It’s Cadillac 1-2 at Indy

By Dennis Krause

Don’t let the 0.988-second margin of victory fool you. The No. 31 Cadillac Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R driven by Jack Aitken, Earl Bamber and Frederik Vesti dominated Sunday’s TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks IMSA WeatherTech Championship race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

It was the first win of the season for Cadillac in Grand Touring Prototype (GTP), backed up by the second-place finish by the No. 10 Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Series.R of Filipe Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor. In danger of running out of energy before the end of the six-hour endurance race, Taylor was aided by a late race caution to hold to second ahead of the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06 of Tom Blomqvist and Colin Braun.

On the way to his second career win, Aitken and co-drivers Bamber and Vesti led 210 laps of the six-hour event.

“Yeah, it's a bit of a relief to get the first one under the belt for the year,” said Aitken. “I think we had a really awesome car today that was working well also in qualifying, and we were a little bit fortunate that the 60 had trouble in qually to take the pole.

“But I think with the number of laps that we led today, it shows how well we were working as a team, and it was nice having the flexibility of three drivers. It was quite a hard day out, I think, with some extended runs of green.

“I think it was really a fun race at the end, really tough, but had a lot of fun trying to hit the [energy] number and hold the track position at the same time.”

While the Acuras appeared to have the one-lap pace in practice and qualifying, it was Cadillac that had the stronger car in the race, leading all but seven laps between the No. 31 and the No. 10 on the day.

“I think we've shown in the past that we can be quite strong over a stint and take care of the tire and hold it in that nice operating window in terms of temperature,” commented Aitken. “The hard [tire] is a particularly tricky one with the warmup, but also there is a potential to use it up and to soften at the end of the stint. There's a lot of pickup, a lot of marbles and a lot of rubbish you have to deal with. So it's not an easy tire to hold in that sweet spot, and I think the Caddy does a better job of it than the Acura.

“Generally when I was around those guys, it seemed like we had the better of them in the more technical sections. That definitely helped us in the end.”

According to Bamber, it was nice to finally get a win.

"Yeah, it was nice to finally get one. We'd sort of talked during the week, and we put ourselves in positions a lot this season to try and get a first win, and eventually one day the floodgates are going to open and it's going to work.

“And I think Jack did an amazing job to hit the fuel numbers that he did. Yeah, that was incredible. But it also just shows that we've been working on a lot of stuff. We reviewed what happened in Watkins Glen, we sort of learned from it, but it was a real team effort. There was people on the timing stand, there was people back in the truck working out numbers, working on times.

“At the end of the day, it's a big team sport. So it's us and the car, the guys on the timing stand, everyone back at Cadillac. It's very sweet to get that first win of the season because it would have been a bit of a hard year if we hadn't got one.”

In the three years IMSA has been racing at Indy, the same team has won in Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2). Driven by Mikkel Jenson, Stephen Thomas and Hunter McElrea, the No. 11 TDS Racing ORECA LMP2-07, survived an eventful race in the class for the win.

“I mean, we always have a great car coming here,” said Jensen. “I think it shows after three wins in a row, so we're very confident here. It got a little -- to be a fuel saving race in P2, which is not really the case normally, which made it difficult. You didn't know what the strategy was of the others really after the first stint where you could see how many laps everybody were doing. We were afraid that we were over-consuming and not doing enough laps. But I think after the first pit stop we saw that everything was under control compared to what the other guys are doing, and from then on we were quite comfortable and just tried to stay out of trouble.

“Had to get the United [Autosport] cars -- yeah, had a late dive on the outside on Paul Di Resta, locked up a bit because we had to go for it. Got back to third as the other United car came through and had to pass both of them again. It was a hard race, and once we got in the lead, we just had the pace to pull away. Thanks to TDS Racing for once again a great car and my teammates for bringing the car in the good end of the field to make my job easier.”

In Grand Touring Daytona PRO (GTD PRO), Mike Rockenfeller and Sebastien Priaulx scored their second win of the season in the No. 64 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang GT3.

According to Rockenfeller, the Mustang’s pace over the long run proved to be the difference in a race nearly every other team led at one point.

“Yeah, it was a tough fight. I think almost everybody kind of was in the lead for a while, I don't know. But we were, I would say, strong over long run. I think that was our strength. We could see that in free practice already.

“I think in qually, we had some mistakes on the setup, which we found after, and that happens, and the balance was off. We were, I think, more in the back than we should have been, but our sister car showed great pace. They were P2 on the grid and we weren't. Starting from P7 you have to race clean and make your passes and smart moves.

“It's a long race, a lot of stuff happens, and you have to be a bit lucky. Then we got a penalty. We were again in the back, and then it was just full push to the front. I think you have to have the pace, right, and like I say, it's important to be consistent over a stint, and I think that was the strength of our car today.”

Brendan Iribe, Ollie Millroy and Frederik Schandorff scored their first career Grand Touring Daytona victory in the No. 70 Inception Racing Ferrari 296 GT3.

Close to winning before on a number of times, Millroy commented on what made the difference on Sunday.

“Well, I didn't realize until this evening we've had six second places in IMSA. I'm glad I didn't know that; otherwise, I might've given up by now,” joked Millroy.

“Look, we've had great performance. We had a successful run with the McLaren for a couple of years and then we switched to the Ferrari - actually at Indianapolis last year was our first race with the Ferrari. So it was a huge task for the team to get their head around the car.

“But we've been really fast and competitive most of this season. Just shows what an amazing job the team and the engineering team, as well, have done with the car.

“But IMSA, as we know, that's just a small part of it. The races are wild, especially here at Indianapolis. You don't relax for one minute. There's always something happening.

It was great that Brendan did an amazing job for the first couple of hours, gave us the car in a sensible position in one piece as well, and gave us the opportunity to sort of go for the win. So finally, finally our first win. It feels like such a relief, and hopefully now that we've got that one out of the way it will give us some momentum going into Petit as well.”

Next up for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship is the season-ending 10-hour Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta, October 11th.

Dennis Krause has spent decades covering all forms of motorsports, including over 40 Indianapolis 500s, with stints at WIBA Radio, PIT PASS - Radio’s Premier Motorsports Magazine and Motorsports Minute. Follow him on X @DennisKrause500 or motorsportsminute.bluesky.social or motorsportsminute on Threads or MotorsportsMinute+ on Facebook.

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