Ricky Taylor made an aggressive move to the inside of Porsche Penske Motorsport’s Mathieu Jaminet at the end of the backstretch with 26 minutes remaining to take the lead Saturday afternoon (June 1). From there, Ricky was able to hold on to win the IMSA Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix presented by Lear on the streets of the Motor City.
“[The win] means so much,” Ricky Taylor told NBC Sports’ Matt Yocum after the race. “We haven’t won a race in over a year. I hadn’t won a race since I got married. It just seemed like nothing could go right. We didn’t think we had a chance, but we got to front after the one [pit stop] and made it work from there.”
Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor’s margin of victory was 1.132 seconds over Jaminet and Nick Tandy. Chip Ganassi Racing’s Sebastien Bourdais and Renger van der Zande were third in their Cadillac, then the No. 7 Porsche of Dane Cameron and Felipe Nasr. The WTRAndretti No. 40 of Louis Deletraz and Jordan Taylor was fifth.
Tandy started from pole and managed to open up a decent advantage. However, Ford Multimatic Motorsports’ Harry Tincknell was never able to come up to speed. He stalled at the entrance to the hairpin to bring out the race’s first full course caution.
Once the green came back out, a number of teams decided on an alternate strategy. Minimum drive-time for this race was only 10 minutes. Almost as soon as the 10-minute mark was reached, a few teams pitted to change drivers and get a splash of fuel. Among that group was Action Express Racing’s Pipo Derani, who started at the rear of the GTP class after catching the wall in the final minutes of qualifying.
Tandy pulled away to a four-second lead over Albuquerque. Then, trouble broke out.
Tandy completely misjudged his closing rate on Conquest Racing’s Daniel Serra and ran right into the back of Serra’s Ferrari under braking for the hairpin. Serra ended up spinning out, while Tandy was given a drive-through penalty.
The penalty dropped Tandy back to sixth. Meanwhile, Albuquerque took the overall lead in his Acura.
The penalty likely jump-started pit stops. Bourdais was first of the leaders to pit. A couple of laps later, Albuquerque pitted from the lead, but got jumped in the short pit lane by the No. 7.
The day for BMW M Team RLL went from excellent to terrible in a matter of a few laps. Nick Yelloly pitted from the lead and handed over to Connor de Phillippi.
De Phillippi then…
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