Chip Ganassi Racing’s Sebastien Bourdais and Renger van der Zande led 69 of 73 laps Saturday (June 4) to win the Chevrolet Sports Car Classic, the final IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race at The Raceway at Belle Isle. For Bourdais and van der Zande, it is their second victory of the year after winning the other street race at Long Beach.
“It was definitely not the easiest race for us,, but I’m super proud of that whole [No. 01] Cadillac team,” Bourdais told NBC Sports after the race. “What a day. What a day for Ganassi and Cadillac. And Renger [van der Zande] brought it home, it was very hard. We had to save a ton of fuel. It was hardly fought but that much sweeter when you win it.”
Bourdais started from his fourth pole of the year and led early. However, Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian’s Tom Blomqvist was right on his tail. This was despite Blomqvist complaining on the radio that his traction control wasn’t working very well.
The Cadillacs are said to be better on bumpy tracks than the ORECA 07-based Acura ARX-05. However, Blomqvist had no trouble keeping up. Blomqvist was never more than a second behind Bourdais for the entire first half of the race. The rest of the DPi class was quite a bit further back.
Normally, DPis can go around 35-42 minutes on a tank of fuel. That would require a two-stop strategy for a 100-minute race like Saturday’s. However, Bourdais and Blomqvist were able to stretch their fuel all the way to the 50-minute mark. Meanwhile, others like Pipo Derani went with a two-stop strategy.
Despite the constant fuel saving once van der Zande got in the car, he still had to deal with Oliver Jarvis. Jarvis threatened van der Zande for the last 20 minutes of the caution-free race. Meanwhile, Earl Bamber was able to dispatch of Derani in the closing minutes. Van der Zande was just barely able to hold on for the win.
Bourdais and van der Zande ended up just .398 seconds ahead of Blomqvist and Jarvis at the…
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