Acura Team Penske fittingly took the overall victory in Sunday’s Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio, with Juan Pablo Montoya leading Tristan Nunez and Mazda Team Joest to the checkered flag.
The victory was the second for Team Penske in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, with the team’s first victory also coming at Mid-Ohio last year with Helio Castroneves and Ricky Taylor behind the wheel of the No. 7 machine.
This time, the other Penske Acura DPi was victorious, with co-driver Dane Cameron starting the race and keeping the No. 6 entry up front before handing the wheel over to Montoya to race to the finish.
“Dane did an an amazing job in qualifying and at the beginning of the race,” Montoya told NBCSN. “We had a great strategy, saved a bit of fuel, and had good stop[s] and good in and out laps.”
Jonathan Bomarito and NTT IndyCar Series regular Ryan-Hunter-Reay finished third in the No. 55 Mazda DPi, behind teammates Nunez and Oliver Jarvis in the No. 77. Mazda is still looking for its first Prototype win in the current WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, and hasn’t earned a major Prototype class win since 2010 at Mid-Ohio in the old American Le Mans Series.
Vanthoor, Bamber win for Porsche in GTLM
Porsche took their third consecutive victory in the GT Le Mans class, with Laurens Vanthoor and Earl Bamber putting the No. 912 Porsche 911 RSR in Victory Lane for the second consecutive race, having won the previous round at Long Beach. The No. 3 Corvette C7.R of Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia finished second and Sebring winners Patrick Pilet and Nick Tandy finished third in the No. 911 Porsche after serving a drive-through penalty for Pilet jumping the race start.
Hawksworth gives Vasser Sullivan the win in exciting GTD finish
In GT Daytona, Jack Hawksworth gave AIM Vasser Sullivan their first class victory after passing Meyer Shank Racing’s Mario Farnbacher on the restart with less than half an hour to go. Hawksworth, driving the No. 14 Lexus RC F GT3, held on through the checkered flag despite constant pressure from Farnbacher, including a bold attempt to reclaim the lead on the final lap. Paul Miller Racing’s No. 48 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo, driven by Ryan Hardwick and Bryan Sellers, rounded out the GTD podium.
McMurry, Lux easily take LMP2 win
The No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports entry of Matt McMurry and Eric Lux claimed the win in LMP2. Their only other competitors from Performance Tech Motorsports were involved in a Lap 1 crash with a GTD competitor, and ended up finishing 34 laps behind the LMP2 winners.
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The next race of the 2019 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season is the Chevrolet Sports Car Classic on Saturday, June 1. The 1 hour, 40 minute event on the streets of Detroit’s Belle Isle Park will feature both Daytona Prototype and GT Daytona entries. NBCSN will have live flag-to-flag coverage of the race, beginning at 12:30 p.m. ET.