IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship
Ryan Briscoe has taken a class podium as the Ford Chip Ganassi Ford GTs finished first and third in GT Le Mans class in Road America’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race.
Starting from pole in the #66 Ganassi Ford, Dirk Muller led away but fell back to third through the pit stops.
Joey Hand took over car #66 for the final stint and managed to jump from third to first at a Safety Car restart with 30 minutes remaining to take victory.
Briscoe dropped from third to fifth at the start in the #67 Ganassi Ford, with Westbrook bringing the car home in third, having been passed by Hand at that restart.
Prototype runners Johannes van Overbeek and Pipo Derani took outright honours in the #22 Tequila Patron ESM Nissan DPi.
Derani had overtaken Jordan Taylor late in the race, with Jordan and Ricky Taylor finishing second in the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac DPi.
The next round is another 2hr 40min affair at Virginia International Raceway on August 25-27.
Super GT Championship
Nick Cassidy remains just off the lead of the Super GT Championship after he and Ryo Hirakawa finished sixth in Round 5 at Fuji.
The ARTA team broke Lexus’ five-race winning streak dating back to 2016 with a comprehensive victory by Tomoki Nojiri and Takashi Kobayashi in the #8 Honda NSX-GT.
The car led for all but two laps of the pit stop cycle and while Kobayashi nearly threw the Honda off the road at 100R late in the race, he steadied the ship to pass the chequered flag 1.5s ahead of the second-placed #23 Nissan GT-R of Tsugio Matsuda and Ronnie Quintarelli.
Matsuda actually did well to hold second, with car #23 and the #38 Lexus LC500 running together all race and Hiroaki Ishiura getting particularly close in the latter stages.
However, Ishiura could not find a way through and has to settle for third for he and Yuji Tachikawa.
Cassidy started the race in in seventh position and the #37 KeePer Team TOM Lexus LC500 ran has high as fifth.
Hirakawa then had an entertaining battle with the sister #36 Team TOM Lexus but couldn’t make the pass.
Instead, the Japanese driver ended up ceding his own position to the #12 Nissan GT-R in order to wipe out some success ballast with the championship’s flagship race, the Suzuka 1000km next up.
James Rossiter (#36 Lexus) and the Kazuya Oshima/Andrea Caldarelli pair (#6 Lexus LC500) are tied for the championship lead with Hirakawa/Cassidy just two points further back.
In GT300 class, Jono Lester/Kyosuke Mineo (#9 Porsche 911 GT3 R) finished fifth and Jake Parsons/Shinnosuke Yamada (#26 Audi R8 LMS) 19th.
The Suzuka 1000km, Round 6 of 8, will be held on August 26-27.
World Rallycross Championship
Johan Kristoffersson has taken a third win in a row in Round 8 of the World Rallycross Championship in Canada.
The Swede took two wins and two second placings in the qualifying heats before winning his semi-final in his PSRX Volkswagen Polo.
Team-mate Petter Solberg finished runner-up in the final as they put more distance between themselves and Mattias Ekstrom at the top of the championship table.
Ekstrom didn’t make it past the semi-finals after his EKX Audi Quattro suffered a clutch problem.
Round 9 of 12 will be in Loheac in north-western France on September 1-3.
British Formula 3 Championship
Enaam Ahmed has extended his championship lead by winning two of the three races in Round 6 on the Brands Hatch GP circuit.
Ahmed took pole and won Race 1, which was shortened due to heavy rain, and also took victory in lights-to-flag fashion in Race 3.
Krishnaraaj Mahadik was awarded the Race 2 win after Toby Sowery, who was first to take the chequered flag, was excluded following scrutineering.
The penultimate round takes place at Snetterton on August 26-27.
EXR Racing Series
Matt Brabham, Alexandre Premat, and Bill Hynes have won their sub-class in the Utah Motorsports Campus 6 Hour Enduro.
Racing among the EXR Racing Series contingent, the series managed by Premat, the trio finished 10th outright, first of the EXR cars, and fourth in the E0 class.
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