BMW pairing prove unstoppable for first Pro victory
IMSA SPORTSCAR VIRGINIA (USA) 25 AUGUST ROUND 9/11
One year ago, Madison Snow and Bryan Sellers combined to take Paul Miller Racing’s BMW M4 GT3 to a commanding GTD victory in IMSA’S GT showcase event at the glorious Virginia International Raceway road course. On that occasion, however, they had to be content with a third-place overall finish in a two-hour-and-40-minute race that was won by the GTD Pro
Chevrolet Corvette team.
This time around they went even better. After having graduated to GTD Pro, last year’s GTD champions took charge of last weekend’s race from the get-go and ended up with a convincing overall win – the first for Snow and Sellers in the senior category.
In fact, their domination was complete. Snow eclipsed the old qualifying lap record and led a majority of the way under a sunny sky in front of a record crowd.
Sunday’s race was notable for another breakthrough performance as the Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang GT3 claimed its first IMSA podium finish. England’s Harry Tincknell kept the pressure on Snow throughout the first stint, and while Mike Rockenfeller couldn’t quite match the pace of the BMW, he still brought it home safely in second place in by far the car’s best outing to date.
Another standout performance came from the Heart of Racing Aston Martin pairing of Alex Riberas and Ross Gunn. After Riberas struggled to make much progress in the first stint, the team made a bold decision to make an early first pitstop with only 21 of the eventual 86 laps in the books. Gunn then took advantage of a clear track and emerged in the lead when Sellers relieved Snow after 33 laps.
The balance was redressed at the second round of stops, when Snow hopped back aboard the PMR BMW and required less fuel than the Aston, and any hopes of the win were extinguished by a drive-through penalty for failing to meet the minimum refuelling time. Fortunately, the leaders’ advantage had been enough for Gunn to resume in third, after which he ran nose-to-tail behind Rockenfeller’s Ford.
In GTD, Kenton Koch and Mikael Grenier combined to score a fine maiden victory for the Korthoff/preston Motorsports Mercedes-amg GT3, which was chased home by the Heart of Racing Aston
Martin of Canadian pair Zacharie Robichon/roman De Angelis.