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Tire strategy played a central role in Sunday’s StubHub Monterey SportsCar Championship at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, as Laurin Heinrich’s late-race charge to victory for the No. 5 JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche 963 was built on a calculated call that paid off on the final lap. JDC-Miller opted to take four Michelin tires on their second-to-last stop, then pitted for energy only in their final stop, banking on the same set of tires to pay off in the closing stages. They did. Heinrich made a last-lap pass on Earl Bamber’s No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac V-Series.R and held on for a 0.758-second win. “I think our strength was on tires, which we could really make use of in the last four or five laps,” said Heinrich. “You have to set up the car quite well because this is a high-load track and the asphalt is quite rough, so it’s quite hard on the tires. “And the team asked me if I want to change tires or not and this was the ...

Photo: Wes Duenkel/Ford Devin Anderson broke through to claim his first career Mustang Challenge North America victory in Sunday’s mixed-condition Race 2 of the weekend at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. Anderson took his No. 22 TechSport Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse R to a 0.929-second win over the No. 7 Wheelhouse Motorsports entry of Sandy Satullo following a two-minute shootout to the finish after a late-race full-course caution. Will Lucas completed the podium in the No. 34 Wheelhouse Mustang. While all cars started on wet-weather Michelin tires, Anderson blasted away from pole, which saw Race 1 winner Cole Loftsgard, drop down the running order in his No. 42 Round 3 Racing Mustang. On a quickly drying track, Loftsgard dropped back as far as fifth by the time the yellow came out for Paolo Salvatore, who became beached in Turn 2 with seven minutes to go. Loftsgard retook fourth from Ryan Persing, with Nolan Allaer coming home sixth in the No. 3 Spark Performance entr...

Photo: SRO Lionspeed GP sailed to victory in the second race of the weekend in the GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Cup round at Brands Hatch. The German team dominated the race, with teammates Bastian Buus and Ricardo Feller finishing 3.073 seconds ahead of the No. 3 Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing car of Chris Lulham and Daniel Juncadella to take the squad’s first outright series win and make up for a retirement from Race 1 with power-steering woes . The pole-sitting No. 80 Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo led from the start, with Buus pulling out a healthy gap early on. The Danish driver fended off a lunge from Chris Lulham in the No. 3 Verstappen Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo at the start, edging out a steady lead of around three seconds until the pit stop window opened. Behind the leading pair, Winward Racing’s Maro Engel jumped Max Hesse’s No. 46 Team WRT car at the start before putting pressure on Lulham’s Mercedes-AMG. Further down the field, Team WRT’s trio ...

Photo: Dan Bathie/McLaren Jeff Cook and James Li have claimed pole positions for this weekend’s pair of McLaren Trophy America races at the Miami International Autodrome, in support of the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix. Cook, in the Am class-entered No. 5 GMG Racing McLaren Artura Trophy EVO, reeled off a best lap of 1:57.328 in Q1 on Saturday afternoon to edge out the No. 74 RWE Motorsport entry of Sam Neser by 0.119 seconds. Patrick Liddy qualified third in the No. 8 Forte Racing McLaren, also in the Pro class, with Cooper Broll and Tony Davis, driving solo, completing the overall top-five for Forte Racing and OMS, respectively. The No. 52 Aero-B entry took Pro-Am pole with the seventh quickest time overall in the hands of Joe Osborne. Q2 saw James Li take his RWE McLaren to the top spot, thanks to a 1:57.496 lap time, which narrowly edged out GMG’s Michael O’Brien by 0.048 seconds. Race 1 gets underway at 6 p.m. EST with live coverage on SRO’s GT World and...

Photo: Wes Duenkel/Ford Cole Loftsgard continued his winning ways in Mustang Challenge North America competition, with the Round 3 Racing taking victory in an incident-filled opening race of the weekend at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. Loftsgard took his No. 42 Ford Mustang Dark Horse R to a 1.029-second win over the No. 22 TechSport Racing entry of Davin Anderson, who started on pole for Saturday’s 45-minute race. While Anderson led from the green, second-place starter Loftsgard passed Anderson on the outside of Turn 5 for the lead following the first resumption of racing on Lap 5. The first yellow came out immediately at the start for an accident by Loftgard’s teammate, Joe Koenig, who crashed out over the hill in his Dark Horse Legends entry. A second yellow was called for debris on Lap 7, while Wheelhouse Motorsports driver Michael Tosi escaped injury following a sizable accident in Turn 9 after contact from the No. 29 Paley Motorsport with AAG Racing entry of R...

Photo: Fred Hardy/Lamborghini Dennis Lind and Marc Miller have scored overall poles for this weekend’s pair of Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America races at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, with both qualifying sessions red-flagged for incidents. Former Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe champion Lind, in his series debut, stormed to a best lap of 1:22.437 in his No. 29 TR3 Racing Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo EVO2 to edge out XONINE Racing’s Will Bamber by 0.127 seconds. Defending Pro class champion Hampus Ericsson was third in the No. 1 Wayne Taylor Racing entry. The 15-minute Q1 session was cut short by five minutes to go when Ian Porter in the Pro-Am class No. 81 RAFA Racing Team Lamborghini went off in Turn 2. Pro-Am class pole honors for Race 1 went to Joel Miller in the No. 36 Kaizen Autosport entry, while Sean McAuliffe and Ray Shahi took pole positions in the Am and LB Cup categories, respectively. Q2 also came to an early end when Shahi went off course in ...

Photo: Mike Levitt/IMSA Honda Racing Corporation USA President David Salters has ruled out seeing the Acura ARX-06, in customer hands, in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship next year, citing the high costs involved to operate LMDh cars which he calls has turned into an “arm’s race.” The luxury automaker announced last month the ‘pausing’ of its factory GTP program at the end of the year, and will instead allocate more resources into the NTT IndyCar Series through sponsorship of the Acura brand. Speaking to assembled reporters at this weekend’s StubHub Monterey SportsCar Championship at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, Salters shed further light into the Honda-owned brand’s decision. “There’s exciting news that we’re going to take Acura to IndyCar, specifically to the Indy 500, so that’s history making; we’ve never done that before,” he said. “Like all things, we evaluate where we are regu...