GTP Era Starts With A Bang

With under an hour to go it became clear that the 61st Rolex 24 Hours was going to deliver the one result that almost nobody predicted – A fight to the finish between multiple brand new GTPs that had, at no point, been under pressure from fast LMP2s.

That’s not to say that the LMP2s weren’t pushing – the four GTPs in the mix for the overall win were matched by four LMP2s battling for class honours 22 laps back.

LMP3 was a last man standing for the win, the #17 AWA Duqueine having a happy but lonely morning.

GTD and GTD PRO meanwhile was shaping up to something special with 12 cars across the two identically Bopped classes in the leading train.

More of all of that shortly!

The whole event reeked of history in the making, a record crowd for the start of a new era, new technology and new cars – The speed and raceability was certainly there and three of the four makes with performance and reliability were able to scrap with each other, the outlier the BMWs, one of which had significant early trouble, the other also with woes but still ahead of the LMP2s.

The earliest adopters and, by a significant margin, the cars that had covered the most mileage in testing turned out to be the most troubled.

The Porsche 963s had speed, but battery and cooling issues for the #7 and a gearbox failure for the #6 when Nick Tandy looked likely to get onto the fight, spoiled the day for Porsche Penske team.

That left Cadillac, the trio of V.LMDHs looking impassively reliable, but lacking a little straight-line punch agains the mercurial Acura ARX 06s. In the final stint it was again the pace of both Acuras that made the difference – the Ganassi-run Team Cadillac cars had no answer!

For Acura, they take the laurels as first winners in the GTP era, the ARX 06 with a clear speed advantage throughout this race and before we get to the winner major plaudits too to the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosports crew, They pushed very hard indeed with excellent stints by the entire crew, in particular a battling Louis Deletraz and a stellar run back to the lead lap and to the lead battle by Felipe Albuquerque.

It would not be enough this time though to add to the extraordinary tally of success at this race from the team.

That’s because they were bettered here by the other team with the same machinery – It has been an extraordinary few years for Michael Shank and co. IMSA success, Indy 500 success and now back-to-back wins at this race.

Simon Pagenaud and Helio Castroneves were both mighty but if the form book from this race is any guide then IMSA is set to welcome a new iconic driving duo. Colin Braun richly deserved the opportunity to step into the limelight of GTP and paid back that trust in spades with massive pace and sublime race craft.

Tom Blomqvist though was the undoubted star of the show – rocket ship fast from the very start, fabulous in traffic and error-free. This is the start of something very special for him, for Colin Braun, for Meyer Shank Racing, for Acura, for the whole GTP class and for the brand new era for the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship.

We can only imagine what’s on the next page of sportscar racing’s newest history book.

But you are going to want to be there to see it for yourselves.

More to come, much, much more!!