Eleven rounds of the 2023 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship gave sensational thrills and spills, as Motorsport Week reviews an eventful 2023 campaign in a two-part feature.
The introduction of the Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class continued a great racing spectacle for the growing audience of dedicated fans, additionally bringing variety into the premier class of IMSA thanks to the entrance of multiple manufacturers.
We bade farewell to the LMP3 class, following its short term in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, when the former GTLM class was sparse.
Both GTD classes shared their haul of the action, marking a record-breaking campaign for the #1 Paul Miller Racing team and ensuing champions Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow.
From the beginning at Daytona
The 3.61 mile road course at the Daytona International Speedway is a quick circuit incorporating tight in-field corners with fast straights and sweeping NASCAR curves.
A grid of 61 cars across five categories brought us a fantastic and gripping 24 Hours of Daytona.
Qualifying took place as a traditional session, rather than a qualifying race seen in the previous two years which maintained the straightforward thrills of flat-out qualifying, and the hype of the main race.
Tom Blomqvist charged to the first GTP pole position in the #60 Meyer Shank Acura ARX-06, and beat Felipe Nasr of the #7 Porsche Penske outfit by less than a tenth of a second, seasing the upcoming fights for pole.
LMP2 saw Ben Keating take pole for PR1 Mathiasen, demonstrating once again his outstanding talent amongst the bronze-licensed drivers.
Philip Ellis marvellously jumped to GTD pole in the #57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3, even beating Mercedes-AMG works driver Maro Engel in the #79 WeatherTech Pro car. Though a major post-qualifying practice crash forced them to start at the rear of the GTD class.
The Balance of Performance (BoP) was one of the greater successes of the campaign, having been optimal all the way through to the Petit Le Mans finale.
Meyer Shank Racing continued their strong form into the race, and demonstrated little weakness from lights out.
Fights ensued for P2 and P3 in GTP, meanwhile BMW M Team RLL were the first to face reliability woes when their #25 M Hybrid V8 driven by Nick Yelloly pulled to the side of the circuit after just an hour, and did not return to the race until three hours later.
Colin Braun of the #60 showcased a strong defence against the #01 and #02 Cadillacs in his first racing laps behind the wheel of a top level endurance prototype since his 2019 Onroak DPi campaign.
The #74 Riley Ligier JS P320 which led the LMP3 class experienced an engine failure which ended their race only two hours in. In hindsight, this was a scratch in their eventual title-winning, final LMP3 WeatherTech campaign.
Penske Porsche #7 faced issues into the nighttime, with energy warning which put it in the garage for 30 minutes, with the sibling #6 963 back on the lead lap due to a number of caution periods which enabled them to contend for the top positions.
A thrilling opener showcased impressive outings and misfortunate incidents, it was an Acura 1-2 after a second-placed effort from the Wayne Taylor Racing entrant, followed by three Cadillacs and the #24 BMW.
Porsche’s #6 retired due to gearbox issues, as the #7 finished several laps behind the LMP2 field in the wake of further problems.
Speaking of which, LMP2 finished in dramatic style with a photo-finish between the #04 Crowdstrike Racing (run by Algarve Pro Racing) and the #55 Proton Competition. The latter Oreca 07 took the win, but only by 0.016 of a second.
GTD and GTD Pro mixed together by the end; the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 claimed GTD victory ahead of the #79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG.
It later emerged that Meyer Shank Racing artificially inflated the tyre pressure data they submitted to IMSA during the race, as later caught and reported by Honda.
Nevertheless, it left a sour aftertaste following a fantastic performance by the #60 drivers who took the first win of the GTP era, although the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing drivers led the standings.
To the bumps and dramas of Sebring
The second IMSA round hosted the famed 12-hour race at Sebring International Raceway, which saw 27 drivers do ‘double-duty’ with the World Endurance Championship’s 1000 Miles of Sebring – as Porsche Penske’s Dane Cameron and Michael Christensen did both in LMDh machinery.
Meyer Shank tyre pressure controversy arose a week beforehand, so the tone was set for the pink Acura to seek redemption and claim victory at the second-longest race on the calendar.
Pipo Derani’s #31 Cadillac V Series.R scarcely beat Sebastien Boardais’s #01 Chip Ganassi Cadillac to pole position by just 0.087.
Two crashes for Porsche’s #7 963 with Matt Campbell at the wheel, and their #9 Pfaff Motorsports 911 GT3.R (GTD Pro) car with Klaus Bachler, made it a difficult session for the Stuttgart team.
Keating took another pole in LMP2, as Corvette did so in GTD Pro.
The demanding bumps of the circuit made for a challenging fast lap, as a 12-hour race into the night continued Daytona’s objectives of avoiding mistakes, optimising reliability and managing traffic.
Fourteen out of the 53 entries retired, and only two GTPs resided in the top-20, with the #60 down in 24th overall, surviving an incident-packed race.
The #24 BMW RLL outfit took their first GTP podium since the difficult Daytona 24, as the #31 Cadillac won the race.
After Bachler’s mistake in qualifying, he along with #9 teammates Patrick Pilet and Laurens Vanthoor, demonstrated the undisputed pace albeit fending off five other GTD Pros.
For Paul Miller Racing, it was a triumphant GTD win for Endurance Cup driver Corey Lewis along with Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow in their #1 BMW M4 GT3.
Jostling on the streets of Long Beach
A narrow street circuit gave little room for error, and it housed GTP and both GTD classes with the shortest sprint on the calendar at 1 hour and 40 minutes.
Albuquerque kept his P1 spot at the start, though second-placed Blomqvist had to block Bourdais behind, who outran and outbroke himself into Turn 1 and into the barrier, thus incurred race-ending front-end damage.
Blomqvist did not escape the drama after being tagged by Nick Yelloly in the #25 BMW M Hybrid V8, which spun the #60 to a stop at Turn 1 with the #01.
When proceedings resumed, Albueruque retained his lead with Nick Tandy behind, as Hawksworth controlled GTD Pro.
The final Turn 11 hairpin stopped Inception Racing’s #70 McLaren 720S of Brendon Iribe and Turner Motorsport’s #97 BMW of Chandler Hull, the former instigating contact.
Hull spared little sympathy when he sent Iribe into a spin shortly afterwards, later being awarded an appropriate drive-through penalty.
The #60’s hopeful chances disappeared when Braun got a drive-through for pit lane speeding.
Amidst the pit stops, each second counted with the routines as rivals could take advantage of one another’s mistakes. It came down to the penultimate lap.
Porsche took their first win after the #10 of Ricky Taylor was unable to execute a dive on the inside of Mathieu Jaminet’s #6 963 into Turn 1, where he outbraked himself into the tyre barrier.
Meanwhile, the #14 Vasser Sullivan duo of Hawksworth and Barnicoat were unchallenged to the win, as Paul Miller Racing took their second GTD win of 2023.
Porsche Penske’s foregone chances at Laguna Seca
Matt Campbell were in the spotlight for GTP qualifying with his maiden pole, ahead of the #6 Porsche of Jaminet on the front row.
The race start was action-packed yet surprisingly untidy for Porsche, given their front-row positions.
Campbell and Jaminet both locked up into the first corner, pushing the pole-sitter to third and Jaminet down to seventh, prompting Braun into the lead.
Strategy was a key factor, and cautions for two other crashes prevented Braun from building a lead.
Soon enough, Braun struggled with heavily worn tyres as Derani managed to get past with ease before establishing a large gap.
Meanwhile, Porsche’s day became worse as Jaminet lost the rear end of the car into Turn 10, a mistake which costed eight laps of repair work.
By the end, Renger van der Zande in the #01 took the win after passing the #31 of Alexander Sims, and despite their woes, a later caution brought the #6 back into the fight with Tandy, who took second.
TDS Racing duo Mikkel Jensen and Steven Thomas surged to LMP2 victory; the Peugeot works driver carried strong pace coupled with optimal strategic calls by the team.
Six hours of exuberance at Watkins Glen
The rollercoaster-like course presented an exuberant third Endurance Cup race with all five categories back together.
Qualifying was abandoned for all but the GTD classes due to poor weather conditions, and so #6 duo Jaminet and Tandy started on pole.
They were quickly overtaken at the start by Campbell in the #7, who later faced hybrid issues.
A crucial undercut from Connor De Philliipi’s #25 BMW snatched the lead and set the pace at the front.
After the final pitstop, however, Jaminet asserted great pace to catch the BMW and overtake him.
Unfortunately, they were disqualified when their skid block measured less than the allowed minimum thickness, gifting BMW their first win at the top IMSA class.
A sprint on Canadian soil
The shortest circuit at 2.459 miles brought back the speed of Acura package with the pushing out the season’s quickest lap times, when Blomqvist claimed pole ahead of Ricky Taylor’s #10.
Most of the #60’s winning effort was down to their two-stop strategy, as Braun prolonged his final stint at 1 hour and 16 minutes amidst three cautions en route to the chequered flag, and the #01 once again faced misfortune when Augusto Farfus’s #24 BMW edged Bourdais onto the grass and into a heavy crash in the final minutes.
Paul Miller Racing took their third win after beating Inception Racing’s #70 McLaren 720S GT3 to the flag.
LMP3’s #74 Riley won their third consecutive race, which set them positively into the second half of the season.
