The Whelen Engineering Cadillac team finished fifth in today’s running of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Continental Tire Monterey Grand Prix featuring America’s Tire 250 at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. The Mustang Sampling Cadillac DPi-V.R and Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R retired from the race.
Drama ensued from the drop of the green when the No. 5 Mustang Sampling Cadillac DPi-V.R with Joao Barbosa at the wheel was rear-ended and sent spinning in the middle of the track where he was hit broadside by the No. 911 Porsche GTLM entry with heavy damage. The damage to the car was so severe it was withdrawn. The damage for the championship hopes was just as painful as they did not get a single point as the car never crossed the threshold, start/finish line, to start the race.
During the one lap of green pole sitter Jordan Taylor, No. 10 Cadillac DPi-V.R, was passed by one of the Acura prototypes. After 20-minutes of yellow running the race restarted, soon after that Taylor was parked just after Turn 6 on the side of the track. He was towed up the hill and then coasted the car down into the garage area where it was retired from the race as a result of a mechanical issue.
The lone Cadillac in the race with two hours remaining was the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac DPi-V.R with Eric Curran starting. The team had been battling the handling of the red Cadillac all through practice this week. With the crazy start to the race and the other two Cadillac entries out of the race Curran and Nasr were able to drive to a fifth-place finish.
“That was a crazy one for sure,” Curran said. “First off, I feel bad for our teammates in the five car with Joao getting turned around at the start and getting hit really hard. So, it was a tough start for us, and then we had another yellow right away so that first segment that I was in, it was very little green flag running. But Felipe did another awesome job. We fought as much as we could all day but we didn’t have the balance to have the Continental Tires working the way we needed them to. We got up to second position with our pit strategy, but just didn’t have the speed to keep it up there. Now we just have to get ready for Petit Le Mans, go down there and just do our job.”
“The starts this year have been pretty clean, but this start was pretty messy for everyone and unfortunately, we lost our sister car,” Nasr said. “But Eric avoided the trouble and once I was in the car, it was about gaining back the positions, because we were in the back of the prototype field. The car felt amazing early on. I was able to recover pretty quickly and we got ourselves back into P2. But when I got the second set of new tires, it was like I was driving on ice so we lost pace in the last part of the race. All we could do was to bring it home. We’re still in the hunt for the championship and that was the point today, that if we didn’t have the car to win the race, we still got some points.”
Taylor and Renger Van Der Zande will have look to the season finale Petit Le Mans in a month for the first win of the season for the Konica Minolta Cadillac team. Following their retirement, they were classified in 12th.
“A disappointing day, obviously,” Taylor said. “We had the strongest car all weekend, fastest in two practices and we got the pole and it’s tough not to capitalize on a weekend like that. Right off the bat, in my opinion, the 6-car jumped the start. The polesitter should set the starting speed and he was two car lengths ahead by the time we got to the start-finish line, and then the 7-car passed me in Turn 2 when the yellow was out. Other than that, we were looking good in the points with where we were running at the time. It’s difficult to have to end this race because of a technical issue. We’ll just go to Petit (Le Mans) and race for the win.”
Filipe Albuquerque and Joao Barbosa take a big hit in the points as they head to the season finale.
“It seemed they all started going, and then they checked up,” Barbosa said. “I checked up, and I felt a big hit in the rear, and I got spun around. Then I saw the GT traffic coming at me, and I just braced myself. It was a big hit, but the Cadillac is an amazing car, a strong car. I’m sorry for all the Action Express Mustang Sampling guys. They worked all weekend to get the car ready. We had a really good shot today. The car was really good on race pace. Unfortunately, we’re out of the race, and the championship gets that much tougher now. We’re very disappointed.”
The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship will travel to Road Atlanta for the season finale Motul Petit Le Mans, October 9-11.
