Wayne Taylor Racing has won the weather-interrupted Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen in a nail biting finale. In the sprint to the finish, Filipe Albuquerque held off charges from pole sitter Tom Blomqvist to gift the #10 Konica Minolta Acura ARX-05 the win.

WATKINS GLEN 6 HOURS | QUALIFYING REPORT | RACE REPORT | GALLERY

After an exciting start to the 6-hours that saw Filipe Albuquerque grab the lead via Tom Blomqvist’s slipstream on the straight to the Bus Stop, the race went into a long phase of safety car interruptions. Several cars, most notably LMP3s, suffered crashes, creating a series of cautions in the first few hours.

With dark clouds approaching, the race was heading for a full stoppage as lightning protocols were bound to be enacted. Making its pitstop just before the race was stopped with just under 90 minutes remaining, the #60 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Acura ARX05 went back into the lead.

However, when the race restarted with 30 minutes remaining, Albuquerque repeated his pass on Blomqvist – this time around the outside rather than inside. Bomqvist wouldn’t sit back this time: as time ticked away, the Brit chased Albuquerque through the dense traffic until the final corners when Albuqueque finally got some breathing race when Blomqvist got held up by a GTD.

The battle for the win allowed Sebastien Bourdais to join in on the action. Eyeing second place, the driver of the Chip Ganassi Racing-run #01 Cadillac Racing DPi-V.R made his move when he saw Blomqvist held up in the Esses and lose momentum. The Acura driver stood his ground and fended off the Frenchman.

PR1/Mathiasen Motorsport took the win in the LMP2 class, taking advantage of a late-race penalty for the #81 DragonSpeed machine. Scott Huffaker, who shared the #52 Oreca with Ben Keating and Mikkel Jensen crossed the finish line just 0.107 seconds ahead of the #8 Tower Motorsport car of Louis Delétraz, John Farano and Rui Andrade. Frits van Eerd, Giedo van der Garde and Dylan Murry brought their #29 Racing Team Netherlands Oreca 07 home in third place.

Class win in LMP3 went to the #74 Riley Motorsport with Felipe Fraga, Gar Robinson and Kay van Berlo sharing the wheel of the Ligier JS P320. Even though Fraga had to do a late-race pitstop, the trio dominated the LMP3 class which was shaped by accidents and overall bad driving standards, finishing one lap ahead of their competitors.

The Heart of Racing Aston Martin squad won both the GTD Pro and GTD categories after penalties for the #25 BMW M Team RLL and #57 Winward Racing AMG GT3.

The #25 BMW of Connor De Phillippi, John Edwards and Augusto Farfus crossed the finish line first ahead of the Winward car of Philip Ellis, Marvin Dienst and Russel Ward. However, post-race penalties for failing to meet the adjusted drive time of 1 hour and 17 minutes meant that the #27 Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 driven by Maxime Martin, Roman De Angelis and Ian James was promoted to victory in the GTD class. GTD Pro class victory went to the #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin of Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas.

 
 

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