Corvette drivers Antonio Garcia and Jan Magnussen extended their IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship points lead with victory in the GT-only contest at Virginia.
Garcia benefitted from a late puncture for the Alexander Sims/Bill Auberlen BMW M6, which led much of the 2 hour 40 minute contest.
After muscling into the lead at the start from second on the grid, Sims surged into a 19 second cushion over the chasing pack heading into the first round of pit stops on 50 minutes.
A solid middle stint from Auberlen maintained the healthy advantage, before Sims took over for the run to the flag.
The Briton was leading comfortably when his BMW began to suffer from the effects of a left-front puncture with 12 minutes remaining, which allowed Garcia to slip through and take an unexpected win.
The result marked Garcia and Magnussen's third victory of the season, and their first since the Austin round in May.
Garcia's run to the flag was aided by a collision between Tommy Milner (#4 Corvette) and Dirk Muller (#66 Ford) at the final sequence of corners, gifting a sizeable lead to the Corvette.
The incident also helped Giancarlo Fisichella, driving the Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 that made its return to IMSA action following a near four-month hiatus, who came through to finish third.
Fisichella, sharing with Toni Vilander, finished six tenths down on second-placed Richard Westbrook (#67 Ford) despite an earlier off-track excursion that bumped the Italian outside the top five.
Sims recovered to take fourth, but it was a disappointing weekend for the BMW crew which saw its sister M6 lose ground early on with a power steering issue.
Muller finished fifth and over one minute adrift of Garcia, while Milner trundled home in sixth.
Honours in the GT Daytona category went to the Change Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 of Jeroen Mul and Corey Lewis, which led from start to finish.
Lewis resisted a late charge from Jens Klingmann in the Turner Motorsport BMW M6 to claim the Lamborghini squad's first win of the season, and only its third top-10 finish in 10 races.
The pair crossed the line 1.035 seconds apart, while Jeroen Bleekemolen completed the podium in the Riley Motorsports Mercedes.
Bleekemolen shared the Riley Merc with one-off team-mate Trent Hindman, in as a replacement for the absent Ben Keating who was in Texas bracing for the impact of Hurricane Harvey.
The result means Bleekemolen pushes closer to championship leaders Alessandro Balzan and Christina Nielsen, who assumed fourth in their Ferrari when the Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini picked up a puncture.






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