BY HOLLY CAINIMSA WIRE SERVICES
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. – Fastest in practice, earning pole position in qualifying and celebrating in Watkins Glen International Victory Lane after the race, it was that kind of excellent weekend for the No. 31 Cadillac Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R team.
Jack Aitken was leading the field by more than seven seconds when a yellow flag came out on the final lap of Sunday’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen. That insured the team’s second overall win of the season and modern era class record eighth consecutive Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) podium finish.
The German passed Sheldon van der Linde’s No. 24 BMW M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 for third place in the closing 13 minutes, as the team recovered from being a lap down earlier in the race.
The No. 31 Cadillac proved itself as the car to beat throughout the iconic sports car weekend in upstate New York. However, after a stunning race loss in the final minute of last year’s race, this Cadillac Whelen team was taking nothing for granted.
Unofficially, the win increases Aitken’s lead atop the WeatherTech Championship GTP class point standings to 203 over Heinrich. Yelloly and his co-driver Renger van der Zande sit third, 245 back in the No. 93 Acura. The No. 93 car also featured Kaku Ohta behind the wheel this race.
“Definitely a little bit of that [redemption feeling],” Aitken conceded after just missing out on the win in 2025 with needing a splash of fuel to finish. “Got out to a decent gap and we were able to just manage it from there.
Just made sure we were taking care of the car and managing the traffic which is always a lot of fun here but a bit scary at times.
“The car was just fantastic today, another great performance from the Whelen Cadillac guys and my teammates who were at the front pretty much the whole race in some form or another. It was a real pleasure and feels a bit surreal to keep the (podium) streak going.”
“It was a roller coaster day on a roller coaster track,” Heinrich said with a smile after collecting his fourth podium in the six races this season. He teamed with fellow youngsters American Kaylen Frederick, who was making his Watkins Glen IMSA debut and Dutch driver Tijmen van der Helm this week.
“It was a lot of fun. It was so intense and quite a long stint in there in the end in the car. But the team kept me in the loop with what was happening and we had a great recovery.
It was a busy day on track for the entire 54-car, four-class field, with nine full-course caution periods on a start-and-stop day with intermittent rhythm.
Bamber survived a scare with slight contact with a GTD class Ferrari with roughly 90 minutes remaining, in what was the second incident at the fast uphill Esses of the race.
An earlier one came in the opening hour when the second Acura, the front-row starting No. 60 Acura ARX-06, was caught up in an unusual three-car incident with another GTP car and a GTD class Corvette during a full-course caution.
“Not sure exactly what happened with the queue,” noted Colin Braun, who along with Tom Blomqvist sought to repeat their 2025 Watkins Glen win but had emerged from pit lane along with the No. 23 Aston Martin Valkyrie following an additional top-off pit stop for energy.
“Came out after the splash after the class split, coming up the hill. At the top of the hill, all the cars were really slow and stopped. Luckily our spotter did a good job and told me they were checking up so I slowed way down. I just got hit from behind by the Aston [Martin].
“Unfortunate luck. I feel bad a little bit for him too. I’m sure he didn’t know they were stopped either.”
The Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) return to action after a three-month break delivered a thriller. Defending WeatherTech Championship class champions AO Racing broke through for their first win of the season with its No. 99 AO Racing ORECA LMP2 07.
The margin between the two cars was less than a second when the yellow flag flew on the penultimate lap, ending the race.
It marked the first win for the No. 99 team at Watkins Glen and the first of the year for last year’s champions Cameron and PJ Hyett and third driver Jonny Edgar. It’s the ninth win for the AO Racing team but first since winning at Road America last summer. It was Cameron’s 20th class IMSA win, the third for Hyett and only the second for Edgar, and first for him in LMP2.
“It is a bit of a déjà vu from last season, to be honest,” Hyett said. “It’s always frustrating when you know you have the right car and you just catch the wrong side of a safety car in previous races, and we know we have the right car and the right team to do stuff like this, and it’s just a testament to the entire team. It feels great to win one. We got it done, so that’s all that counts.”
The No. 04 trio of Quinn, George Kurtz and Toby Sowery was second followed by the No. 18 Era Motorsport group of Naveen Rao, Jacob Abel and Ferdinand Habsburg in third.
The No. 04 team has unofficially moved into the championship lead, up 55 points on both the AO trio of Cameron, Edgar and Hyett and the No. 22 drivers Daniel Goldburg, Paul Di Resta and Rasmus Lindh. The No. 04 team was also the top-scoring Michelin Endurance Cup team in LMP2 Sunday.
“I had a lot of fun today. We were pretty aggressive and something we were working on as a group. I think we’ve been conservative sometimes, car-wise, driving-wise, things like that. We felt like there was a few times last year that was bad for us.
“Again, kind of a poor start to the year, and at some point, you need to stop the bleeding and get one on the board. And the car was awesome as soon as we rolled off the truck. We were super quick. And great to close that one off for sure.”
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PHOTOS BY CHARLIE BERCH
