TDS Racing Reprises Indianapolis Win in LMP2
The standard playbook for a six-hour IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship endurance race is “preserve the car and put yourself in position for when things get serious with an hour to go.”
BMW M Team RLL executed it to perfection Sunday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
Jesse Krohn and Philipp Eng led a 1-2 finish for the suburban Indianapolis-based team in the second running of the TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks. Eng finished the victorious drive in the No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8, crossing the speedway’s famous yard of bricks finish line 1.647 seconds ahead of the team’s similar No. 25 entry shared by Nick Yelloly and Connor De Phillippi.
The winners completed 219 laps of the 2.439-mile IMS road course for a total of 534.141 miles of racing over the course of six hours. Roughly an hour was run under caution early in the event due to excessive standing water from a heavy rainstorm.
Mathieu Jaminet and Nick Tandy finished third in the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963, moving the duo to within 14 points of the Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class-leading No. 7 Porsche of Felipe Nasr and Dane Cameron, who finished ninth in class on Sunday.
It was the second win for BMW in the GTP class, but the first achieved on track. The marque’s prior triumph with the No. 25 car came at the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen in 2023 after the No. 6 Porsche was put to the rear of the class field due to a technical infraction.
In fact, it was the first podium finish for the No. 24 in the GTP era and the first IMSA victory for Krohn since he shared in a Grand Touring Le Mans (GTLM) class triumph in the 2020 season opener at Daytona International Speedway. Eng’s last IMSA win came exactly one year prior to that at Daytona.
“This is just unbelievable,” Krohn enthused. “This is my 11th year with BMW, and looking back on the journey I’ve had with them, now I can say I’ve won in every single car they put me in. This has to be one of the biggest wins of my career. First of all, I can’t even believe I’m here to begin with. Now we’re winning with the GTP car, and that’s unbelievable after the day we had today.”
The BMWs started fifth (No. 25) and eighth (No. 24) but quickly began to show their prowess in the race’s third hour following the lengthy safety car period. They ran fourth and sixth, respectively, late in the fifth hour when the caution again flew when the championship-leading No. 7 Porsche briefly stopped on track before continuing at a reduced pace due to power steering issues.
Quick pit stops by BMW M Team RLL lifted De Phillippi in the No. 25 and Eng in the No. 24 to second and third place. Eng then took advantage of traffic to slip past his teammate for second place before executing a daring pass on Louis Deletraz (No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06) into Turn 13 for the lead with 47 minutes remaining.
“I set it up in Turn 7 already and it went all the way down to Turn 12,” Eng explained. “I tried to get a good exit out of Turn 12, and in the earlier laps, I noticed (Deletraz) always tried a round line into the next corner. Once I was as close as I was on that lap, I just took a chance and went for it. It was hard but very fair racing.”
De Phillippi also soon moved past Deletraz, and the two BMWs were rarely separated by more than a second the rest of the way, surviving a tense side-by-side moment with 10 minutes to go. Jaminet was able to stay within range but never close enough mount an attack on De Phillippi.
“This might rank as our greatest victory as a team,” BMW M Team RLL team principal Bobby Rahal said. “It’s just so timely and represents the effort that all of us have put in. I’m so thrilled for everyone with our team and BMW M Motorsport because it has been a tough year in a lot of respects. None of our competitors really had any problems today and we were able to succeed.
“This is huge ... this is what you really work for, and I think we have to be very positive going into Petit Le Mans.”
TDS Racing Scores Repeat LMP2 Victory at Indy
Steven Thomas and Mikkel Jensen repeated their 2023 Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class victory Sunday in the No. 11 TDS Racing ORECA LMP2 07.
Joined this year by Carmel, Indiana, resident Hunter McElrea, they won by a commanding 26.049 seconds over the Motul Pole Award-winning No. 52 Inter Europol by PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA shared by Nick Boulle, Tom Dillmann and Jakub Smiechowski. The No. 18 Era Motorsport ORECA featuring the driver lineup of Dwight Merriman, Ryan Dalziel and rising teen star Connor Zilisch claimed third in class.
The LMP2 field was shuffled a third of the way into the six-hour event when confusion for the class reorder under caution led to seven competitors being assessed drive-through penalties. McElrea, who was in the car at the time, then commenced a tremendous comeback stint that took the No. 11 back to the front.
Jensen took over for the final two hours, and once he got past the No. 22 United Autosports entry on older tires driven by Paul di Resta, he was dominant and pulled away with ease.
“The TDS car is quick here and we know our lineup is strong,” noted Jensen. “That’s why we won last year, and we were straight away fast again this year. It was quite a crazy race, but Hunter did an amazing job bringing it up to first, and that made my life easier.”
Both McElrea and Jensen praised Bronze-rated driver Thomas, who was in the car when it rained early and during the difficult transition from Michelin wet-weather tires to dry-condition slicks.
“The emotion of being able to kiss the bricks again here is one of the highlights of my career,” Thomas said. “It was a lot of fun for me. I love the rain, so it was a great experience today for me, and I think we’re now tied for the class lead in the Michelin Endurance Cup. So, we really have something to shoot for at Petit Le Mans at one of my favorite tracks.”
The final round of the 2024 WeatherTech Championship is the 27th annual Motul Petit Le Mans, set for October 9-12 at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.
