GTLM came down to the final hour. As the race wore on it was clear that this race would become a fight between BMW’s No. 24 M8 and Porsche’s pair of new 911 RSR 19s. In the end, the No. 24 BMW prevailed, Jesse Krohn, Chaz Mostert, John Edwards and Augusto Farfus all playing a part in a hard-fought win for the brand, which also won last year.
Krohn was in for the end and made a bold move on Nick Tandy in the No. 911 Porsche to take the lead just before the final stops. After the final round of stops, after hours and hours of almost nose-to-tail running, Krohn emerged in the lead and pulled away, winning by 13.5 seconds, over the Porsches which fought hard right to the flag, the No. 912 finishing second ahead of the No. 911.
GTLM winners on the podium. Image by Levitt/LAT
“It was stressful,” Krohn said of the battle in the final stint. “Very little sleep through the night and it’s all on your shoulders at the end, so I didn’t want to be the guy that finishes second and denies these guys the watches. So I just put my head down, first of all when I saw the Porsche ahead of me — I knew the only way for us to pass them was to actually catch them and make the move, so it wasn’t given to us.
“It’s unbelievable. I don’t know how we did it. There are no words. These guys did an amazing job throughout the whole night — no mistakes from anyone at BMW, at RLL and the drivers. This is what it takes to win the race.”
For Porsche, meanwhile, it wasn’t a win, but it was nevertheless a big result in the car’s IMSA and 24-hour-race debut.
It was also a hugely significant race for Corvette Racing, which debuted its C8.R globally. What can we take away from this? The new car is quite reliable already. The No. 4 suffered a major oil leak, then a suspension issue after Tommy Milner had an off into the pit-out Armco. But the No. 3 had a largely flawless run, and was in sight of a podium at the very least until the BMW and pair of Porsches turned the wick up in the final few hours.
Finishing fourth is a victory of sorts for the C8.R, which showed flashes of real pace this week. It bodes well for the team’s next two big endurance races this year at Sebring in March and Le Mans in June.
BMW, like Corvette, had one car run flawlessly and another that hit trouble. The No. 25 finished a distant fifth, and spent much of the race recovering from a wheel nut issue and electrical gremlins.
There was only one casualty here, the Risi Competition Ferrari driven by an all-star team of Ferrari factory drivers. Throughout the race, James Calado was keen to stress that the team was forced to run its 488 GTE ragged just to keep up and that it didn’t have the outright pace to win. In the end he was right, though the car didn’t fall too far back at any point until a puncture in the penultimate hour prompted the team to retire the car.
The GTD podium. Image by Levitt/LAT
GTD became a tale of two Lamborghinis at the end, after the early hours were dominated by a rotating cast of German and Italian machinery. Paul Miller Racing’s No. 48, crewed by Bryan Sellers, Madison Snow, Corey Lewis and Andrea Caldarelli won this one, finishing 24 seconds clear of the Magnus Racing Huracan which led as late as the penultimate hour.
“It’s a lot of years of trying and a lot of years of pain, watching other people walk past you with the watch you want so bad,” said Bryan Sellars said. “There’s really … there’s really no words to describe watching the (Rolex) finally being handed to you and everybody on your team.
“This would be my fifth attempt with Paul and everybody at Paul Miller Racing, and it just feels so good to finally get it to come together. We are just so proud of all the guys and what they accomplished in the work they put in at the shop.
“I think for the four of us, the drivers, this is something we’ve all waited to do together. We’ve all done it separately, but never as a complete combination. There are no words.”
The racing in GTD was fast and frantic, with at least four cars constantly within a minute of the leader until the sun came up on Sunday. Before the race started, it appeared that Pfaff’s Porsche would be the car to beat, and in the opening hours the team enjoyed a comfortable lead.
But it would all fall apart overnight, the car suffering a powertrain failure which put it out of the running, eventually finishing 49 laps down.
This left Porsche with the No. 16 Wright Motorsports 911 GT3 R as its hopes of winning, but the car didn’t have the raw pace toward the end and took fourth ahead of the Black Swan Racing example, which was Wright Motorsports’ spare chassis.
A top-five finish for Tim Pappas and his team was huge reward for its crew members, after a Practice 1 incident that wrote off its original chassis and forced the team to source a new one. A magnificent effort here, after they missed almost all the pre-race track time.
Elsewhere, there are a few more points to make from the GTD class. Turner Motorsports’ BMW looked strong early, faded and dropped to sixth, ahead of the Scuderia Corsa Ferrari which also ran in the top three in the first half of the race but wasn’t able to keep up once the night hours concluded.
Aston Martin must also be mentioned here, because it was an IMSA debut to forget for the Vantage GT3. The Heart of Racing entry retired after a collision at pit in with the Precision Performance Lamborghini and the No. 98 Aston Martin Racing car was withdrawn in the first half of the race too following a rare mistake by Ross Gunn, who hit the Armco at pit out and terminally damaged the car.
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