IMSA Category

By IMSA Wire Service DETROIT – Every head-on photo of race cars navigating the start/finish straight at Detroit’s 2.3-mile Belle Isle Park street circuit shows the Renaissance Center towering over the Detroit River off in the distance. The “Ren Cen,” as it is known locally, is world headquarters for General Motors and will serve as a constant reminder of the company’s Motor City presence for all six Cadillac DPi-V.R teams competing in Saturday’s Chevrolet Sports Car Classic. Make no mistake, this is a “home game” for each of those teams.Read More

By IMSA Wire Service IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship fans searching for connections to Sunday’s 103rd Indianapolis 500 won’t have to look far. Two-thirds of the drivers in the 33-car field have at least one start in IMSA’s top series. That includes the WeatherTech Championship or its predecessors, the GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series and the American Le Mans Series (ALMS). Ten of these 22 drivers have made at least one WeatherTech Championship start in 2019. WeatherTech Championship full-timer Helio Castroneves, who shares the No. 7 Acura Team Penske ARX-05 DPiRead More

By IMSA Wire Service In the grand tradition of great collaborations, IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship fans are witnessing another in the GT Le Mans (GTLM) class. They’ve become known as #Bamthor. It’s the new nickname taking hold in social media for the co-drivers of the No. 912 Porsche GT Team 911 RSR, Earl Bamber and Laurens Vanthoor. The name is taking on a life of its own after the duo’s back-to-back victories in the BUBBA burger Sports Car Grand Prix at Long Beach last month and the Acura Sports CarRead More

By IMSA Wire Service Jack Hawksworth won his first race in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship back in 2014 in the Prototype Challenge (PC) class at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. But it wasn’t until the Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio on May 5 that he’d win again, this time in the GT Daytona (GTD) class aboard the No. 14 AIM Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3. “My first-ever race in the championship, I won, but it took five years to get back there,” Hawksworth says. “It was a long oldRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer LEXINGTON, Ohio– Mazda Team Joest had their podium finish as an entity at the 2018 Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course and the team managed to get two cars on the podium at this year at Sunday’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race at Mid-Ohio. However, despite the second and third place finishes, the team is frustrated by their lack of stepping on the top step of the podium. “We’ve been fast every weekend, started on the front row three of the four weekends,Read More

By IMSA Wire Service LEXINGTON, Ohio – A year ago, Acura Team Penske celebrated its first IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship victory in the Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio with a sweep of the top two podium spots. No. 6 Acura ARX-05 Daytona Prototype international (DPi) co-drivers Juan Pablo Montoya and Dane Cameron came home second that day as their teammates in the No. 7, Helio Castroneves and Ricky Taylor, celebrated the victory. Following Sunday’s two-hour and 40-minute battle at the 2.258-mile Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, it was the No.Read More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer LEXINGTON, Ohio— Mazda Team Joest had a lot of data to analyze after finishing fourth at the most recent round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship on the streets of Long Beach and the results came back with a pole position for Oliver Jarvis ahead of Sunday’s Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. After Acura Team Penske’s Helio Castroneves kept constantly upping the pressure, Jarvis came through with a fastest lap of 1 minute, 10.705 seconds to average 114.967 mph. Castroneves was secondRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer LEXINGTON, Ohio– The GT Le Mans and GT Daytona class pole position battles came down to a fight for optimal track conditions and Sebastien Bourdais and Richard Heistand played that game perfectly to earn pole positions for their respective classes ahead of Sunday’s Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Bourdais piloted his No. 66 Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT around to a fastest lap of 1 minute, 19.124 seconds around the 2.258 mile permanent road course toRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer LEXINGTON, Ohio– Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course could have easily been renamed Mud-Ohio after rain kept hitting the track and the surrounding grass parking lots all throughout Friday morning and into the early Friday afternoon but the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship maintained their schedule on the first day of the Acura Sports Car Challenge, the first normal round of the 2019 season. With Friday’s morning practice conducted entirely in the wet, only 22 cars turned complete laps out of 36 on the entry list. Juan Pablo MontoyaRead More

By IMSA Wire Service If Helio Castroneves is comfortable heading into this weekend’s Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio – and the Brazilian driver says he is – that could make many of his IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship competitors somewhat uncomfortable. Last year, Castroneves and his No. 7 Acura Team Penske ARX-05 Daytona Prototype international (DPi) co-driver, Ricky Taylor, partnered to lead a 1-2 sweep for the team in the first IMSA race on the 2.238-mile Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course since 2013. Castroneves also took the Motul Pole Award inRead More