Weather stoppage three-quarters through the race costs at least one team the race at IMSA Watkins Glen.
- No. 10 Acura gambles and wins the DPi class overall victory.
- Scott Huffaker wins LMP2 for the No. 52 by a tenth of a second.
- The Heart of Racing team takes the class wins in GTD PRO and GTD.
- The No. 25 BMW M Team RLL loses the GTD PRO class victory after one of the drivers failed to meet the adjusted minimum drive time.
A 60-minute stoppage for lightning three-quarters of the way through the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen threw calculations for minimum drive time and fuel strategy into disarray in Round 7 of the 2022 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Sunday.
With a bold move, little fuel and a broken car, Filipe Albuquerque turned that weather delay into victory.
He took the lead with a daring pass late in the race, then swerved through traffic with a damaged car while saving fuel to win the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen on Sunday at Watkins Glen International.
“It was really crazy,” Albuquerque said. “When you believe in it, you just keep your foot down.”
After a lengthy red flag for severe weather, the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race restarted with 21 minutes on the clock and Albuquerque second behind Tom Blomqvist, who had teamed with Oliver Jarvis in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Acura ARX-05 to lead most of the endurance race.
Albuquerque managed to hold off Blomqvist’s challenge to the finish.
Michael L. Levitt IMSA
After the restart, Albuquerque in the No. 10 Konica Minolta Acura chased Blomqvist through the first four turns before pulling alongside heading into the inner loop. The two cars made contact, Albuquerque pulled ahead, and then somehow managed to hold off Blomqvist’s tenacious challenge to the finish.
The drama didn’t end there. Shortly after he passed Blomqvist, Albuquerque made contact with a Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) car, knocking the left mirror askew on the No. 10 car. In spite of that and the low fuel, he made it work.
“The mirror was gone, the car was bent,” Albuquerque said. “I just put full throttle to try to get it to the (inner loop). I was like, ‘This is going to be funny now.’ The car was going sideways. It was really weird. And then (strategist) Brian (Pillar) was saying, ‘You need to save fuel.’ I had bigger problems than this. I didn’t know if I could finish the race.”
The last-minute victory had a dramatic effect on the standings in the Daytona Prototype international (DPi) class. Albuquerque and co-driver Ricky Taylor came into the race trailing Blomqvist and Jarvis by 13 points.
With the victory, Albuquerque and Taylor regained the championship lead, taking a 17-point advantage into next Sunday’s Chevrolet Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ontario.
The No. 23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 driven by Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas was awarded the GT Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) class victory.
Jake Galsad IMSA
The weather delay also resulted in the No. 23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 driven by Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas being awarded the GT Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) class victory after the No. 25 BMW M Team RLL (drivers: Connor De Phillippi, Augusto Farfus, and John Edwards) that crossed the line first was put to the back of the field because one of the drivers failed to meet the adjusted minimum drive time for each driver of 1-hour, 17-minutes during the six-hour endurance race.
At the red flag, Davide Rigon and Daniel Serra (No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GT3) held a slim lead over Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet (No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3). The No. 25 BMW lay fifth, but carried seven more laps of fuel than the Porsche and nine more than the Ferrari when the race was restarted with 35 minutes remaining on the clock.
Sure enough, Serra and Jaminet pulled into the pits for a brief splash-and-go stop with five minutes remaining, leaving Edwards to cruise to what he thought was a one-lap margin of victory over Gunn in the No. 23 Aston Martin. But not long after the checkered flag, IMSA officials announced that a timing audit revealed the No. 25 team’s infraction.
Thoroughly surprised, Gunn and Riberas found themselves spraying the champagne in Victory Lane after their second GTD PRO triumph of the season. They also won the sprint race on the Long Beach street course.
The No. 27 Heart of Racing Team hoisted its first trophy of 2022 on Sunday – declared the class victor about 20 minutes after taking the checkered flag in second place.
Jake Galsad IMSA
There was no shortage of irony for the GTD class winners Sunday. After a season of frustration and near-misses, the No. 27 Heart of Racing Team hoisted its first trophy of 2022 on Sunday – declared the class victor about 20 minutes after taking the checkered flag in second place.
The Winward Racing Mercedes team – first across the finish line and also looking to take its first win of the season – was penalized for not meeting drive-time requirements with its drivers.
“We always know our car is strong here, this is a really good track for us,’’ said Heart of Racing driver Roman De Angelis who drove the Aston Martin Vantage GT3 in the final stint. “We had really good results last year here so we came in here with a lot of confidence.
“I thought second would have been a good result for us and it was very close. As I came to the last corner and got out of the throttle, we ran out of gas, so we coasted across [the finish line].
“We got really lucky and so obviously, with the drive-time [penalty] everything worked out for us,’’ added a smiling De Angelis, who co-drove with Maxime Martin and Ian James.
“We haven’t had a win in a while. We’ve had a pretty rough start to the year, so obviously, super happy to get that result.’’
Scott Huffaker made the most of the opportunity to win Sunday’s Le Mans Prototype 2 portion of the race – barely.
Jake Galsad IMSA
Meanwhile in LMP2, he wasn’t supposed to be in the car at the end, but Scott Huffaker made the most of the opportunity to win Sunday’s Le Mans Prototype 2 portion of the race – barely. The talented 21-year-old Californian held off a charging Louis Deletraz win by a tenth of a second.
Mikkel Jensen normally finishes in the No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA LMP2 07 when he, Huffaker and Ben Keating are paired. Huffaker was driving when the race was stopped by the weather delay and the team opted to keep him in the car for the conclusion rather than take time to pit and change drivers.
Huffaker saw Deletraz closing in the No. 8 Tower Motorsport ORECA as the clock ticked toward zero. Deletraz was close enough to make a lunging maneuver coming off the final turn toward the checkered flag, but Huffaker held him off by 0.107 seconds.
In LMP3, there’s something about Watkins Glen that suits Gar Robinson, Felipe Fraga and the No. 74 Riley Motorsports Ligier JS P320. Returning this weekend after winning a pair of Le Mans Prototype 3 (LMP3) races at the track in 2021, they rolled into victory lane again Sunday.
IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship competitors have little time to rest, because they will be back in action next weekend for the Chevrolet Grand Prix, July 1-3 at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.
Keyword: Red Flag for Lightning Makes for Crazy IMSA Race at Watkins Glen