Team Penske has earned its first IMSA win at Detroit’s Belle Isle Park since 2007, with Dane Cameron taking the No. 6 Acura DPi to Victory Lane after holding off the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac DPi of Felipe Nasr in the closing laps.
The victory was the second consecutive for the duo of Cameron and Juan Pablo Montoya, as the No. 6 team previously won the last WeatherTech SportsCar Championship round earlier this month at Mid-Ohio.
“We’ve just been getting better and better,” Cameron told NBC Sports. “Juan did an absolute hell of a job in qualifying. It was pretty amazing, that lap he did. [In the race], we got jumped there in the cycle and I wasn’t real happy about it, so we made sure we made it up to the front. From there, it was just about looking forward and executing. Hats off to everybody at Acura Team Penske.”
Montoya, who started from the pole, led the race early before swapping driving duties with Cameron, who took the lead back on Lap 26 when the No. 77 Team Joest Mazda of Tristan Nunez pitted under green.
Nasr would challenge Cameron for the lead during the final 20 minutes of the race, but Nasr was unable to complete a pass and had to settle with a second-place finish for himself and co-driver Pipo Derani. The No. 7 Acura Team Penske entry of Ricky Taylor and Helio Castroneves rounded out the podium, finishing third.
Hawksworth, Heistand Win in GTD
There was also a repeat winner in GT Daytona, as the No. 14 AIM Vasser Sullivan Lexus of Jack Hawksworth and Richard Heistand took their second consecutive class victory. After outdueling Mario Farnbacher and Meyer Shank Racing at Mid-Ohio, Hawksworth took an 0.828-second win today over the No. 73 Park Place Motorsports Porsche of Patrick Long.
Long’s co-driver, Zach Robichon, led the race from the pole, before Hawksworth took the lead with 48 minutes remaining. Hawksworth didn’t surrender the lead for the rest of the race.
“I had a good feeling about today,” Hawksworth told NBC Sports. “You give me a sniff of a win, I’m going to go for it and I’m going to try to win the thing, so that’s what I did.”
AIM Vasser Sullivan’s other Lexus entry, the No. 12 of Frankie Montecalvo and NBC Sports’ own Townsend Bell, finished third in GTD.
The next race of the 2019 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship is the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen at Watkins Glen International on June 30. Live coverage begins at 9:30am ET on the NBC Sports App, and the race will air on NBCSN at 7 p.m. ET.