The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship raced on the streets of Long Beach this past weekend, as they went from the two longest races of the season at Daytona and Sebring, to one of the shortest (both the Long Beach and Detroit street races are 100 minutes). Given the nature of the circuit, Long Beach is one of the most challenging races on the schedule, but Turner Motorsport got through five caution periods and contact with another car to finish on the GTD podium in second, while Team WRT managed a hard-fought top five in the GTP class.
The Long Beach race was for GTP and GTD class cars only. In the Detroit street race in late May, it will be GTP and GTD Pro. Even with only two classes, it’s still crowded on the tight confines of the 1.968-mile Long Beach circuit. There were 28 cars on the entry, with 11 in GTP and 17 in GTD, with BMW represented by the #24 and #25 M Hybrid V8 prototypes in the GTP class, and by Turner Motorsport as the sole BMW entry in the GTD class.
The BMWs were up and down in the practice sessions. The #24 and #25 were tenth and eleventh fastest in GTP in the first session but then Dries Vanthoor set the quickest lap in the second session, which was cut short due to a red flag. The Turner Motorsport #96 M4 GT3 EVO was fifth fastest in the first practice but then ninth in the second.
In qualifying, Marco Wittmann put in a great lap in the #25 to slot into second in GTP, just three-hundredths of a second off the pole of the #93 Acura. Dries Vanthoor was three-tenths behind Wittmann in sixth, as he struggled with stability under braking in the #24 car. In GTD, Patrick Gallagher qualified fifth in the #96, around two-tenths off the pole of the #36 Corvette. Lap times were incredibly close in both classes. In GTP, the top nine cars were within a half-second of each other, and in GTD the top eight were within a half-second.
The hopes of a strong finish for the #25 car that qualified in second were dashed about halfway through the race, when Philipp Eng went into the tire wall after battling for position with Lauren Heinrich in the #5 Porsche 963. The contact took off much of the rear bodywork, including the rear wing, and Eng’s driving also led to a stop-and-hold plus 60-second penalty for blocking Heinrich. “We got off to a good start this weekend and, with a front-row starting position, had a great chance to fight for the podium,” said Eng’s co-drive Marco Wittman. “However, those opportunities vanished with the accident – luck just wasn’t on our side today. So now we have to look ahead.”
The #24 BMW M Hybrid V8 of Dries Vanthoor and Sheldon van der Linde hung in there to finish in fifth, which was a solid result after the team struggled with some setup issues on the car over the weekend. The GTP class was won by the #93 Acura. “Of course, it’s not the result we had envisioned,” said Vanthoor. “We weren’t completely sorted at the start of the weekend, which also put us behind in qualifying. In the race, I tried to preserve the car and the tires so that Sheldon could push hard towards the end. That worked well, but we struggle in direct fights with other cars. We collected important points, but now we need to take a step forward.”
In GTD, the Turner Motorsport team put in a very solid day. After qualifying fifth, Patrick Gallagher maintained position and turned the car over to Robby Foley at around the halfway mark. Foley worked his way up to third after the race went through three caution periods and then made a bold move around the #36 Corvette to get into second. There was some contact with the Corvette on the pass that took some of the rear bumper off the BMW, but Foley held on to finish second behind the winning Lexus. “It was a great day at Long Beach,” said Foley. “I made a couple moves in traffic and was P2 or P3 when I got hit in the rear. We had some damage, but luckily not enough to affect the car and kept going. We couldn’t quite catch the leader – we didn’t really have anything for them – so congrats to them. But we collected great points to bring to Laguna.”
Robby Foley (left) and Patrick Gallagher celebrate on the podium. [BMW photo]
—David Haueter
[Photos by Kyle van Hoften]
