BMW was handed the victory in the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen on Sunday night after the skid block on the apparently-victorious No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 was found to be out of tolerance, and the car driven by Nick Tandy and Mathieu Jaminet was moved to the rear of the GTP class. However, PPM isn’t ready to concede, and BMW isn’t celebrating yet – despite Twitter feeds to the contrary.
PPM has stated it will protest the ruling from IMSA that the wood skid block under the car was out of tolerance in post-race inspection. IMSA specifies a minimum thickness in order to keep teams from running the cars too low – if the skid block is worn too thin, the assumption is that the car was bottoming out too much.
“Following post-race inspection at Watkins Glen International, IMSA has penalized the No. 6 entry in the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen citing that the front skid wear of the No. 6 Porsche 963 was less than one millimeter outside the legal tolerance,” Porsche Penske Motorsport said in a statement. “The rear skid wear was noted to be well within the legal tolerance. Porsche Penske Motorsport plans to collect all of the data and follow the protest procedures.”
Jaminet made a dramatic late-race pass on Connor De Phillippi in traffic to initially claim the victory for the No. 6, while De Phillippi and Nick Yelloly in the No. 25 BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8 believed they had been denied the marque’s first GTP victory. However, five hours after the checkered flag, IMSA announced that the No. 6 963 had failed post-race technical inspection and the BMW was promoted to first.