Kiwi endurance star Earl Bamber returned to the cockpit of the No. 31 Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R last weekend at Road America, looking to rebound from heartbreak at Watkins Glen, where a late fuel stop dashed his hopes of victory in the closing moments.
At 4.048 miles in length with average speeds topping 130mph, Road America is the longest and one of the fastest tracks on the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship calendar.
After narrowly missing out on a win at the Six Hours of The Glen, Bamber and his teammates Jack Aitken and Frederik Vesti arrived in Wisconsin with renewed determination and everything to play for in the GTP championship.
Aitken entered the weekend sitting seventh in the Drivers’ standings with 1,648 points, while Bamber, having missed the Laguna Seca round in May, sat eleventh on 1,376.
Aitken took qualifying duties and secured sixth on the grid for Sunday’s race. Pole position went to Nick Yelloly in the No. 25 BMW M Team entry, narrowly edging out Sheldon van der Linde by just 0.053 seconds.
The second row featured Dries Vanthoor (BMW) and Colin Braun (Acura Meyer Shank Racing), with Porsche Penske’s Matt Campbell lining up alongside Aitken on row three.
The 2-hour 40-minute race began under overcast skies and was almost immediately disrupted.
On the opening lap, the No. 22 United Autosports LMP2 car of Daniel Goldburg slammed into the tyre barriers and rebounded back onto the track, triggering a full-course yellow.
Before the caution, Aitken lost a position to Felipe Nasr’s No. 7 Porsche Penske 963, slipping to seventh.
Just minutes after the restart, another caution flew as Brendan Iribe’s GTD-class No. 70 Inception Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 spun at Turn 7 and tagged the wall, again halting the race.
With two hours and seven minutes remaining, the field restarted. Aitken, running eighth, began to settle into a rhythm. At the 1h42m mark, he made crucial passes on Gianmaria Bruni and Ross Gunn to climb to sixth.
Another caution followed when Naveen Rao beached the No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports LMP2 car in the gravel.
During the resulting pit cycle under yellow, Bamber jumped into the driver’s seat, and the No. 31 team made a massive gain in the lane, rejoining second behind the No. 6 Porsche Penske of Mathieu Jaminet.
The restart with 1h27m remaining was short-lived, as Alexander Sims in the No. 3 Corvette Racing GTD Pro entry was spun into the gravel, bringing out yet another full-course yellow.
With racing resuming once more at the 1h16m mark, Jaminet led from Bamber, Jordan Taylor, and Nick Tandy.
Bamber stayed hot on Jaminet’s heels, sitting within 1.5 seconds as the race finally saw some uninterrupted green laps.
That calm didn’t last. With 54 minutes to go, Tandy made contact with Ricky Taylor in the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura, sending Taylor into a dramatic spin and prompting yet another caution.
Tandy was handed a drive-through plus a 60-second penalty for the incident.
The Whelen Cadillac pitted under yellow, dropping Bamber to sixth. Phillip Eng, having taken over from Vanthoor, led the race with Marco Wittmann (BMW) and Renger van der Zande (Acura) behind.
With 30 minutes left, Bamber had clawed his way up to fifth and was closing in on Jaminet. By the 20-minute mark, he had narrowed the gap to less than a second.
Meanwhile, Wittmann was also chasing down race leader Eng, reducing the gap to just 1.4 seconds.
A scare came with 10 minutes remaining as Nicky Catsburg’s No. 4 Corvette stopped on track. However, Catsburg managed to reverse the car into a safe runoff area, avoiding what could have been a race-altering caution.
With six minutes to go, Bamber finally made the move on Jaminet to snatch fourth, though a podium remained out of reach, van der Zande, in third, was eight seconds up the road.
Eng and Vanthoor secured victory for BMW M Team, with Wittmann making it a BMW 1–2. Van der Zande and Yelloly completed the podium for Acura Meyer Shank Racing.
Bamber and Aitken crossed the line in fourth, ahead of the Jaminet/Campbell pairing in the No. 6 Porsche Penske.
The IMSA SportsCar Championship now heads to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the Battle on the Bricks, taking place September 19–21, where the GTP title race continues to heat up.
