. Schultis was ok, but done for the day.
In GTDX, AF Corse’s AJ Muss started from pole in his Ferrari. Adam Adelson, who dominated the class in Race No. 1 Saturday afternoon, was alongside and giving chase. The two drivers dueled hard on the first lap before Adelson swept past in the Le Mans chicane and trapped Muss behind Mirco Schultis’ LMP3 car.
On the third lap of the race, Muss spun out in turn 1, dropping him well down the order. The incident dropped him well down the order.
GMG Racing’s Kyle Washington inherited second, but was quite a distance behind Adelson. When the caution came out for Schultis’ crash, Adelson was fourth overall.
After the restart, Pommer made short work of Adelson, but he was able to pull away from the rest of the GTDX class. From there, he was able to conserve his time and take the win in fifth overall.
Adelson’s margin of victory was 26.324 seconds over AF Corse’s Matias Perez Companc. Muss was able to get back to third after his spin, then Washington and Samantha Tan.
RAFA Racing Team’s Kiko Porto, who won in GSX on Saturday, started from the pole in his Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO2. However, Steven Clemons was able to take the lead on the first lap once again as Porto dropped all the way back to sixth
This time, Clemons was unable to run away. Stephen Cameron Racing’s Greg Liefooghe was able to keep tabs on the Supra, then took the lead away in the chicane.
Things looked good for Liefooghe for a moment. Then, he was given a drive-through penalty for jumping the initial start of the race. That gave Clemons the lead back once Liefooghe pitted.
Unlike Saturday, this was a far more competitive race. Porto had an incredible restart and ran down Clemons. It did not take long for Porto to get the lead back.
However, that restart was too good. He jumped it and copped a 10-second post-race penalty.
That penalty ultimately didn’t matter as Porto was able to get a couple of LMP3s and one of the GTDX cars between himself and Czabok Simpson Racing’s Jackson Lee. From there, he drove away far enough so that the penalty could not prevent him from taking the weekend sweep.
Porto beat Lee by 21.283 seconds. With the penalty, the official margin of victory is 11.283 seconds. Porto’s teammate Ian Porter finished third and won the GSX Bronze Cup. Justin Di Benedetto was fourth, while Liefooghe got back to fifth after his penalty.
IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge: Daytona Race No. 2 Results
VP Racing SportsCar Challenge teams are off for the next five weeks. Next up will be Circuit of the Americas, where they will race on the undercard of the NASCAR Cup Series EchoPark Texas Grand Prix. Race No. 1 will be on Feb. 28 and will be streamed live on Peacock.
Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the site's FREE e-mail newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the site's Sports Car racing editor.
Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as the Super DIRTcar Series.