Watkins Glen 240 IMSA: Derani, Nasr charge to first win of the season

Just five days after a dramatic six-hour enduro, the character of this race was entirely different, especially given a lengthy stoppage before the half-distance mark due to lightning in the area.

But once again there was a mighty fight to the finish with around 36 minutes remaining after the race was restarted. That length was right on the fuel limit range for the DPi prototypes, although another brief caution moments later after some debris was deposited on the track at the restart allowed a little more leeway for the fuel number-crunching engineers.

And whereas last weekend the timing of the final restart proved frustrating for the Cadillac teams, this time it worked out to perfection.

The #31 Cadillac of Derani and Nasr had stopped for fuel immediately prior to the red-flag interruption, and even though everyone ducked onto the pitlane again prior to the restart, Nasr required merely a splash and was able to take the restart in the lead.

Dutchman Renger van der Zande, who had taken over from Kevin Magnussen in the #01 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac, managed to vault from fifth to second within a couple of laps of the resumption, and was able to maintain that position to the finish, just over 1.4 seconds behind the winning Cadillac.

After once again starting on pole position, the championship leading #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac of Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque led the early stages before slipping to third after the first round of pitstops.

Albuquerque then found himself in fourth after the final restart before squeaking past the Cadillac of Loic Duval and Tristan Vautier with a just a half-dozen laps remaining.

After victory in last weekend’s six-hour race, Mazda were unfortunate at the restart and ended up in fifth place.

#10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura ARX-05 Acura DPi: Ricky Taylor, Filipe Albuquerque, #01 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac DPi: Renger van der Zande, Kevin Magnussen, #55 Mazda Motorsports Mazda DPi: Oliver Jarvis, Harry Tincknell

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

After starting fifth, Harry Tincknell fought his way to second at the start and was actually leading the race when the race was halted. But with the car needing more fuel than its rivals, Oliver Jarvis was also muscled down several positions at the restart – on a damp track – and had to be content with an unrepresentative fifth.

PT1 Mathiesen Motorsports pair Ben Keating and Mikkel Jensen won LMP2 convincingly from the pole, while in LMP3, Felipe Fraga narrowly held off Riley Motorsports team-mate Dylan Murry and the Core Autosport Ligier of Colin Braun in a tremendous fight to the finish.

Corvette’s Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor triumphed again in GTLM, just as the pair did last weekend, with the sister Corvette of Tommy Milner and Nick Tandy their only real challenger.

GTD, though, was another frantic race, with Jack Hawksworth and Aaron Telitz finally claiming their first win of the season for the Vasser Sullivan Lexus team – chased home by team-mates Frankie Montecalvo and Zach Veach – after experiencing all manner of misfortune during the first half of the season.

IMSA Watkins Glen 240 results

Cla	Class	Num	Driver	Chassis	Time	Gap
1	DPi	31	Felipe Nasr Pipo Derani	Cadillac DPi	2:41'27.882
2	DPi	01	Renger van der Zande Kevin Magnussen	Cadillac DPi	2:41'29.355	1.473
3	DPi	10	Ricky Taylor Filipe Albuquerque	Acura DPi	2:41'38.197	10.315
4	DPi	5	Tristan Vautier Loic Duval	Cadillac DPi	2:41'39.907	12.025
5	DPi	55	Oliver Jarvis Harry Tincknell	Mazda DPi	2:41'40.328	12.446
6	DPi	60	Dane Cameron Olivier Pla	Acura DPi	2:41'42.989	15.107
7	LMP2	52	Ben Keating Mikkel Jensen	ORECA LMP2 07	2:41'58.570	4 Laps
8	LMP2	11	Thomas Steven Tristan Nunez	ORECA LMP2 07	2:42'20.409	4 Laps
9	LMP2	8	John Farano Gabriel Aubry	ORECA LMP2 07	2:42'26.082	4 Laps
10	LMP3	74	Gar Robinson Felipe Fraga	Ligier JS P320	2:42'27.802	4 Laps
11	LMP3	91	Jim Cox Dylan Murry	Ligier JS P320	2:42'28.078	4 Laps
12	LMP3	54	Jon Bennett Colin Braun	Ligier JS P320	2:42'28.758	4 Laps
13	LMP3	36	Jarett Andretti Oliver Askew	Ligier JS P320	2:42'51.754	4 Laps
14	GTLM	3	Antonio Garcia Jordan Taylor	Corvette C8.R	2:43'04.665	4 Laps
15	GTLM	4	Tommy Milner Nick Tandy	Corvette C8.R	2:43'06.560	4 Laps
16	GTLM	79	Cooper MacNeil Matt Campbell	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	2:42'19.198	5 Laps
17	LMP3	38	Rasmus Lindh Mateo Llarena	Ligier JS P320	2:42'20.349	5 Laps
18	GTD	14	Aaron Telitz Jack Hawksworth	Lexus RC F GT3	2:42'29.900	6 Laps
19	GTD	12	Frankie Montecalvo Zach Veach	Lexus RC F GT3	2:42'30.607	6 Laps
20	GTD	23	Roman De Angelis Ross Gunn	Aston Martin Vantage GT3	2:42'30.973	6 Laps
21	GTD	39	Richard Heistand Jeff Westphal	Audi R8 LMS GT3	2:42'31.298	6 Laps
22	GTD	28	Michael de Quesada Daniel Morad	Mercedes-AMG GT3	2:42'33.055	6 Laps
23	GTD	66	Till Bechtolsheimer Marc Miller	Acura NSX GT3	2:42'43.250	6 Laps
24	GTD	32	Guy Cosmo Shane Lewis	Mercedes-AMG GT3	2:42'44.013	6 Laps
25	GTD	88	Rob Ferriol Katherine Legge	Porsche 911 GT3 R	2:42'51.550	6 Laps
26	GTD	76	Jeff Kingsley Mario Farnbacher	Acura NSX GT3	2:42'09.141	9 Laps
27	GTD	1	Bryan Sellers Madison Snow	Lamborghini Huracan GT3	2:26'35.177	15 Laps
28	GTD	19	Mikhail Goikhberg Franck Perera	Lamborghini Huracan GT3	2:42'35.473	15 Laps
29	GTD	96	Bill Auberlen Robby Foley	BMW M6 GT3	2:30'27.398	32 Laps
30	LMP3	84	Theodor Olsen Dominic Cicero	Ligier JS P320	2:31'07.157	32 Laps
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