DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Second place can be a funny thing.
In stick-and-ball sports, it’s last place in the competition between two teams.
In racing, it’s the second-best position in the whole field. Yet paradoxically, it can often be the most painful result.
Second place in racing is a chameleon.
It can mark a career- or season-best finish, a near-miss awaiting an elusive first win, the first loser in a photo finish, a crushing defeat after a dominant drive or weekend, or a miraculous result after a comeback from adverse circumstances.
More often than not, even if second-place finishes sting in the moment, banking one or more over the course of the season helps deliver championships.
Each of the last two years in IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship competition, there’s been at least one class champion that has secured five second-place finishes in a season. That was Meyer Shank Racing in the final season of the Daytona Prototype international (DPi) top prototype class era in 2022, and Vasser Sullivan in the second season of the Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) class in 2023.
Through nine of 11 race weekends in 2024, second-place finishes have been spread around the grid. The No. 31 Whelen Cadillac Racing Cadillac V-Series.R has a series-high three second-place finishes in 2024 and is the only one that can hit five this year. Four other cars (No. 01 Cadillac Racing Cadillac V-Series.R, No. 74 Riley ORECA LMP2 07, No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports McLaren 720S Evo GT3, No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3) have two apiece, and 17 other cars across the four classes have one apiece.
An example of how second place can sting came from last year’s Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class champion Pipo Derani, part of the Whelen Cadillac Racing team. He was frustrated earlier this season when his second Motul Pole Award produced a second second-place result at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach to the sister Cadillac prepared by Chip Ganassi Racing.
“Obviously we would have liked to win, especially starting at the front,” Derani said. “It’s just one of those things here at Long Beach. If the guy behind does the complete opposite to you, he might come out ahead and that’s what happened today.”
Jack Hawksworth and Ben Barnicoat, who share the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3, described the juxtaposition of what a second-place feels like within their own reactions to one such result in 2023: a runner-up finish at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.
The duo was the only one of the five cars in GTD PRO that didn’t lead a lap, but Barnicoat’s late-race pass on Pfaff Motorsports’ then-No. 9 Porsche 911 GT3 R netted the result.
“It was probably the wildest race that I’ve seen at Laguna Seca,” Hawksworth said. “We didn’t particularly feel comfortable with our car this weekend in terms of feeling like we were going to be there for the win, but the Vasser Sullivan guys did an awesome job to come away with a second here, so we’ll take it.”
Barnicoat was both happy with second and also disappointed to not have a chance to win at the same time.
“I was in third place and the opportunity opened to pass the (No.) 9, so I put my Jack Hawksworth hat on and sent it and managed to get by him,” Barnicoat said. “To come home with a P2 finish and still leading the championship is pretty incredible. I feel a little bit heartbroken not to have the chance to fight for a win, but it was still great to come away in that position.”
Then, there’s the “waiting for your first win” type of second-place finish. Enter Turner Motorsport, which broke a two-year winless drought at Road America in August. The pair of Robby Foley and Patrick Gallagher in the No. 96 Turner BMW M4 GT3 secured five Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) runner-up finishes before their first win. The victory was as sweet to savor as a Spotted Cow, a local Wisconsin beer Gallagher referenced on the team radio during the race.
“The first (runner-up finish at Sebring in 2023) was cool for sure, because that was my first WeatherTech podium,” Gallagher said. “Then the fifth one wasn’t as cool. It’s not because you don’t like it, and you’re still happy for a good points day. But you’re annoyed you haven’t won yet!”
Turner’s longtime strategy ace Don Salama has delivered many a victory from atop the pit box, but as Gallagher explained, sometimes even having the right strategist ends P2 rather than P1.
“Sometimes if you have a winning car and get second – say like Monterey for us this year – that stings, but if you have a mid-pack car and get there on strategy it’s very cool.”
Foley added, “Patrick and I had five P2 finishes and have not even driven together for two years. Until Road America we missed the top step for sure, but for us, we don’t change a thing.”
And then there’s the “happy we banked a bunch of P2s even though we didn’t win” type of second-place finish. Enter Antonio Garcia, who along with Jan Magnussen scored four runner-up results in 2018, didn’t win a race, yet outfoxed and outpointed the field to that year’s GT Le Mans (GTLM) class championship in the No. 3 Corvette Racing Corvette C7.R.
It was a good thing those results were on the board because at Motul Petit Le Mans, Garcia made a rare error where he nosed the car into a tire barrier and prompted in-race repairs before returning to the track. At the time, Garcia said the race “went from one of the best races of my career to the most embarrassing moment of my career.” But he added after he would forget that mistake and thanked the team for its efforts.
The next time you look at a WeatherTech Championship box score, be sure to note the runner-up finisher as well as the class winner. You may be looking at a future champion, regardless of that day’s result.