LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Chip Ganassi Racing scored a second consecutive IMSA victory by winning the Long Beach Grand Prix sports car race Saturday.
Sebastien Bourdais and Renger van der Zande won from the pole in the No. 01 Cadillac in a 1-2 finish for Ganassi. The sister No. 02 Cadillac, which Earl Bamber and Alex Lynn drove to victory at Sebring last month, finished second.
It was the 62nd IMSA victory for Ganassi, who has had a full weekend at Long Beach with both IndyCar and his sports cars running at the same time. He had six cars competing comprised of eight different drivers, and, star Jimmie Johnson broke his hand in a crash on Friday.
Johnson plans to run the IndyCar race on Sunday with a carbon fiber cast on his right hand.
Bourdais and Van der Zande both won for the first time in IMSA at Long Beach. Van der Zande beat Bamber by 3.761-seconds.
Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas of Heart of Racing benefitted from a penalty on the No. 3 Corvette team to win the GTD Pro class.
Riberas held off Ben Barnicoat in the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 for Aston Martin’s first win in the new class. Jordan Taylor and Antonio Garcia started from the pole in their Corvette and finished third in class after it was penalized for a wheel nut falling off its pit box with a drive-thru penalty.
The loose nut punctured the radiator of the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche, which had been running second at the time.
Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow gave M4 GT3 its first victory at a North American race with the GTD victory. Sellers won from the pole.
Gradient Racing Acura NSX GT3 Evo22 of Mario Farnbacher and Marc Miller of Gradient Racing were second in an Acura, while Aaron Telitz and Frankie Montecalvo completed the GTD podium in the Vasser Sullivan Lexus.
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