AUSTIN, Texas — After late-race heartbreak in the first IMSA Airbnb Endurance Challenge race at Sebring in March when a fuel pump issue took them out of win contention, the racing and strategy gods smiled on Toney Driver Development for Round 2 of the new format at Circuit of The Americas.
Wyatt Brichacek and Titus Sherlock, sharing the No. 95 Ligier JS P325, captured the victory in the two-hour Le Mans Prototype 3 endurance race after parlaying a great mix of pace and pit stop execution on a sunny, hot Saturday early afternoon in Austin.
Sherlock ran second behind polesitter Oscar Tunjo for the majority of his first stint through the first 40 minutes, when the minimum drive time window opened for teams to switch drivers in the first of two mandatory pit stops, a new rule instituted for this race.
While Tunjo paced the race in his No. 1 Gebhardt Motorsport USA Inc. Duqueine D08, things went awry for him at his first stop. Tunjo was unable to engage gear leaving his pit box, and the Gebhardt crew received permission to push start the car. Tunjo then was able to reengage his car, but the lost time dropped him outside the top five.
Sherlock then utilized 20 more minutes of on-track action to pit just shy of the one-hour mark before the Toney team pulled the winning strategic move.
The No. 95 car pitted to add fuel and switch to Brichacek, then pitted a lap later for fresh Michelin tires to ensure it had fulfilled the two-stop requirement.
Brichacek bid his time in second before Patrick Kujala (No. 77 Forte Racing Ligier JS P325) and Jagger Jones (No. 87 FastMD with Remstar Duqueine D08), respectively, pitted for their own second stops.
Once Brichacek got to the lead, he controlled the pace for the remaining 30-plus minutes of the event and won by 36.713 seconds. He won both sprint rounds on COTA’s 2.4-mile shorter National Course in February, so with this win on the full 3.4-mile layout, he is a perfect three-for-three in IMSA LMP3 competition in Austin this year.
“Awesome to be undefeated here at COTA this year,” Brichacek said. “The TDD car is amazing with the new P325 Ligier. The pace throughout all three races we’ve done here has been amazing, and Titus, my teammate, did a great job along with the whole team.
“We kept it clean and our strategy was just to get the pit stops out of the way. We knew we had the pace advantage from the start over most of the field. So, we just managed from there.”
Sherlock, who got a late call-up to drive this week, confirmed the strategic play from the Toney team to try something different compared to the field and pit on back-to-back laps.
“It worked out well,” he said. “We had the idea to try it, and it paid off. It’s so cool to get my first win in IMSA, especially here when I got the call to drive down on Thursday.”
Kujala and Brian Thienes finished second in the No. 77 Forte Ligier, best of the eight Bronze Cup classified entries. It’s their second runner-up finish in as many endurance races.
Tunjo and Valentino Catalano, who ran on fresher tires in a shorter final stint just over 40 minutes, recovered to third in the No. 1 Gebhardt Duqueine.
“The start was quite good, and I managed to make a small gap to P2,” Tunjo said. “The first stint was mega. We managed tires and fuel. We were a bit unfortunate on out pit stop with the starter. We lost a lot of time. But we at least had some time to get to the podium to get some points.”
In his American racing debut, French teenager Jules Caranta posted the fastest race lap of 2:01.352 in the No. 18 Forbush Performance Duqueine D09. Caranta and Matt Forbush finished sixth in the new third generation Duqueine.
