Big Indy Win Salvages Cadillac’s IMSA Season

Are three factory GTP cars better than two in the IMSA WeatherTech Championship?

For much of the season, Cadillac’s winless combination of one entry from Action Express Racing and two from Wayne Taylor Racing seemed like triple trouble for the brand, especially given that Chip Ganassi Racing had scored a victory for the V-Series.R at the Petit Le Mans in its last sports car race before GM’s new plan arrived in 2025.

For most of the season, the Cadillac teams couldn’t seem to find their fannies with either hand, even with help from the Balance of Performance (BoP). Victories had gone to the two-car factory teams of Porsche, Acura, and BMW.

At the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the new plan finally produced a victory for Cadillac in IMSA’s top tier in the six-hour Battle on the Bricks. The PR types called it a thriller, but Cadillac had this one covered three ways from Sunday. The AER Caddie of Jack Aitken and the WTR entry of Ricky Taylor came home first and second after Taylor dove inside the Acura ARX-06 of Tom Blomquist to take second place with 13 minutes remaining.

The record will not show it, but it was Taylor who won this race for Cadillac. He was sure to run out of energy if he pushed his Caddy up the order. The real goal was to pass Blomqvist, who carried more energy and was on the hunt for leader Aitken’s Cadillac.

Blomqvist and company were looking for the third scalp of the season by the newly formed private/corporate two-car team of Mayer Shank Racing put together by Honda Racing Corporation USA.

The Acura combo had scored two wins and three straight poles after the BoP crashed Porsche Penske Motorsport’s season-opening party following four-straight wins by the Porsche 963. As corporate politics go, a third win by Acura to none by Cadillac would have been a disaster. Especially given that Acura does all its development in IMSA and does not have a World Endurance Championship program for parallel development.

Alas, a fourth-straight pole run by Acura did not last long. After Indy qualifying, the No. 60 of Blomqvist was disqualified for too much trimming of its bodywork.

The three Cadillacs started at the front, led by Aitken, and the No. 60 Acura started 12th, last in class. Nevertheless, there was Blomqvist, poised to go from worst to first with co-driver Colin Braun. Until Taylor threw any hopes of completing the race to the racing gods absent another safety car period and dove inside Blomqvist.

Taylor had only to drive a clean line to allow Aitken just enough room to conserve fuel to the finish. As for Taylor’s No. 10 Cadillac, it would surely run out of fuel. Miraculously, a final yellow with six minutes to go on a heavily jaundiced day led to a green-white-checkers finish where the three front runners held serve.

“A Cadillac could win and we could help (Aitken) because (Blomqvist) had such an energy advantage,” said Taylor. “If we get (to second without enough fuel) and the yellow doesn’t come out, we gave ourselves the best shot. Hats off to the guys. Congrats for Cadillac one-two and the car was good this weekend. It’s encouraging that maybe we’re making some progress with the car.”

On this day’s pursuit of a trophy from the hallowed Brickyard, IMSA officials made more blocking and tackling calls than ever before against a field of 53 cars and 138 drivers. The 38 penalties set an unofficial record, one hopes for all time. The finish demonstrated that those who escaped infractions on the track and in the pits were at the front at the finish as IMSA continued a crackdown on the “wild, wild West” approach by its largely European-trained driving corps, who are usually under stricter monitoring by the FIA stewards.

Aitken was joined on the Whelen-sponsored team by Fredrik Vesti and Cadillac’s ubiquitous Earl Bamber, the link to the WEC team of Jota and its race-winning development program. The Kiwi credited the Action Express team and drivers for keeping the V-Series.R in a sweet spot on Michelin’s hard compound tire. All this without the departed Pipo Derani, the stellar shoe who has switched to the new Genesis program.

“We’ve had a lot of quick cars, but just hasn’t really rolled our way,” said Bamber, recalling a last-minute loss to Acura at Watkins Glen that turned on fuel mileage and pit strategy. “There’s been a massive amount of stuff from Cadillac, through updates, through winter, throughout the season.”

The third V-Series.R of WTR driven by Louis Deletraz and Jordan Taylor got a precautionary top-off of fuel to give Cadillac one car that could go the distance in the absence of a safety car period. That insurance plan was not needed and it relegated the No. 40 car to ninth.

There was a silver lining for Acura, which pulled to within seven points of Porsche in the manufacturers’ championship headed into the Petit Le Mans season finale. Porsche Penske Motorsport had a less-than-stellar day at team co-owner Roger Penske’s track. Nick Tandy again ran afoul of traffic and the No. 7 Porsche finished 12th. Leaders in the drivers’ points, Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet, all but clinched the drivers’ title but could do no better than seventh in the No. 6 Porsche 963.

Others who scored a winning trophy and kissed the bricks afterward were LMP2 winners Steven Thomas, Mikkel Jensen and Hunter McElrea; GTD Pro winners Mike Rockenfeller and Sebastian Priaulx (Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang GT3); and GTD winners Brendan Iribe, Frederik Schandorff and Ollie Millroy (Inception Racing Ferrar 296 GT3).

The runner-up finish in GTD Pro by Albert Costa and Davide Rigon in the DragonSpeed Ferrari sets up a winner-take-all showdown for the driving championship at the Petit Le Mans between Costa and the Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsport duo of Antonio Garcia and Alexander Sims, who finished fourth.

Russell Ward and Philip Ellis all but clinched the GTD title with a fifth-place finish in Winward Racing’s Mercedes-AMG GT3, co-driven by the appropriately named Indy Dontje.