LONG BEACH, Calif. After opening the season with the 36 Hours of Florida (aka the Rolex 24 At Daytona and the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring), the 2025 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship changed things up with the 100 minutes of Southern California during the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Not only was the sprint race a fraction of the length of either of the first two events, the competition was pared down to two classes: GTP and GTD.

Whats more, the tight, concrete-wall confines of the 1.968-mile street circuit posed very different challenges than the wide-open spaces of Daytona Intl Speedways hybrid road course/high-banked oval and Sebring Intl Raceways rough and tumble airport-based circuit.

More Of The Same

For all the many differences between Long Beach and the first two races of the season, the weekends GTP competition evoked a distinct sense of deja vu all over again. Once again, the BMW M Team RLL entries were fast in practice and qualifying as Dries Vanthoor in the No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8 took the Bavarian marques third pole in as many tries.

Vanthoor was followed by teammate Sheldon van der Linde in the No. 25 with the No. 7 and No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963s of Nick Tandy and Mathieu Jaminet in lockstep behind them.  And when the green flag dropped, the BMWs sprinted into a one-two lead. In race trim, however, the Porsches matched the pace of the BMWs, with Tandy in particular giving van der Linde in the second-placed BMW all he could handle.

Come the one and only round of pit stops and using what is becoming a classic winning strategy at Long Beach the No. 7 did not change Michelin rubber and so emerged in the lead ahead of its stablemate while the BMWs slipped to third and fifth, sandwiching the No. 31 Cadillac Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R.

With Felipe Nasr now at the helm, the No. 7 Porsche loped to its third straight win of the season with Matt Campbell bringing the No. 6 Porsche to its second runner-up finish of the year.

No, it wasnt as easy as it looked as Nasr and Tandy both noted they had to be very careful with their energy management so as not to need a second pit stop.  And yes, many challenges await beginning with WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in three weeks time. But its starting to look like its going to take something special or unexpected to derail the Porsche Penske Express.

It goes to show just what a high level the team is operating at the moment, said Tandy. Were lucky enough to be in the front three times, but if the No. 7 isnt at the front, the No. 6 is and vice-versa.  Both sides of the garage are operating just flawlessly.

RINGERS

A WeatherTech Championship calendar that includes select events which feature just one of the two GTD classes GTD or GTD PRO creates an interesting dynamic, one which sees ringers from the category that otherwise has the weekend off competing. Last year, for example, Vasser Sullivan Racing doubled up for the Long Beach and Detroit events, fielding the No. 89 Lexus RC F GT3 that normally contests GTD PRO races as the No. 14, in addition to the No. 12 Lexus that ran the full standard GTD schedule. Two months later, the team flipped the script and entered both cars in the GTP/GTD PRO-only race at Detroit, with the No. 12 GTD entry rebranded as the No. 15 in GTD PRO.

In each case, the ringer gave the team and Lexus twice the chance to score a win, not to mention add to their points haul in the respective championships. A similar move paid dividends for Porsche last weekend at Long Beach, as defending GTD PRO champions AO Racing claimed top GTD honors in Saturdays race in the No. 177 Porsche 911 GT3 R (992), aka Rexy.

In some respects this encourages a two-dimensional competition, as the class regulars are focused on the proverbial big picture, i.e., the season-long competition for manufacturer, team and driver titles. In contrast, the ringers are laser-focused on individual race results and can afford to roll the dice on fuel, tire and pit stop strategies.

Such was the case at Long Beach where the AO Racing squad gambled on running an extra lap while the class leaders pitted. Thus did the No. 177 Porsche leapfrog the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus and the No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 EVO to take the GTD lead.  The strategy provided AOs Laurens Vanthoor with track position so crucial at Long Beach and he was never headed.

The team made a very good decision for us not to change tires and be aggressive on the fuel side, said Vanthoor. So that was our only chance because Lexus, as we saw in the first stint, had a lot of speed. Its not easy to overtake here so we had to try to take track position and we managed that.

More Than Meets The Eye

If you were to just look at the results, Robert Wickens GTD debut was somewhat underwhelming, given that the No. 36 DXDT Racing Corvette Z06 GT3.R finished a lap down, 15th in the 16-car field. However, in reality, Wickens and co-driver Tommy Milner were on their way to a top-five or sixth-place finish before a coming-together with the No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 EVO at the Hairpin. The resulting damage to the Vettes bodywork eventually necessitated an unscheduled pit stop to effect repairs and led to what was an unrepresentative finish.

In fact, the DXDT Corvette was at the proverbial sharp end of the field throughout Friday and Saturday before the incident with the Turner BMW, with Wickens more than holding his own.  After mechanical gremlins cost them the first third of Friday mornings hour-long practice, Milner posted a target lap which Wickens got within a couple seconds of later in the session in his first real world laps in competition in the Corvette equipped with the Bosch hand-controlled braking system.

After debriefing with the DXDT engineers and Milner, Wickens shaved three full seconds off his practice time to post the fastest lap of the second practice session, only to cause a stoppage in the session when he was unable to rejoin the track after skating down the Turn One escape road. IMSA rules dictate that a driver causing a red flag in practice will lose their fastest lap in qualifying, so Wickens went into the qualifying session knowing he had to post not one but two quick laps in order to start at or near the front of the GTD grid.

Unfortunately, any opportunity he had to repeat his practice form and challenge for the pole was dashed when he had a coming together with another competitor in Turn 9 that tweaked the DXDT Corvettes suspension.  Nevertheless, he posted a couple of very respectable laps of 1:18.239 and 1:18.411, with the latter resulting in an eighth-place start given that the quicker lap was disallowed.

Wickens gained one spot on the opening lap when the No. 34 Conquest Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 had a moment, then settled into a consistent run in seventh spot before handing the car over to Milner during the races one and only pit stop.

It was pretty uneventful (but) it was good, said Wickens of his race. We stayed clean which is the most important thing. I feel like we had more pace than we showed in qualifying but, unfortunately, we paid the price in track position. But we just wanted to keep the car in one piece so Tommy could have a go!

I think we all knew this was almost going to be the worst-case scenario of learning the hand control system in the Corvette Z06 GT3.R.  Honestly, I even surprised myself with the pace in Free Practice 2 and the potential pace we could have had in (qualifying). In the race I felt super comfortable, and felt like I was attacking more than defending; although I didnt do a lot of attacking, but thats the nature of the this track.