The WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s penultimate round at Circuit of the Americas is in the books with another successful trip to the Texas track for the IMSA series. The hot weather matched the action on the track with battles throughout the 4 racing series. Wayne Taylor Racing’s #10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP took their 3rd victory of the season, easily having the fastest car of the weekend.
Ricky and Jordan Taylor dominated the early stages of the race until a late spin by Jordan Taylor brought the #31 Action Express machine of Dane Cameron back into the picture. Taylor spun while passing some of the slower GTD class cars and lost much of the gap to the Action Express entry.
The #31 looked poised to challenge Taylor for race victory but simply did not have a strong enough car. Instead, the Action Express team took second position and a 1 point championship lead going into the final round at Petit Le Mans. 3rd position was taken by the #5 Action Express team of Joao Barbosa and Christian Fittipaldi.
In GTLM, Earl Bamber and Fred Makowiecki took the win for Porsche North America. Toni Vilander and Giancarlo Fisichella, of Risi Competizione, held the lead deep into the race until a late stop for service gave the lead to the Porsche of Nick Tandy and Patrick Pilet. The Porsches then swapped positions handing the win to Bamber and Makowiecki. Porsche North America took a 1-2 finish in class with the #3 Corvette of Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia grabbing the third position. The #4 Corvette leads a close championship battle which will be decided in two weeks at Road Atlanta.
In Prototype Challenge (PC), Renger van der Zande and Alex Popow brought the Starworks Motorsport car home first followed by Tom Kimber Smith and Robert Alon for PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports. This was the 4th victory of the season for the #8 Starworks car. James French and Nick Bolle took third position in class for Performance Tech Motorsports.
In GTD, Turner Motorsports took victory as Jens Klinsmann and Bret Curtis brought the 96 machine home for a first place class victory. Bryan Sellars and Madison Snow of Paul Miller Racing showed strong for a second place finish while Christina Nielsen and Alessandro Balzan came home third. Scuderia Corsa now have a 32 point lead going into the final race at Petit Le Mans and are strong favorites to bring home the championship.