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For the second straight year, the two hour, 40-minute sprint race spent one third of its laps under full-course caution.
BMW being winless this year coming into the race had little to lose with its extraordinary pit gamble.
That gamble resulted in victory for Dries Vanthoor, his first after four pole positions earlier in the season, and Philipp Eng.
Road America dubs itself America’s National Park of Speed. But when IMSA’s WeatherTech Championship visits the beautiful track and its rolling hills near Elkhart Lake, the four-mile circuit turns into a crash course.
For the second straight year, the two hour, 40-minute sprint race spent one third of its laps under full-course caution. And again, the first lap could not be completed without a crash that brought out the yellow flags. If next year’s six-hour race suffers a similar fate, two hours will be run behind the safety car.
Fittingly, the winning BMW M Sport RLL team won by playing the caution game. It caught competitors by surprise to see both BMW M Hybrid V8s on the pit road for service with 59 minutes remaining. Instead of winning on speed or fuel mileage, the factory BMW crew correctly anticipated a long caution in the final hour would be enough to manage fuel to the finish and gain track position while its GTP competition made final pit stops.
Given a formal announcement by BMW of the separation from the RLL team in 2026 the day before the first practice at the Wisconsin track, the squad, winless this year coming into the race, had little to lose with its extraordinary pit gamble that resulted in victory for Dries Vanthoor, his first after four pole positions earlier in the season, and Philipp Eng, who scored his third IMSA victory. Teammates Marco Wittmann and Sheldon van der Linde completed the sweep in the No. 25 BMW M Hybrid V8.
The winning No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8 lost track position early when a pit crewman was hit by the Acura ARX-06 of Colin Braun on the first round of stops. The team did not release the crewman’s name or his injuries, but said he was okay.
Several of the on-track incidents had bearings on championships, which confirms that drivers are willing to push hard to get the result and hope for forgiveness later from IMSA’s officiating crew that reviews the video of incidents in race control.
When Nick Tandy pushed the Cadillac V-Series.R of Ricky Taylor off at Turn 6 while fighting for third place with 53 minutes remaining, it brought out the caution that the BMW team was anticipating. When Tandy received a 60-second penalty, it dropped him and co-driver Felipe Nasr to last in the GTP class and 75 points behind Porsche Penske Motorsport teammates Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet, who finished fourth, in their semi-private battle for the driving championship.
“I saw the incident that led to the penalty differently,” said Tandy, who drove steadily to the inside line after Taylor had already committed. “Fighting with the Porsche it was an unhappy ending for us,” said Taylor’s co-driver Felipe Albuquerque. “Ricky spun and the Porsche got a stop plus 60 (seconds). It’s just frustrating because I think we had the pace to the BMWs that finished one-two.”
By finishing third after winning the pole, Acura Meyer Shank Racing teammates Renger van der Zande and Nick Yelloly halved Porsche’s lead in the manufacturers’ championship to 45 with two races remaining.
Early Drama in LMP2
The “rough and tumble” racing, as the PR folks refer to it, started with LMP2 championship points leader Daniel Goldburg getting pushed off at Turn 1 on the start. Coupled with a victory by P.J. Hyett and Dane Cameron for AO Racing, the United Autosport driver dropped to 107 points behind that duo with two races remaining.
BMW, Corvette Racing Battle in GTD Pro
The blood rivalry in GTD Pro between Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsport and the BMW team of Paul Miller Racing emerged once again. Alexander Sims was vying for the lead on board his Corvette Z06 GT3.R in Turn 1 on a restart midway in the race when he was pushed off by the BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Dan Harper.
“I felt like I was giving enough racing room to them,” said Sims. “It's a shame that we got shoved off and sustained damage that frankly hindered the rest of our race. Our Corvette was really good before that.” IMSA officials saw it the same way and penalized Harper, whose fender tag brought out the day’s fourth of five cautions.
That set up the No. 1 BMW M4 GT3 EVO to take the class victory in the hands of Madison Snow and Neil Verhagen. The victory brought BMW to within 17 points of Chevrolet in the manufacturers’ championship. The No. 3 Corvette, whose drivers Sims and Antonio Garcia lead the championship by 30 points over Ferrari driver Albert Costa, recovered to finish fourth after being dragged out of the gravel trap.
Roughing Things Up in GTD
It was a case of what might have been for the DXDT Corvette Racing team in GTD, where Alec Udell was leading in the closing stages, looking to give the team and co-driver Robert Wickens their first victory.
Instead, Udell was roughed up by the winning Ferrari 296 GT3 of Triarsi Racing’s Kenton Koch. Udell dropped down through the field due to a suspension damaged in his off-course excursion.
Koch, who co-drove with Onofrio Triarsi, was told to bring the car back with no mirrors. “I was like I don’t know man, we’re going to do our best,” said Koch. Udell, meanwhile, promised to be more aggressive in the future.
"The racing here in IMSA is a dogfight at the end,” said Udell. “I was giving a little more courtesy than I should have, and that's on me. I'm not going to point any fingers besides at myself and say that's how it's played here. It seems like it's good on the race control side, so there's nothing else besides muscle up and do the same.”
Elsewhere in the class, Lexus RC F GT3 driver Jack Hawksworth of Vasser Sullivan was given a penalty for roughing up Winward Racing’s Mercedes AMG GT3 and driver Philip Ellis in an aggressive pass between drivers and teams vying for the GTD championship.
It’s how you make contact in the WeatherTech Championship, not if. Even the GTP cars were banging fenders on the restarts. By the finish, many of the sports cars of IMSA looked like the stock cars that race on the nearby short tracks of Wisconsin, where post-race bodywork damage is expected.
“I think driving standards are not the nicest,” said overall winner Vanthoor.
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