Australia’s Matt Campbell and team-mate Felipe Nasr have won the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race at Road America.
Nasr brought home the #7 Porsche Penske Motorsports 963 4.635-second ahead of Tom Blomqvist in the #60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06.
The Australian started from the pole after Alex Simms crashed the pole-winning #31 Action Express Racing Cadillac V-Series.R. in the morning warm-up.
The race got off to a rocky start as Connor De Phillippi spun his #25 Team RLL BMW in turn ten on the warm-up lap.
After the start, Campbell took control early and rocketed the #7 Porsche to a huge lead.
As Campbell stretched his lead, De Phillippi brought out a yellow after he slid wide in turn 11 and crashed into the retaining wall.
Campbell handed the #7 Porsche over to Nasr with 90 minutes remaining with a ten-second lead over Tom Blomqvist in the #60 Acura.
Blomqvist began his charge with twenty minutes remaining in the race and cut the Brazilian’s lead to under two seconds but could get no closer.
The win was the first for the #7 Porsche and the second of the year for the German marque in the GTP class.
“It was a phenomenal day, the first win for the Penske Porsche in GTP, so we finally got to tick it off,” said Campbell. “We’ve been fast on quite a few occasions, but luck’s never been on our side.”
“Today we’ve just executed perfectly. Thank you to all of Porsche Penske Motorsports, it’s nice to finally get one on the board after a tough year.”
A bit of strategy played into the #7’s win as the team gambled and took on only two tyres during their last pit stop.
“Obviously, it’s quite hard to be able to get tyre temperature here, and it’s really tough,” Campbell said. “So just to try and minimize the time loss out of the pits.”
The #30 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport Acura of Filipe Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor rounded out the GTP podium.
Paul-Loup Chatin and Ben Keating won the LMP2 class in the #52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca 07 Gibson.
Gar Robinson and Josh Burdon won LMP3 in the #74 Riley Ligier JS P320 Nissan.
Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas picked up their second win in a row in GTD Pro after the #3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R GTD served a drive-through plenty in the race’s closing minutes for not taking on the minimum fuel requirement.
The GTD win went to Madison Snow and Bryan Sellers in the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3.
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