Whelen Cadillac ends drought at last at Battle on the Bricks

Cadillac is finally on the board with its first win of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season after the No. 31 Cadillac Whelen V-Series.R of Jack Aitken, Earl Bamber and Frederik Vesti won the TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, leading a 1-2 finish for the American manufacturer.

A warm, cloudy Sunday in the last days of summer was the setting. Aitken took the early hole shot while the No. 93 Acura Meyer Shank Racing ARX-06 of Nick Yelloly made a rocket start to jump up from fifth to second.

Back-to-back full course yellows – one for debris, the other for George Kurtz spinning his No. 04 Crowdstrike by APR ORECA LMP2 – led to an early round of pit stops for all but the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac and No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963. This represented the only time the No. 31 Cadillac relinquished control of the race. But even before the next pit window, Aitken was able to pass both Matt Campbell and Ricky Taylor in succession to take the lead again.

The next phase was a showdown between young Vesti and his Acura counterpart Kakunoshin Ohta for the lead. That duel was broken up by some full course yellows involving the No. 80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG and the No. 18 Era Motorsport ORECA LMP2, but eventually Vesti would break through, building a ten-second advantage before handing the car off to Bamber.

With less than 90 minutes to go, Bamber handed the cockpit back over to Aitken, and minutes later, a piece of bodywork blew onto the track, bringing out a full course yellow which reset the race with one hour to go.

Aitken first had to withstand pressure from the likes of BMW M Team RLL’s Sheldon van der Linde, then when the time began to tick down, there was also a question of whether the leaders had enough energy to reach the finish.

But when the ORECA LMP2s of Ben Hanley and Toby Sowery tangled, sending Sowery into the turn 12 wall, the race ended with a two-lap sprint finish. Aitken got a great restart and held on to secure the first win for Action Express Racing (competing as Cadillac Whelen) since the 2023 Twelve Hours of Sebring.

The No. 10 WTR Cadillac of Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque overcame an untimely puncture just before half-distance, which buried them down the or der, to finish second, only 0.988s behind the No. 31. Taylor made a frantic sprint from tenth to second with less than an hour to go, and the final caution ensured he had enough energy to reach the finish.

Likewise, the No. 60 Acura Meyer Shank Racing ARX-06 of Tom Blomqvist and Colin Braun came from the back of the GTP grid after a post-qualifying penalty, then recovered from a drive-through penalty for blocking, to round out the podium in third.

The No. 24 RLL BMW (Philipp Eng/Dries Vanthoor) and No. 93 MSR Acura (Renger van der Zande/Nick Yelloly/Kakunoshin Ohta) rounded out the top five, with the No. 25 BMW (Sheldon van der Linde/Marco Wittmann) dropping to sixth.

Mathieu Jaminet and Matt Campbell finished seventh in their No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsports 963, five places ahead of the sister No. 7 Penske Porsche of Felipe Nasr and Nick Tandy.

Tandy’s race unraveled due to two incidents and a drive-through penalty during the middle stages. In contrast, Jaminet and Campbell had time to recover from a blocking penalty and extended their championship lead going into the season-ending Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta on October 11th.

Later on, the No. 7 Porsche also tangled with the No. 63 Lamborghini Squadra Corse SC63 at Turn 7, leading to an unscheduled stop for the Lambo of Romain Grosjean and Edoardo Mortara. A top five was possible, but tenth was all they could salvage.

The No. 85 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche (Tijmen van der Helm/Nico Müller) and No. 40 WTR Cadillac (Jordan Taylor/Louis Deletraz) were eighth and ninth respectively; the No. 23 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie (Ross Gunn/Roman de Angelis) came home 11th after a late pit stop, ahead of the No. 7 Penske Porsche.

Jake Galstad/IMSA

At the end of an action-packed final hour, TDS Racing captured its third straight LMP2 class win at the Brickyard. Steven Thomas, Mikkel Jensen and Hunter McElrea drove their No. 11 ORECA 07-Gibson to the front after the final round of routine pit stops.

United Autosports USA’s pole-winning No. 2 ORECA led early but the yellow No. 11 TDS Racing machine was often near the front. Jensen took the lead from the No. 22 United ORECA of Paul di Resta, who then found himself on the wrong end of a three-wide squeeze at Turn 12 between teammate Hanley and the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition car of Tom Dillmann. Di Resta came away the worst and spun down to eighth place.

Minutes later, Hanley got spun out by the No. 8 Tower Motorsports car of Sébastien Bourdais, Crowdstrike by APR didn’t get the late-race yellow they needed to make it to the end without pitting and surrendered the lead, AO Racing’s Dane Cameron got a drive-through for punting the No. 34 Conquest Racing Ferrari, and then came the clash between Hanley and Jakobsen near the end.

The last caution erased a large lead for Jensen but he was able to hold on for TDS’ third Indy win in a row, with the No. 43 Inter Europol car of Dillmann, Jeremy Clarke and Bijoy Garg coming through to finish second. It was Dillmann’s first IMSA race since his back injury at CTMP in July.

Picking their way through the chaos was the No. 74 Riley ORECA (Gar Robinson/Felipe Fraga/Josh Burdon) to finish third, while Di Resta, Dan Goldburg and Rasmus Lindh recovered to finish fourth in the No. 22 United ORECA.

The No. 99 AO Racing ORECA of Cameron, PJ Hyett and Jonny Edgar took fifth after the late penalty, but holds the LMP2 Championship lead going into Road Atlanta.

Jake Galstad/IMSA

After Ford Multimatic Motorsports’ pair of Mustang GT3s spent most of the race fighting in vain to get past AO Racing’s No. 77 Porsche 911 GT3 R, young Sebastian Priaulx was able to muscle his way to the front of the GTD PRO class with 37 minutes to go, giving he and Mike Rockenfeller their second win of the year in the No. 64 Mustang.

But not before Laurin Heinrich and Klaus Bachler drove a spirited race for AO Racing, hanging out in front with Bachler in particular putting on a defensive masterclass against the likes of Frédéric Vervisch (in the No. 65 Ford) and Rockenfeller, then the final showdown between Heinrich and his former AO co-driver Priaulx.

The decisive move came out of turn four and onto the chicane at Hulman Boulevard, and as Priaulx went by Heinrich, Heinrich veered wide through the grass and allowed the No. 48 Paul Miller Racing BMW and No. 81 DragonSpeed Ferrari through. 

Heinrich’s woes were compounded on the next lap after a tangle with Nicky Catsburg in the No. 4 Corvette, dropping him to seventh, which is where “Rexy” finished in the end after slowing momentarily on the final lap. Priaulx took the win after the No. 64 Mustang came back from a drive-through penalty for a pit work infraction.