BMW Team RLL's Bill Auberlen and Dirk Werner drove the #25 M6 GTLM to fifth overall and fifth in the GTLM class in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race at Virginia International Raceway. Their teammates, John Edwards and Lucas Luhr, finished eighth in class in BMW #100.
The M6s started fifth and sixth on the grid. Werner ran fifth early in the race, with Edwards two positions behind until car #100 lost a wheel thirteen laps into the race. The pit stop to replace the wheel and a subsequent drive through for a violation during the stop dropped the car to ninth in class; meanwhile car #25 had moved up to third. Werner ran there until a brief off-course excursion dropped him to seventh.
The race was run under green until Oliver Gavin’s accident in the #4 Corvette brought out a full-course yellow with about seven minutes remaining in the two-hour-and-forty-minute race. The track went green for a one-lap shootout at the end. Antonio Garcia in the #3 Corvette that he shared with Jan Magnussen held on for the win ahead of Joey Hand and Dirk Müller in the #66 Ford GT. Earl Bamber in the #912 Porsche hit and spun the Ferrari of Giancarlo Fisichella on the last lap. The BMWs were able to move up to their fifth and eighth place finishing positions as a result of the incidents.
Bill Auberlen said afterward, “It is disappointing that we could not fight at the front today, but we will never give up. The team is doing a great job, the M6 runs perfectly but we just haven’t quite got the speed at the moment that the competition has. I am now looking forward to COTA and hope we can have more pace there.”
It was a rough race for the Turner M6s in the GTD class. Bret Curtis in car #96 was hit on the first lap and sent to the garage with significant front end damage. The car eventually returned to score points, although it was well behind the class leaders. Michael Marsal had a strong start in car #97 and Markus Palttala was running well after the driver change. Palttala was running fifth in class when a puncture with just thirty minutes remaining set him back to eleventh. He finished ninth on the track, but was classified eighth after the third-place Audi of Andy Lally and John Potter was excluded from the results because of a ride height violation. The GTD class was dominated by the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 driven to victory by Madison Snow and Bryan Sellers.
Mini finishes fourth in Street Tuner in the CTSCC race
The #73 Mini JCW driven by Mat Pombo and Derek Jones finished fourth in the Saturday Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge race at VIR. Just fifteen minutes into the race a deluge began; before long the red flag was thrown, shutting the race down for over fifty minutes. When the race resumed the track was drying but most teams stayed on rain tires.
The Street Tuner win went to Ryan Eversley and Chad Gilsinger in a Honda Civic Si. James Clay and Tyler Cooke piloted the #84 BimmerWorld 328i to thirteenth in ST. Michael Johnson and Steve Simpson finished fifteenth in ST in the #54 JDC-Miller Motorsports 228i, Jerry Kaufman and Kyle Tilley finished 21st in the #81 BimmerWorld 328i, and Ramin Abdolvahabi and Tyler Stone finished 22nd in the #52 Mini.
Both the WeatherTech and Continental Challenge Series run again at Circuit of the Americas on September 14-17.—Brian S. Morgan
