Motul SportsCar Endurance Grand Prix Also Sees CrowdStrike, AO and Heart of Racing Leading Respective Classes
By Tony DiZinno
IMSA NewsWire
ELKHART LAKE, Wis. – Julien Andlauer led through the first three hours of the Motul SportsCar Endurance Grand Prix, the fourth and newest IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup round of the season from Road America and the eighth IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race of the year. The final three hours continue live on Peacock and IMSA’s Official YouTube channel.
Andlauer shares the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 with Felipe Nasr in Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) and overall, leading the sister No. 6 car of Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor. Both Porsche Penske entries are carrying historic liveries this weekend.
The third of four full-course cautions, which flew with three hours and 42 minutes remaining for an incident for the No. 34 car, shifted the order as a number of cars either got caught out by the caution timing, committed an infraction, or got jumped by cars on alternate pit strategies.
Sheldon van der Linde built a significant gap following the second restart of the six-hour race to more than 20 seconds aboard his No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8 he shares with Dries Vanthoor. But the third full-course caution of the race erased that.
Andlauer’s No. 7 car jumped the No. 24 BMW on the stop on a short fill (5.9 seconds quicker on most recent stop) as van der Linde handed his car to Vanthoor. The second Porsche Penske entry, the No. 6 car of Kevin Estre and Vanthoor’s older brother Laurens Vanthoor, leapt to third, with Estre then getting past Dries Vanthoor for second just shy of the three-hour mark.
Porsche Penske won at Road America in 2023 and 2024 while BMW M Team WRT is in pursuit of its first Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) win this season.
BMW won here overall last year with Dries Vanthoor and Philipp Eng sharing a BMW M Team RLL-entered car in a 1-2 finish. The sister No. 25 car ran second for most of the first three hours on an off-sequence strategy, having eschewed a stop at the first caution, but was assessed a drive-through for a pit speed violation on its second stop.
From the front row, both Acura Meyer Shank Racing w/Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06 entries fell down the order slightly and the championship-leading No. 31 Cadillac Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R will play catch-up after a pit lane speed violation on its most recent pit stop. Jack Aitken started the No. 31 car and has rotated it through to Frederik Vesti and Earl Bamber.
In Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2), Jeremy Clarke and PJ Hyett ran close early before their teammates, Bijoy Garg and Jonny Edgar, took over the Nos. 43 Inter Europol Competition and No. 99 AO Racing ORECA LMP2 07s, respectively. Edgar, in his Road America debut, closed on Garg in the third hour and appeared close to a move. But they too got caught out by the third full-course caution as they entered a closed pit.
That promoted the championship-leading No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR ORECA to the lead in the hands of Toby Sowery, having taken over from George Kurtz. Alex Quinn will finish. AO Racing recovered to second with its No. 99 car with Edgar, PJ Hyett and Dane Cameron aboard. Hyett and Cameron won here last year. The No. 52 Bryan Herta Autosport with PR1/Mathiasen ORECA (Misha Goikhberg, Parker Thompson, Harry Tincknell) ran third.
From pole, AO Racing also leads in Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO). Harry King started and Nick Tandy now drives the No. 77 Porsche 911 GT3 R (992), with the No. 4 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Corvette Z06 GT3.R (Tommy Milner, Nicky Catsburg) second and the No. 033 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3 EVO third (Riccardo Agostini, James Calado) third.
Milner noted the Porsche’s pace after his first stint: “I think we’re in an OK position. The Porsche is definitely fast if they want to be. I don’t think we quite have their pace but it was good to see the 3 car not saving energy and what the pace of the car is there.”
Championship leader Eduardo “Dudu” Barrichello leads Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) in his No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo, the car he shares with Zacharie Robichon and Tom Gamble. DragonSpeed’s No. 81 Corvette Z06 GT3.R runs second (Giacomo Altoe, Casper Stevenson, Alec Udell) with the Lone Star Racing No. 80 Mercedes-AMG GT3 in third (Scott Andrews, Lin Hodenius, James Roe).
A pair of full-course cautions interrupted the first hour of the race, but drivers for both the No. 16 and No. 37 cars were evaluated and released following wall contact in separate incidents.
With the first Michelin Endurance Cup points awarded, the No. 7 car of Andlauer and Nasr moves back ahead of Laurin Heinrich in GTP with the maximum five points achieved at the three-hour mark. Unofficially, Andlauer and Nasr now have 44 points to Heinrich’s 42 for the season with the six-hour mark left to complete for points.
CrowdStrike’s maximum five points puts them within one of AO’s No. 99 car for the LMP2 lead (36-35) following the three-hour mark.
Despite an incident right at the three-hour mark, the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO still leads the GTD PRO Michelin Endurance Cup points for the moment.
But in GTD, the No. 27’s lead at the three-hour mark now sees them within one point for the year (31-30) of the leading No. 21 Af Corse USA Ferrari 296 GT3 EVO.