Porsche Penske Motorsport’s Mathieu Jaminet assumed the lead early on Sunday (May 11) as a result of a short pit situation. He was then able to hold on his teammate Nick Tandy to win the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship TireRack.com Monterey SportsCar Championship with teammate Matt Campbell for their first win of the year.
“I don’t know [how I won this race], to be honest,” Jaminet said. “We didn’t have the perfect start with the small contact with a GT car. We lost some time there and dropped to fifth. It was pretty much flat out from there. At the end, it was really tight with the sister car with the BMW right behind. Not an easy one.”
Campbell and Jaminet’s margin of victory was 1.692 seconds over Tandy and Felipe Nasr. BMW M Team RLL’s Philipp Eng and Dries Vanthoor were third. Sheldon van der Linde and Marco Wittmann were fourth in the second BMW, while Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian’s Renger van der Zande and Nick Yelloly were a lap down in fifth.
BMW M Team RLL’s Dries Vanthoor started from pole for the fourth straight race. In the early laps, Campbell and Nasr were able to easily keep pace with Vanthoor. However, once they got into slower GT traffic, Vanthoor began to drive away.
The advantage was over four seconds at one point before Nasr was able to run Vanthoor back down 40 minutes into the race. At one point, he got alongside Vanthoor for the lead exiting turn 5. Vanthoor was able to fight off the Porsche and briefly put Inception Racing’s Brendan Iribe between himself and Nasr.
A few laps later, Nasr was able to get back up to Vanthoor and made the move to the outside at turn 5 for the lead. This time, he was able to make the move stick.
In the round of stops that followed, Porsche Penske Motorsport chose a split strategy for their Porsche 963s. Campbell pitted early for tires, fuel and a change to Jaminet before Nasr took the lead on the road. With multiple laps on fresh tires, Jaminet ended up with a six-second lead.
Despite a tire disadvantage, Jaminet was able to maintain that advantage over Tandy for the entire second stint of the race. Eng was further back in third.
The final round of stops saw a somewhat similar strategy as Jaminet pitted first, multiple laps prior to Tandy. While Tandy pressed hard in the laps prior to his stop and made up some ground, he gave it back when he exited the pits as he nearly wiped out in the warmup lane inside of turn 2.
Jaminet was able to get back past on the road while Tandy was trying to warm his tires up. By the time Tandy was back up to normal speed, he was six seconds behind once again.
Unlike the second run, Tandy did have a pace advantage over Jaminet. Partially due to lapped traffic, he was able to pull back in on Jaminet over the final run.
With under 10 minutes to go, Jaminet caught Action Express Racing’s Jack Aitken in sixth. He tried to pass the Cadillac, but got squeezed into the dirt.
That move put Tandy right on Jaminet’s tail. It also brought Vanthoor back into the mix.
Ultimately, encountering the slower Lamborghini of Pfaff Motorsports’ Marco Mapelli was all Jaminet needed to take the win. He was able to overtake the Huracan while Tandy did not.
The lapped car gave Vanthoor a chance to go for second in the final turn. The three cars went three-wide into the braking zone and made contact. As a result, Vanthoor slid off the track. He was able to recover and did not lose a spot due to being nearly a minute ahead of fourth-place.
In GTD Pro, DragonSpeed’s Giacomo Altoe started from pole in his Ferrari. However, Laguna Seca is one of the toughest tracks to stay in line on the start. Paul Miller Racing’s Dan Harper switched lanes prior to the start-finish line and was hit with a drive-through penalty for his trouble, ruining his second-place qualifying effort.
Harper being penalized and a quick start meant that Altoe had a three-second lead almost immediately over AO Racing’s Klaus Bachler. As the run continued, Bachler was able to run down Altoe thanks to better tire wear.
During the first round of stops, AO Racing chose to short pit Bachler in order to get Laurin Heinrich into the car earlier and have him out there on fresh tires. The move worked as Heinrich ended up in the class lead with “Roxy” once the stops were complete.
This strategy gave Heinrich a 10-second lead. He was able to maintain that advantage fairly easily for much of the race. As a result, he was never threatened en route to his second straight victory at Laguna Seca.
Bachler and Heinrich’s margin of victory was 8.66 seconds over Altoe and Albert Costa. Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports’ Antonio Garcia and Alexander Sims were third, followed by Mapelli and Andrea Caldarelli. Harper and Max Hesse recovered from their penalty at the start to finish fifth.
Team Korthoff Competition’s Kenton Koch started from his first career GTD pole in his Mercedes. Unlike Altoe, he spent the majority of his time in the car trying to outrun Vasser Sullivan’s Parker Thompson.
Further back, trouble broke out in the pits when DXDT Racing’s Alec Udell brought his Corvette in for full service, including a swap to Robert Wickens. However, Triarsi Competizione’s Stevan McAleer was leaving at the same time that Udell was pitting. Slight contact was made.
As a result, Udell missed his pit, then stalled. Once he got the car restarted, he had to go back around the track because using reverse gear in the pit lane is forbidden. McAleer was forced to serve a drive-through penalty for an unsafe release from his stall. Udell and Wickens would eventually finish 10th while McAleer and Sheena Monk were 11th.
Following the first round of stops, Koch was still out in front, but Thompson was once again pressuring him. This time, Thompson was able to get past and finally get the lead.
Once out front, Thompson was able to pull away by a couple seconds. Further back, The Heart of Racing’s Casper Stevenson capped off a rough couple of days by spinning into the tires in turn 5 after contact from Wright Motorsports’ Elliott Skeer while fighting for third.
Skeer was given a drive-through penalty for the contact. However, Stevenson was also given a drive-through for blocking Skeer. Stevenson and Darren Turner ended up a lap down in 12th, while Skeer and Adam Adelson were sixth.
Koch was able to retake the lead from Thompson prior to the final round of stops. However, Koch’s teammate Seth Lucas is inexperienced at Laguna Seca and dropped down the order.
That allowed Winward Racing’s Philip Ellis to come to the front in the final 45 minutes with Jack Hawksworth giving chase. The pursuit was hot as Hawksworth tried to run down Ellis, but he burned up his tires trying to do it. That allowed Ellis to pull away late to take the win with Russell Ward.
Ellis and Ward’s margin of victory was 5.459 seconds over Hawksworth and Thompson. Conquest Racing’s Manny Franco and Daniel Serra were third in their Ferrari, followed by Koch and Lucas. Forte Racing’s Mario Farnbacher and Misha Goikhberg were fiffth.
IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship TireRack.com Monterey SportsCar Championship Unofficial Results
Next up for WeatherTech teams is Detroit for the GTP and GTD Pro classes. The Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix is scheduled to go green at 3:30 p.m. ET on May 31 with live coverage on Peacock. The GTD class will race next at Watkins Glen International on June 22.
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.