(John Thawley ~ Motorsports Photography @ www.johnthawley.com ~ 248.227.0110)
Alexander Sims (No. 25 BMW Team RLL BMW M6, co-driven by Bill Auberlen) held off Richard Westbrook (No. 67 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT, co-driven by Ryan Briscoe) by 4.416 seconds after an intense 25-minute shootout to win the GTLM class at the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Sahlen's Six Hours of The Glen at Watkins Glen International on Sunday. It was the first win for BMW in IMSA competition since 2015 and the first win for the M6 in GTLM. “We finally get the win we’ve been hunting for with this M6 GTLM since it came out last year,” said Auberlen, who scored his 56th career victory, putting him four wins behind Scott Pruett as the winningest driver in North American endurance sports racing history. “You don’t win championships when you start off high and go down. We started down and now we’re climbing back up. Those are the ways you win championships.” The GTLM race was wide open with seven of the eight cars in the class leading at least one lap. Antonio Garcia and Jan Magnussen (No. 3 Corvette Racing Corvette C7.R) finished third to extend its points lead in the class. Check out the scintillating images from Watkins Glen by John Thawley in the Autoextremist Gallery here.
(John Thawley ~ Motorsports Photography @ www.johnthawley.com ~ 248.227.0110)
Joao Barbosa, Christian Fittipaldi and Filipe Albuquerque (No. 5 Mustang Sampling Cadillac DPi-V.R) delivered their first victory of the season in the prototype class at the Sahlen's Six Hours of The Glen on Sunday. It stopped a streak of five consecutive victories by No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi co-drivers Ricky and Jordan Taylor in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Barbosa took the lead for the final time with nine minutes remaining, taking advantage of slower traffic to pass South African driver Stephen Simpson (No. 85 JDC-Miller Motorsports ORECA LM P2, co-driven by Jose Gutierrez) and then holding off Simpson to win by 1.183 seconds. “I knew if traffic could play a role in the race, I could take advantage of it,” Barbosa said. “Coming into the last corner, (Simpson) had to check-up on a GT car so I got to pull a little bit of a move into Turn 1. He gave me just enough room to go around, it was really a fun race. We raced really, really hard. The mentality going into every race is to get the win. We keep believing it.” Simpson and Mexican driver Jose Gutierrez were a fixture in the top five through the second half of the race with a legitimate shot at becoming the first new LM P2 car to win in the IMSA WeatherTech Championship. Tristan Nunez, Jonathan Bomarito and Spencer Pigot (No. 55 Mazda RT24-P) finished third.
(John Thawley ~ Motorsports Photography @ www.johnthawley.com ~ 248.227.0110)
Andy Lally (No. 93 Michael Shank Racing w/ Curb-Agajanian Acura NSX GT3, co-driven by Katherine Legge) held off Alessandro Balzan (No. 63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 GT3, co-driven by Christina Nielsen and Matteo Cressoni) in the closing minutes at The Sahlen's Six Hour of The Glen to pick up the second consecutive GT Daytona (GTD) class victory for Acura. Lally beat Balzan to the line by 0.592 seconds for the win. “Last year, I got on the bumper of Balzan and he did a great job holding me off,” said Lally. “When I heard he got around [Jeroen] Bleekemolen right there at the end, I knew the pressure was coming on. That’s when you take a little extra in the bus stops, and you start putting it on a little deeper into each corner. It gets a little crazy.” It was the third consecutive second-place finish for Balzan and Nielsen and the duo’s fourth in the last five races. Justin Marks and Jens Klingmann (No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M6 GT3) finished third.
(John Thawley ~ Motorsports Photography @ www.johnthawley.com ~ 248.227.0110)
Five races into the final WeatherTech Championship season for the Prototype Challenge (PC) class, the No. 38 Performance Tech Motorsport ORECA FLM09 team has yet to be beaten. On Sunday, co-drivers James French, Pato O’Ward and Kyle Masson again cruised to victory, finishing three laps clear of the second-place machine of Don Yount, Buddy Rice and Danny Burkett (No. 20 BAR1 Motorsports ORECA). Derek Jones, Brian Alder and Gustavo Yacaman No. 26 BAR1 Motorsports ORECA) finished third.
(Crash.net)
Marc Marquez (No. 93 Repsol Honda Team) started from the pole and won his fifth consecutive MotoGP race at the Sachsenring in Germany on Sunday, with a flawless victory. The reigning champion was pushed by rookie and home favorite Jonas Folger (No. 94 Monster Yamaha Tech 3) throughout the race, but Marquez had plenty left in reserve at the finish and won by more than three seconds. Dani Pedrosa (No. 26 Repsol Honda team) finished third.
(Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Fifth Third Bank Ford) survived a ridiculous crash-fest that produced a race-record 14 cautions to win the Coke Zero 400 Powered by Coca-Cola at Daytona International Speedway Saturday night. It was Stenhouse Jr.'s second Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory of the season. Stenhouse Jr. is now locked into into NASCAR's postseason "playoff." Clint Boyer (No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Mobil 1 Ford) was second and Paul Menard (No. 27 Richard Childress Racing Moen/Menards Chevrolet) finished third.
(Ford Racing)
Dean Martin and co-driver Jack Roush Jr. (No. 59 KohR Motorsports NanoProMT/Roush Performance Ford Mustang GT4 ) drove to the team's second win of the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge season at the Continental Tire 120 at Watkins Glen International. It was also Team owner Dean Martin's first Mustang GT4 IMSA win as a driver. Wild weather caused multiple yellows and even a red flag during the race. The win was Roush’s 11th in the series and Martin’s sixth.