Chip Ganassi Racing’s Renger van der Zande took the contrarian outside line in turn 3 to take the lead from Action Express Racing’s Alexander Sims with 40 minutes to go Sunday (May 14). From there, he held on to take the victory for himself and Sebastien Bourdais in the Motul Course de Monterey at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.
“It’s unbelievable. This team deserves it,” van der Zande said post-race. “I love winning races. We’ve had some trouble with big shunts here [and at Spa recently]. The car was really safe today and good on the long run. I’m really proud.”
The win is the first-ever win for the new Cadillac VSeries.R and the third different GTP manufacturer to win in four races this year. It is also van der Zande’s third overall win at Laguna Seca after having previously won in a PC/GTD race in 2014 and overall in 2017. It is Bourdais’ first WeatherTech victory at Laguna Seca.
Bourdais and van der Zande’s margin of victory was 3.882 seconds over Porsche Penske Motorsport’s Mathieu Jaminet and Nick Tandy. Sims and Pipo Derani were third, then Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport’s Filipe Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor. BMW M Team RLL’s Philipp Eng and Augusto Farfus were fifth.
Porsche Penske Motorsport’s Matt Campbell started on the pole, but Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian’s Colin Braun got a massive run on the start and got inside of Campbell going into the Andretti Hairpin. Seemingly most of the GTP class locked up under braking. Campbell ended up going wide and dropped all the way back to seventh, while Braun ended up in the lead.
Shortly afterward, Gradient Racing’s Sheena Monk got hit and spun her Acura in turn 6. She lost part of her rear bodywork, which resulted in the race’s first yellow.
Sunday marked the GTD debut for Andretti Autosport. Sunday was a baptism by fire for Jarett Andretti. Andretti was at least tangentially involved with Monk’s incident. Later on, he had a spin exiting Rainey Curve.
20 minutes into the race, he was nudged right before the braking zone for turn 11 by Campbell. Andretti then spun his Aston Martin and backed into the tires that protected the blunt end of the pit wall at the pit in. Andretti was able to walk away from the car, but his GT3 debut came to an early and expensive end.
After the restart, IMSA officials elected to penalize Campbell for accident responsibility. As a result, he served a drive-through penalty.
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