The #01 Chip Ganassi Cadillac of Sebastien Bourdais and Renger van der Zande has won the Chevrolet Sports Car Classic at Detroit Belle Isle, winning from pole and holding off the #60 Meyer-Shank Acura ARX-05 of Olly Jarvis and Tom Blomqvist.
Bourdais started the car from pole and despite pressure from Blomqvist early on, held him off until the pitstops, when van der Zande climbed into the car. With Jarvis into the #60, the two continued the duel their teammates started, but despite running mostly nose-to-tail, Jarvis couldn’t find a way past the Dutchman, who had speed in all the right places.
Third was the #02 Chip Ganassi Cadillac of Alex Lynn and Earl Bamber. Lynn saved fuel early in the first stint and dropped off the back of the leaders, but a shorter pitstop enabled them to catch back up. They inherited third when the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura pitted for a second time for an unspecified issue, then battled with Pipo Derani in the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac for third, eventually emerging victorious.
Derani, meanwhile, had charged forward after doing the alternative strategy, pitting twice for fuel and not fuel saving as aggressively as the leaders. However, although he took chunks of time out of Bamber in the last 30 minutes to catch back up to the Cadillac, and even passed the Kiwi for third at one point, he couldn’t find a way past Jarvis, and Bamber eventually retook the final podium position.
With Derani fourth, fifth went to the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura. Ricky Taylor ran in third for the first half of the race, but after he handed the car over to Albuquerque, the Portuguese had to pit again with an issue, demoting them to fifth.
Finally, in sixth was the #5 JDC Miller Motorsports Cadillac of Richard Westbrook and Tristan Vautier, who didn’t have the pace of the leaders.
Over in GTD, Roman de Angelis in the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin took the early lead at the start, getting ahead of polesitter Kyle Kirkwood in the #17 VasserSullivan Lexus RC F GT3. de Angelis held this until the stops, but Kirkwood and VasserSullivan employed a textbook overcut strategy to retake the lead, with Kirkwood using every inch of track on his inlap to enable his teammate Ben Barnicoat, subbing for an unwell Jack Hawksworth, to emerge ahead of the de Angelis’s teammate Ross Gunn when leaving the pits.
Although Gunn did put pressure on Barnicoat, Barnicoat was able to hold him off until the flag.
In third was the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 of Madison Snow and Bryan Sellers, who managed to stay with the leading two but wasn’t able to find his way past.
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