Wayne Taylor Racing won the Motul SportsCar Endurance Grand Prix at the historic Road America circuit. Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque secured the victory for Cadillac in the six-hour IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup race, ending a winless streak of more than two years. For the duo, it was their first success since the 2024 Detroit race.
The race, marked by numerous incidents, was interrupted by a total of nine full-course yellow phases and ultimately ended under yellow. In the closing stages, Albuquerque stayed out of all altercations and benefited from a flawless strategy as well as penalties and incidents involving his competitors.
The decision was made about eleven minutes before the end of the race, when Kevin Estre in the Porsche 963 and Jack Aitken in the Action Express Cadillac collided in Turn 1 while battling for the lead, sending both cars into the barriers. Race control announced a post-race investigation into the incident.
Following a post-race penalty against the Aston Martin Valkyrie, which had initially finished second, Laurin Heinrich, together with Kaylen Frederick and Tijmen van der Helm in the JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche, moved up to second place. Despite multiple drive-through penalties and technical issues, the trio collected important points in the fight for the GTP championship. Third place went to the second Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac with Louis Deletraz and Jordan Taylor.
For BMW M Team WRT, the race ended in disappointment despite a promising performance. Sheldon van der Linde had initially put the number 24 BMW M Hybrid V8 into the lead, and the car was at the front for large parts of the race. However, a brake failure forced the team to retire in the second half of the race.
The sister car featuring Marco Wittmann and Philipp Eng also impressed with a clever strategy and temporarily led the race. However, a cooling defect in the energy recovery system necessitated a lengthy repair stop, leaving them with a final result of just seventh place.
BMW Motorsport Director Andreas Roos was correspondingly disappointed: The team had possessed the necessary speed for a victory throughout the entire weekend, but was deprived of a top result by technical problems. Nevertheless, they still want to secure their first IMSA win of the year in the remaining races of the season.
In the GTD Pro class, Lamborghini celebrated a historic success. Pfaff Motorsports, with Andrea Caldarelli and Sandy Mitchell, took the first endurance victory for the new Lamborghini Temerario GT3. Second place went to the AO Racing Porsche ahead of the Corvette driven by Tommy Milner and Nicky Catsburg.
The GTD class also offered excitement right to the finish. Winward Racing continued its winning streak and celebrated its second consecutive class victory in the Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo with Philip Ellis, Russell Ward, and Indy Dontje. They were followed by the Triarsi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo and the DragonSpeed Corvette Z06 GT3.R.
Since our publisher and photographer T. “tomspeed“ Spindler was himself on site at Road America, further photos of the event will follow as soon as possible.