IMSA News: Porsche Penske team continues to make mockery of IMSA field
Porsche Penske Motorsport’s two Porsche 963 racers have achieved yet another one-two result, this time at the Laguna Seca Raceway.
Factory drivers Matt Campbell from Australia and Mathieu Jaminet from France celebrated their first win of the season at round four of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Championship leaders Felipe Nasr from Brazil and Nick Tandy from Great Britain crossed the finish line in second place, less than two seconds behind the winners. The pair have won the first three races at Daytona, Sebring, and Long Beach.
After a nail-biting qualifying session on Saturday, Sunday brought another thriller under blue Californian skies. The two Porsche 963 racers clinched victory in a fierce three-way battle – but only on the final lap of the 2:40-hour race. An unusual detail at the Laguna Seca event: there was not a single caution period during the race, something the IMSA series has not experienced in nearly three years.
When the lights turned green at the storied Californian racetrack, the two 485 kW (659 PS) Porsche 963 slotted into positions two and three – but in reverse order from their qualifying positions. Reigning champion Felipe Nasr promptly overtook teammate Matt Campbell and set his sights on the leading BMW.
Further back, the No. 6 car came into contact with a GT entry, forcing an early pit stop for repairs. Meanwhile, Nasr hunted down the leading BMW. Behind them, the No. 6 car collided with a GT car and was forced to pit for an early service. Meanwhile, Nasr put in a daring overtaking maneuver and swept into P1.
Around 45 minutes into the race, Brazilian driver Felipe Nasr steered the leading No. 7 Porsche into the pits, handing the wheel to Nick Tandy. Tandy rejoined the race and found himself behind the sister car, now driven by Mathieu Jaminet, who had swapped with Matt Campbell. The two Porsche 963 held firm at the front, running comfortably in first and second positions until the closing minutes – when the No. 24 BMW launched a last-ditch charge. Separated by mere meters, the top three cars treated fans to a gripping showdown in the final lap with multiple overtaking attempts, slight clashes, and ultimately, a trip into the gravel for the third-placed BMW, also caused by an involved GT racing car.
“That was tough work,” stated Jonathan Diuguid, Managing Director Porsche Penske Motorsport. “Looking at the results, it was a perfect day – but it wasn’t as straightforward as it seems. There were challenging moments, and both Porsche 963 cars made contact with other cars. Still, our team and drivers delivered an outstanding performance. This marks our third consecutive one-two finish, and we now lead all championship categories. We couldn’t ask for more.”
In the overall standings, Porsche has extended its lead over the competition in the manufacturers’ championship. Porsche Penske Motorsport holds a comfortable lead in the team standings. In the drivers’ championship, Campbell and Jaminet have slightly closed the gap to their teammates Nasr and Tandy. The two driver pairings continue to rank first and second in the standings.
BMW M Team RLL was unable to convert pole position into a win for the fourth time this season, but the BMW M Hybrid V8 was once again demonstrably Porsche’s closest competition. Sheldon van der Linde and Marco Wittmann finished fourth, while Acura Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian’s No. 93 Acura ARX-06 rounded out the top five with drivers Nick Yelloly and Renger van der Zande.
“Roxy” repeats “Rexy’s” 2024 feat: Class win for the Porsche 911 GT3 R
In the GTD Pro class, former Porsche Juniors Laurin Heinrich and Klaus Bachler clinched their second win of the season after a flawless drive in the Porsche 911 GT3 R – matching the strong performance of their AO Racing team. Their pink, dinosaur-liveried car dubbed “Roxy” crossed the finish line at Laguna Seca with an 8.660-second lead.
The win was AO’s third straight in California, coming a month after Laurens Vanthoor and Jonny Edgar piloted AO’s Rexy Porsche to the GTD class win in the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach . . . and a year after Rexy’s win at WeatherTech Raceway en route to the 2024 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTD PRO team, manufacturer and driver championships for AO, Porsche and Heinrich.
To be clear, however, AO’s success is not limited to California. Witness the fact that today’s win was their third straight triumph in WeatherTech Championship competition, having also captured GTD PRO honors at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring in March.
Although the AO Porsche enjoyed a relatively comfortable advantage in the final two-thirds of today’s race, “Roxy” had to work to get to the lead. Having qualified the AO Porsche in fourth spot yesterday, Bachler demoted Alexander Sims and the No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Corvette Z06 GT3.R at the start, then was “gifted” second when the No. 48 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO was penalized for changing lanes prior to taking the green flag. With one eye on the two Corvette Racing entries in his mirrors, Bachler fell nearly four seconds adrift of the pole-winning Giacomo Altoè in the No. 81 DragonSpeed Ferrari 296 GT3 before gradually reducing the leader’s margin to less than a second as the first round of pit stops approached.
“I knew the BMW had a penalty and I watched the Corvettes behind me because in the end, it’s a lot of strategy,” Bachler explained. “If someone wants to use the opportunity, for example to make a gap… because there is a fuel (strategy) or a disadvantage and then a full-course yellow comes.
“But anyway, at one point the Michelin tires were coming into the right operation window. And at this moment I was catching a bit of the Ferrari. This was the moment where I was closing, I was behind him and this was the moment where we decided to open it up. (Then) we boxed early to avoid all the traffic and (Laurin) had a good out lap and kept leading the race.”
Heinrich quickly pulled to the best part of two seconds ahead of DragonSpeed’s Albert Costa, who’d taken over from Altoè and subsequently dropped to third behind Sims’ co-driver Antonio Garcia in the No. 3 Corvette. While the DragonSpeed entry got the better of the ‘Vette on the final round of stops, Heinrich had long since made his escape in a race that went green from start to finish. Any concerns Heinrich might have had about fuel conservation were well controlled by the AO strategists.
“Fuel is always a concern in IMSA,” said Heinrich. “I think the team do their math pretty well and they knew what they were doing when pitting that early. You know, we did a similar strategy last year, as it all works pretty well. So this year was not copy-paste, you know, also with the energy consumption; not only fuel but also the energy which came in this year, to exchange a bit.
“They did an amazing job. They just kept me updated, they told me what to do it and, yeah, I just had to follow the numbers in the dash and then and do it. So, you know, again, I have to say that the team is incredible how they keep us drivers posted, and they’ll tell us what to do. They really do an amazing job to make us focus on the things which really matter.”
Although he was unable to make any appreciable inroads on Heinrich’s lead margin, Costa pulled to a comfortable gap over Garcia’s Corvette. Indeed, Garcia had all he could handle in the closing laps to stay clear of Andrea Caldarelli in the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 but eventually took the checkered flag about more than two seconds clear of fourth spot. The Pfaff car was engaged in a battle between two Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) cars, the No. 7 Porsche 963 and No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8.
“I didn’t plan to have to fight at the end!” Garcia said. “For some reason I had some issues with a lapped car and that brought me closer to fourth place. I knew they would have a fuel advantage on the last stop. They seemed to be a little stronger, but I was more concerned about tire life especially in the last stint.
“We stopped quite a bit early in the window so I was concerned about saving tires in thinking about maybe a yellow flag at the end. We probably were missing some pace compared to the other two cars ahead I think. We saw that last year. I’m sure things will come our way down the road.”
The results leave AO Racing with a healthy lead in the GTD PRO points race, some 70 points clear of Garcia and Sims in the No. 3 Corvette and 75 up on DragonSpeed’s Costa in his No. 81 Ferrari as the WeatherTech Championship GTD PRO competition heads to the Chevrolet Detroit Sports Car Classic on the weekend of May 30-31.
Winward Mercedes-AMG Doubles Down at WeatherTech Raceway in GTD
Mercedes-AMG swept the weekend in Grand Touring Daytona (GTD), with its defending WeatherTech Championship title-winning team finishing ahead of the weekend’s Motul Pole Award-winning outfit. The pair of Philip Ellis and Russell Ward continued to execute at a high-level across all areas of their program in their No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3.
Last year’s GTD class champions banked their second win of the 2025 season, and repeated their Monterey triumph of a year ago, using a successful “undercut” pit strategy to leapfrog the most frequent leaders of the day, the polesitting No. 32 Korthoff Competition Motors Mercedes-AMG GT3.
From his first career WeatherTech Championship pole, Kenton Koch led 45 of the first 71 laps through the first pit sequence. The team’s decision to qualify Koch opened an opportunity for the team’s younger driver Seth Lucas to finish the race against more experienced hands in class for the one-hour final stint, and the team ran longer to ensure it would need less virtual energy to make the finish.
Perhaps unfortunately for the No. 32 car, the No. 57 Winward Mercedes-AMG and the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 had pitted earlier for the final stint and were able to run clean laps on new tires to erase the gap and overtake the No. 32 car. Once Ellis got to the lead in his No. 57 car on Lap 72 ahead of Jack Hawksworth in the No. 12 Lexus, the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring race combatants were back in contention.
Hawksworth got within 0.7 of a second of Ellis but was never close enough to make a move for the win itself over the final 43 laps. Nonetheless, the No. 12 car of Hawksworth and Parker Thompson finished second for the third straight race, this time a total of 5.459 seconds in arrears.
Drivers’ comments after the race
Mathieu Jaminet (Porsche 963 #6): “Our first win of the season at last! We were involved in an incident early on, so I didn’t expect such a fantastic result. But a perfect team strategy got us to the front. It was a close battle to the end, even with our sister car. We managed to bring it home. Now I’m really looking forward to the race in Detroit.”
Nick Tandy (Porsche 963 #7): “That was another fantastic day of racing for our team. That’s the fourth consecutive podium finish for us in the number 7 car; we’ve finished second or higher in every race so far this year, which is an incredible way to start the season. We just want to keep the momentum going. We’ve only contested four of our nine races. Next up is the street race in Detroit and there’ll be plenty of points up for grabs there again. That’s what we’re fully focussing on now.”