JDC-Miller MotorSports’ Laurin Heinrich was able to get around Action Express Racing’s Earl Bamber exiting turn 4 on the final lap Sunday (May 3). From there, he was able to hold on to win the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship StubHub Monterey Sportscar Championship with Tijmen van der Helm.
It is Heinrich’s third win of the year after winning Daytona and Sebring with Penske Porsche Motorsport. For van der Helm, it’s his first career victory. For JDC-Miller MotorSports, it’s their first overall victory since Watkins Glen in 2018.
“I knew we had a good car here,” Heinrich told NBC Sports’ Dave Burns in victory lane. “Laguna [Seca’s] one of my best tracks and I love coming here. I’ve won every race I’ve done here. It’s incredible!”
Heinrich and van der Helm’s margin of victory was .758 seconds over Bamber and Jack Aitken. BMW M Team WRT’s Philipp Eng and Marco Wittmann were third, then the Acura of Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian’s Tom Blomqvist and Colin Braun. Teammates Renger van der Zande and Nick Yelloly were fifth.
Wayne Taylor Racing’s Louis Deletraz led the 33-car field to green and was able to assert himself early on. However, Blomqvist ran into trouble on the first lap.
Coming through turn 3, Blomqvist was racing for fifth with The Heart of Racing’s Ross Gunn when slight contact was made. Blomqvist overcorrected, then spun through the gravel and hit the tires. He was able to continue, but lost a bunch of time.
Deletraz’s teammate Filipe Albuquerque continued his tough start to the 2026 season Sunday. 12 minutes in, he cut his left rear tire after contact with Gradient Racing’s Jake Walker. and was forced to pit. Changing the tire put him a lap down, but an additional issue resulted in the No. 10 Cadillac going behind the wall. The car would finish at the rear of the GTP class.
The early portions of the race looked a lot like qualifying did. Aitken was able to run down Deletraz 20 minutes into the race to launch a Cadillac-on-Cadillac battle for the lead.
A few laps later, Deletraz missed his marks in the Andretti Hairpin, allowing Aitken to take the lead. It did not take long for him to pull out a couple of seconds in lapped traffic.
The first round of pit stops split the field up. Some of the prototypes stopped relatively early, while the BMWs ran long.
Once the stops were complete, BMW M Team WRT’s Sheldon van der Linde moved himself into the overall lead, courtesy of a short-fill on his stop. Bamber and Taylor were right on his tail.
The only full course yellow of the race came out 70 minutes in when 13 Autosports’ Matt Bell pulled off course with engine issues in his Corvette. That shook things up.
Everyone came into the pits for their second stop of the day. The varying fuel strategies saw Porsche Penske Motorsport’s Felipe Nasr snatch the lead in his Apple throwback Porsche by taking fuel only
Nasr had Yelloly on his tail after the restart, but was able to hold him off. Towards the end of his run, the tires started to go. When it was time to make his final stop, Nasr had to take tires.
The other leaders when they stopped went for fuel only. The only driver who decided to press his luck and go long was Blomqvist in his Acura. He just needed a caution in order to make it to the finish.
That yellow did not come. As a result, Blomqvist was forced to pit with 15 minutes to go for energy. That gave the lead to Bamber.
Behind the Whelen Cadillac, Wittmann and Heinrich had spent most of the final hour of the race in a fierce battle for position. Just after Blomqvist made his final stop, Heinrich was able to get past with the help of slower traffic.
Once in second, Heinrich was able to run down Bamber in the closing laps thanks to superior pace. The duo battled hard while having to deal with GT traffic.
With a couple of laps to go, there was contact between Bamber and Heinrich that resulted in some damage to the left rear of Bamber’s Cadillac. There was a slight rub that caused the Cadillac to smoke over the final couple of laps.
Heinrich had the faster car and managed to get alongside exiting the Andretti Hairpin on the final lap. He attempted a crossover move exiting turn 3 that Bamber blocked, then he made the pass stick exiting turn 4. From there, he held on for the win.
In GTD Pro, Vasser Sullivan’s Jack Hawksworth led from pole in his Lexus. Behind him, Paul Miller Racing’s Neil Verhagen moved up to second early and began to pressure the veteran.
Hawksworth held onto the lead until the first round of stops, which was a bit elongated as teams only had to go about 31 minutes from the start before they could reach the end on two stops.
Following that round of stops, Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports’ Tommy Milner ended up in the lead. However, he eventually ended up in a bumping match with Pfaff Motorsports’ Sandy Mitchell that resulted in an unscheduled stop for repairs.
Eventually, AO Racing’s Harry King rose to the front in the newest member of the AO family, “Sketchy.” Ben Barnicoat, Alexander Sims and Connor de Phillippi all gave chase.
Towards the end of the race, all four drivers were running low on fuel, but couldn’t really conserve anything since everyone else was right there. As a result, they all had to pit in the final 10 minutes.
That left Ford Racing’s Frederic Vervisch to pick up the pieces and take the lead. From there, Vervisch held on to take the win with Christopher Mies.
Mies and Vervisch’s margin of victory was 1.277 seconds over Milner and Nicky Catsburg. King and Nick Tandy were third, then Sims and Antonio Garcia. Mitchell and Andrea Caldarelli were fifth, the best run for the Lamborghini Temerario GT3 to date.
In GTD, Conquest Racing’s Lorenzo Patrese started from pole in his Ferrari and was able to put a couple of seconds on Danny Formal in the opening laps. The two-second lead that Patrese originally had was short-lived as Formal in the only Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 in the field, ran him back down late in the first run.
Trouble struck after the first pit stop. Albert Costa, who got in the Conquest Ferrari in place of Patrese, had mechanical issues in the engine compartment and was forced to pit from the class lead. After a few minutes, the crew pushed the No. 34 Ferrari behind the wall and out of the race.
That gave the lead to Formal’s teammate, Trent Hindman. The Heart of Racing’s Tom Gamble was right behind. The two ran together until it was time to make their final pit stops.
Both drivers took fuel only and came out effectively nose-to-tail. Meanwhile, Wright Motorsports’ Callum Ilott and van der Steur Racing’s Scott Andrews were trying to go the distance on their fuel. This was something that could not be done without a full course caution.
Ilott and Andrews were forced to stop for fuel with 11 minutes to go. That put Hindman back in the lead. In the time since his stop, he had been able to put three seconds on Gamble. That was more than enough for Hindman and Formal to take the win.
The margin of victory was officially a full lap due to the positioning of the overall winners for Hindman and Formal over Gamble and Eduardo Barrichello. Inception Racing’s Brendan Iribe and Frederik Schandorff were third in their Ferrari, followed by Ilott and Adam Adelson, who still benefitted from going long on fuel. Winward Racing’s Philip Ellis and Russell Ward were fifth.
IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship StubHub Monterey Sportscar Championship Unofficial Results
Next up for WeatherTech teams will be a trip to Detroit. The Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix will be May 30 at 4:10 p.m. ET. Live coverage will air starting at 4 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock.
Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the Frontstretch email 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 Frontstretch 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.