AMG Motorsport Customer Racing Teams Extend IMSA Pro Championship Lead
WeatherTech team AMG came out of Sebring with a four point lead in the GTD Pro Endurance Cup standings, 29 – 25.
The No. 79 WeatherTech Racing/Proton Competition Mercedes-AMG GT3 team and co-drivers Jules Gounon, Daniel Juncadella and Maro Engel extend their early-season IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTD Pro class points lead with a third-place finish in Saturday’s 71st running of the 12 Hours of Sebring.
Combined with a victory in January’s season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona, Saturday’s third-place result provisionally gives the WeatherTech No. 79 team and drivers a 26-point lead over the nearest GTD Pro competitor, 708 – 682. Mercedes-AMG leads the GTD Pro manufacturer championship standings by the same margin.
Starting from the back of the overall field after a ride-height infraction took away Juncadella’s third-place qualifying run Friday, he and the WeatherTech/Proton team moving to the front in the opening stages of Saturday’s race. Juncadella took the GTD Pro lead for the first time in the race’s second hour, and from that point on the No. 79 team and drivers were in the battle for the win until the finish.
Juncadella, Engel and Gounon combined to lead the GTD Pro field three times for a total of 34 laps, but the caution-plagued race ultimately came down to a strategy call that couldn’t play out at the end.
‘Last year we were really happy to be on the podium, because it was unexpected. We all felt like the WeatherTech Mercedes-AMG GT3 was the car to beat today…’
A pair of late cautions – two of the four yellow-flag periods in the race’s final two hours – and GTD traffic between closing driver Juncadella and the top two GTD Pro competitors thwarted a final run to the lead. Juncadella crossed the finish line in third, just 4.326 seconds behind the GTD Pro winner, duplicating the team’s finish in last year’s race.
In the GTD class, Team Korthoff Motorsports and Winward Racing showed the same Mercedes-AMG GT3 pace as WeatherTech as both teams battled for their class lead for the majority of the race.
For the second-consecutive race, the No. 32 Team Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 and team drivers Mike Skeen, Mikael Grenier and Kenton Koch combined to lead the most GTD laps in the class with 135 tours of the 3.74-mile road course at the front of the field.
Grenier was in the No. 32 for the final fight to the finish but the lack of green-flag racing time in the final hour forced him to make a charge to the front from mid-pack. Unfortunately, one of the several competitors Grenier slipped by to reach third place pitted with damage that race officials determined was caused during Grenier’s pass. The No. 32 was assessed a costly drive-through pit penalty for “incident responsibility,” and Grenier ultimately crossed the finish line in 10th place.
Winward Racing led the GTD race three times for a total of 23 laps and team driver Philip Ellis was battling for the lead again with just over four hours remaining. Ellis went into Turn 1 battling for the top spot with another competitor and the two cars just came together in the high-speed left turn. The contact appeared light but was just enough to break the right front suspension of the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 and sent the team into eventual retirement from the race. Ellis and co-drivers Russell Ward and Indy Dontje were classified 18th in GTD in the final race results.
Sebring was also the second of four rounds in the 2023 Michelin Endurance Cup that awards the top performing drivers, teams and manufacturers in each WeatherTech Championship class in the year’s four endurance races.
The WeatherTech team and drivers and Mercedes-AMG came out of Sebring with a four point lead in the GTD Pro Endurance Cup standings, 29 – 25 over the second-place competitors.
Team Korthoff also garnered some valuable GTD Endurance Cup points and leave Sebring second in the team and driver standings, three points out of first place, 25 – 22. Mercedes-AMG is second in the GTD Endurance Cup manufacturer battle just two points shy of the lead, 26 – 24.
In Thursday’s IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge race, several Mercedes-AMG GT4 teams persevered through a caution-filled and hard-fought two-hour battle to leave Sebring well positioned in the early-season Grand Sport (GS) championship standings. Four Mercedes-AMG Motorsport Customer Racing teams left Sebring ranked in the top-six in GS points.
Last year’s Pilot Challenge GS championship runner-up finishers Jeff Mosing and Eric Foss have moved their 2023 title bid off to a strong start in the No. 56 Murillo Racing Mercedes-AMG GT4. Combined with an eighth-place finish in January’s season-opening race at Daytona, a seventh-place result Thursday at Sebring vaulted Mosing, Foss and the No. 56 team to second in the GS points race with 470 points, just 10 tallies behind the leading team and drivers.
The debuting duo of Anthony McIntosh and Jared Thomas in the No. 23 JTR Motorsports Engineering Mercedes-AMG GT4 have also used a pair of top-10 finishes in the season-opening races to factor into the championship discussion. McIntosh, Thomas and the No. 23 team are third in the championship standings with 450 points after Sebring.
The top finishing Mercedes-AMG customer team in the Sebring Michelin Pilot Challenge race was the No. 27 Lone Star Racing/Bluff City Racing Mercedes-AMG GT4 co-driven by Anton Dias Perera and Scott Andrews. The No. 27 squad’s fourth-place finish Thursday moved them to fifth in the championship with 440 points.
The No. 72 Murillo Racing Mercedes-AMG GT4 of Kenny Murillo and Christian Szymczak led 29 of the Pilot Challenge race’s 41 laps only to be knocked from contention in the final turn of the last lap in the fight to the finish. Despite the disappointment, Murillo, Szymczak and the No. 72 team rank sixth in the GS championship with 410 points.
Reigning Pilot Challenge GS “Bronze Cup” Champions Gary Ferrera and Kris Wilson have also mounted a quick title defense in their No. 11 Wilsports Racing Mercedes-AMG GT4. Ferrera and Wilson combined a class win Thursday in the No. 11 with a third-place finish at Daytona to leave Sebring atop the Bronze Cup standings with 670 points.
Next up for GTD Pro and GTD Mercedes-AMG Motorsport Customer Racing competitors is Round 3 of the WeatherTech Championship at the Grand Prix of Long Beach, April 14 – 15. Mercedes-AMG GT4 competitors in Michelin Pilot Challenge GS return to action at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, May 12 – 14, sharing the weekend card with Round 4 of the WeatherTech Championship.
Photos: WeatherTech