Acura defeats Porsche with stunning pass in crazy street fight

In his series debut on the tight and twisty 2.654-mile, nine-turn temporary street circuit in downtown Detroit, Taylor beat Porsche's Mathieu Jaminet with a superb overtaking move in the ultimate 25 minutes of the GTP.

AO Racing's Seb Priaulx and Laurin Heinrich won the GTD Pro class of their Porsche 911.

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After a pair of factory-backed Porsche Penske Motorsport 963s were on the front row in qualifying, poleman Nick Tandy's automobile led Dane Cameron's No. 7 to the green flag.

The No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing of Albuquerque within the Andretti Acura ARX-06 braked late and passed a cautious Cameron into the primary turn to take second place, while Sebastien Bourdais (No. 01 Cadillac V-Series.R) passed Sebastien Bourdais. right down to take third place.

A full-course yellow warning was issued at the top of the primary lap when Harry Tincknell's GTD Ford Mustang stopped before turning one.

After the restart, Tandy led Albuquerque, Bourdais, Cameron and two BMW M Hybrid V8s, cared for by Philipp Eng and Nick Yelloly. However, Eng soon received a drive-through penalty, losing his hard-earned fifth place for changing lanes before the beginning.

Tandy pulled away despite problems with a faulty radio, leaving Albuquerque, Bourdais and Cameron in second place. Pipo Derani, who crashed in qualifying, climbed out of the No. 31 Action Express Cadillac after 10 minutes and handed over to Jack Aitken in a daring play of strategy.

After 25 minutes and anticipating problems in pre-race GTD traffic, Tandy exceeded braking speed in turn three and sent Ferrari factory driver Daniel Serra's Conquest Racing 296 right into a skid. The collision resulted in a drive-through penalty for the race leader.

“I just missed the moment when they were checking. I apologize to them,” said Tandy, who explained that he was fidgeting with the radio wires because he couldn't hear his lows clearly.

This left Albuquerque within the lead with Bourdais and Cameron, although Bourdais got here into the pits after half-hour and gave the ball to Renger van der Zande. However, the decision was received late and Bourdais didn’t loosen the seat belts, resulting in a slow driver change.

Albuquerque pitted handy off to Ricky Taylor a lap later, and he returned with a bigger lead. Cameron took a lap longer before stopping handy over to Felipe Nasr, who joined ahead of Taylor.

Yelloly led longer and pitted after 37 minutes. He handed the automobile over to Connor De Phillippi, who immediately pushed the automobile into the tire pile from Turn 3 on his outside lap.

This brought the penalized Tandy back into the lead and he set a sequence of fastest laps. He pitted to provide Jaminet a caution just before the second period when De Phillippi crashed his BMW again, slamming its left rear corner into the Turn 2 wall.

Jaminet took the lead again, ahead of stablemate Nasr, Ricky Taylor, van der Zande and Jesse Krohn within the surviving No. 24 BMW. However, Nasr needed to pit under yellow to switch a puncture, dropping him from second to eighth.

The race restarted with 47 minutes remaining and Nasr immediately gained three positions by riding on the surface of Richard Westbrook's JDC-Miller Porsche 963, Gianmaria Bruni's Proton-run and Krohn's BMW at turn three before passing the No. 40 Acura of Louis Deletraz (along with Jordan Taylor) next on the lap.

However, the race was quickly neutralized again when Aitken pushed Westbrook right into a spin and blocked the track.

Just after the hour mark, it turned green again and Jaminet escaped from Taylor, van der Zande and Nasr. Taylor remained one second behind the leader as van der Zande and Nasr dropped out.

Taylor took the lead into turn three with 25 minutes remaining, making a daring dive down the inside the hairpin after Jaminet suffered a slight obstruction while lapping the Mustang GTD.

The yellow flew again with 20 minutes to go to cope with the debris that was accumulating on the fundamental straight. With 15 meters left it turned green again. Jaminet desired to avenge Taylor, and Nasr attacked van der Zande.

Bruni made a move on Krohn to take sixth place, and Aitken followed suit. However, as Bruni attacked Deletraz, he was hit by Aitken and hit the wall near Turn 4. This led to a fifth caution as Bruni's automobile became stuck.

Taylor survived the ultimate restart with seven minutes left to record the primary win for the No. 10 Acura since Road America in 2022.

#77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R: Laurin Heinrich, Sebastian Priaulx

Photo: Josh Tons / Motorsport images

Disaster for the Corvette. Porsche defeats destroyed Lexus in GTD Pro

At GTD Pro, within the shadow of the large towers of General Motors' Renaissance Center that dominate the skyline, the pressure to perform was on the Chevrolet Corvette team.

After going 1-2 in qualifying, Antonio Garcia's No. 3 Corvette Z06 GT3.R led Tommy Milner's No. 4 to the green ahead of Jack Hawksworth (No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F) and Seb Priaulx within the No. 4 Porsche 911 number 77 of AO Racing GT3 R.

However, every little thing went incorrect almost immediately for Garcia, who pitted at the top of the primary lap with an alternator problem.

New leader Milner handed the ball to Nicky Catsburg after 40 minutes, changing just one tire throughout the stoppage. Ben Barnicoat took over from Hawksworth at Lexus, and Laurin Heinrich replaced Priaulx on the Porsche 'Rexy'.

Immediately after the mid-race restart, leaders Barnicoat and Catsburg clashed at turn three, with the Lexus sending the Corvette right into a spin after hitting the within wall.

This put Heinrich (who hit the spun Corvette and suffered splitter damage) into the lead, but he needed to stop to avoid the spun Westbrook and was almost caught by Barnicoat, who, despite pieces falling off, continued in second place.

Barnicoat successfully overcame bent steering and a loose bonnet to chase Heinrich to the finish, while Marvin Kirchhofer's Pfaff McLaren 720S was about to take third place when it was thrown out by Alex Riberas (Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage) in turn three of the race closing stages.

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