Pfaff Motorsports’ Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet dominated the second half the Michelin GT Challenge at VIR Sunday (Aug. 28). They just barely put enough fuel in the car on their final stop to earn the victory, their fifth of the year and second straight at VIR. Last year’s victory with Laurens Vanthoor and Zacharie Robichon came in the regular GTD class as opposed to GTD Pro.
“The race was phenomenal; we’ve pretty much wrapped up the championship now. It’s an incredible feeling,” Campbell told NBC Sports’ Matt Yocum in victory lane. “Incredible run. Incredible job by the team, especially on strategy.”
The Heart of Racing’s Ross Gunn started from pole in his Aston Martin and opened up a small gap on the pack. Campbell was able to get around Antonio Garcia on the first lap and take second.
After the first 10 minutes, Gunn and Campbell’s pace more or less equalized. Meanwhile, Garcia, VasserSullivan’s Jack Hawksworth and BMW M Team RLL’s Connor de Phillippi weren’t all that far behind.
During the first round of stops, Corvette Racing decided to change their strategy up. When they pitted for tires, fuel and to put Jordan Taylor in the car, the team chose to short-fill Taylor. As a result, he moved into the overall lead.
Once in the lead, Taylor put down a series of quick laps that resulted in an 11-second lead for the Corvette. However, that advantage was short-lived as the yellow flew at halfway for debris.
The caution brought the class to pit road for their second of three stops. Jaminet won the race off of pit road to get into the lead.
It ultimately took Jaminet until the fifth lap under green to get the overall lead back, but that came just in time for the final round of stops. Jaminet stopped with 52 minutes to go, a distance that would be much more easily reached than some of the other teams.
That was not the case for much of the rest of the class. The lead ultimately fell to The Heart of Racing’s Alex Riberas, who was on an alternate strategy after getting a penalty during the caution for pitting out of the box. With nothing to lose, Riberas tried to go the distance on fuel.
Unfortunately, that didn’t work out. Jaminet, running unimpeded by fuel issues, was able to run down and pass Riberas for the class lead with 16 minutes to go. Riberas ended up stopping with just under five minutes to go to take five seconds of fuel.
Jaminet then ran down Riberas’ teammate Maxime Martin…
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