IMSA News: Penske Porsche 1-2 at Long Beach GP
Penske Porsche drivers Felipe Nasr and Nick Tandy drove the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 to victory Saturday in the IMSA Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.
The Long Beach win was their third consecutive, adding to triumphs at the Rolex 24 At Daytona and the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, where they were assisted by Michelin Endurance Cup co-driver Laurens Vanthoor.
Vanthoor is also three-for-three in 2025 WeatherTech Championship competition, but his victory at Long Beach came in the Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) class with Jonny Edgar in AO Racing’s No. 177 “Rexy” Porsche 911 GT3 R.
The GTP race at Long Beach was fairly straightforward for Tandy and Nasr. Tandy maintained third place for the first short stint behind the BMW M Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8s, with Dries Vanthoor in the Motul Pole Award-winning No. 24 car holding the point over Sheldon van der Linde in the No. 25 car.
A full-course caution for a stalled GTD competitor just 21 minutes into the 100-minute sprint race allowed the GTP competitors to execute pit stops and driver changes. After the stops, Nasr in the No. 7 Porsche led Matt Campbell in the No. 6 Porsche he took over from Mathieu Jaminet.
The Porsches controlled the race from there, but Nasr and Tandy admitted they each experienced a couple tricky moments and had to be careful with their energy management to complete the race without an additional stop for replenishment. Nasr and the No. 7 finished 3.058 seconds ahead of Campbell in the No. 6 at the checkered flag, with Phillipp Eng completing the race third in the pole-winning No. 24 BMW, 12.903 seconds back.
Nasr has won 14 times in just 64 starts in IMSA competition, while Tandy notched his 26th career IMSA race win. Nasr and Tandy hold a 123-point lead over Campbell and Jaminet in the GTP driver’s point standings, with Eng and Dries Vanthoor now third, 265 points in arrears.
“Another big day for the team,” summarized Nasr, who won the 2024 GTP championship in the No. 7 Porsche with Dane Cameron as his co-driver. “The execution that Porsche Penske Motorsport has been able to show in these past three events has been outstanding. For us drivers, it’s a unique feeling really to see everything coming together. They gave us a fast car and the execution was perfect all race long. That was the only way we could fight these BMWs.”
Nasr credited Tandy with saving energy in the early stages of the race. That, along with the decision to not change tires, was how the No. 7 jumped the BMWs. It marks the third straight year the Long Beach GTP winning entry didn’t take tires.
“We knew it was going to come down to the strategy and the pit stop and whether could do something different,” said Nasr. “That’s exactly what we did. We were, let’s say, more aggressive with the approach because didn’t change tires on the No. 7, and managing that was key as well. I’ve got to say the car was really quick when it had to be.
“I haven’t had a season in my career that started with three wins like this,” he added. “Amazing to win a race here with such a great crowd at the 50th anniversary of the Long Beach Grand Prix.”
Tandy added his own perspective on PPM’s third consecutive victory and second straight 1-2 finish. The last time a team opened an IMSA season with three straight overall wins was 2017, when Ricky and Jordan Taylor accomplished the feat in a Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac.
“It goes to show just what a high level this team is operating at the moment,” Tandy said. “We’re lucky enough to be in front three times, but if the No. 7 isn’t at the front, the No. 6 is and vice-versa. We’ve always got two bullets in the gun, and both sides of the garage are operating just flawlessly. The car has proved reliable, and that’s a key point, and the pace today was awesome.”
BMW placed two cars in the top five, with the No. 25 entry taking fifth place behind Jack Aitken and Earl Bamber in the No. 31 Cadillac Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R.
The Aston Martin THOR Team achieved its best result to date, as Ross Gunn and Roman De Angelis drove the screaming No. 23 Aston Martin Valkyrie to an eighth-place finish. Acura, the title sponsor of the Long Beach Grand Prix weekend, endured a tough day with the two Acura Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06 entries finishing ninth and 11th.
AO Racing Porsche Stops Vasser Sullivan Lexus Long Beach Win Streak
For the past couple of years, no IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) or GTD PRO class team or manufacturer has had an answer for Vasser Sullivan Racing and Lexus on the streets of Long Beach.
Although that was (arguably) again the story in the 2025 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, one team and manufacturer finally found the answer to Vasser Sullivan and Lexus in the pits. That would be AO Racing and Porsche as “Rexy” (aka the No. 177 Porsche 911 GT3 R) got the better of the pit stop strategy – taking a short fuel fill and not changing Michelin tires during the 100-minute race’s lone scheduled visit to pit lane – to grab the lead.
The strategy worked to perfection, vaulting the Porsche past the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus that had shown the field a clean pair of heels in the early stages of the race. After that – and with the help of a full-course yellow – it was just a case of AO Racing’s Laurens Vanthoor driving a flawless stint to maintain the lead the rest of the way to secure the win.
“The team made a very good decision for us not to change tires and be aggressive on the fuel side,” said Vanthoor. “That was our only chance as the Lexus, as we saw the first stint, had a lot of speed. It’s not easy to overtake here so we had to try and take track position. We managed that but then the fun part starts, trying to stay ahead on older tires (and) especially when the yellow came out I was able to save some fuel. In the beginning I wasn’t very sure. But after 10-15 laps, I could see he was not able to come very close, so I knew if I did everything right and not make any mistakes everything will be all right. And at the end that’s how it turned out.”
Vasser Sullivan’s Parker Thompson in the No. 12 Lexus took full advantage of the pole position to sprint to a comfortable lead in the race’s opening segment, but AO’s Jonny Edgar kept things close in third spot behind the lead Lexus and the No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 EVO of Tom Gamble; so close that when the balance of the GTD field (including the lead Lexus) pitted on Lap 25, shortly after the GTD minimum drive time of 35 minutes elapsed, Edgar put in a flyer of a lap on hot tires before heading to the pits (along with Gamble) the following lap.
“We had plans for whether we would be pitting before other cars or after,” said Edgar. “With the Lexus pitting it was a ‘full push’ in lap. I had the Aston ahead of me so there was a little time lost there, but the in-lap was good, the driver change was very quick good. I think not changing tires and being aggressive on fuel was good to get track position and then it was a case of anyone else having to pass us rather than us being stuck in traffic.”
After the driver swap, Vanthoor not only beat Casper Stevenson’s Aston Martin out of pit lane, he emerged ahead of the Nos. 89 and 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus cars of Aaron Telitz and Jack Hawksworth. Although Telitz subsequently yielded to his teammate, Hawksworth had no answer for Vanthoor; nor did the Belgian put a wheel wrong en route to the checkered flag, coming home 2.378 seconds clear of the lead Lexus with Telitz and the No. 89 Lexus a further five seconds back in third.
“We had a great weekend,” said Hawksworth. “We won the pole and led the first stint. We had a caution towards the end of the first stint and just pitted a little too early. The other guys were able to run a couple more lap or two in clean air and overcut us. And at Long Beach the overcut usually works out. Obviously at the end I tried to put some pressure on him but the tires went off.”
All was far from lost for Vasser Sullivan and Lexus. Given that the AO Racing entry was a cameo appearance in GTD, Vasser Sullivan and Lexus maximized their points haul compared to their season-long GTD rivals, a fact which was not lost on Thompson who won the pole on Saturday and led the first part of today’s race in the No. 12 Lexus.
“We always knew our fellow competitors that aren’t in the full-time (GTD) championship were going to take the risks,” he said. “They took the risks. I look at this as this as a long war; they might have won the fight, but we’ll take our points and move on.”
Vasser Sullivan, Lexus and Hawksworth and Thompson now hold down second place in the GTD standings, 91 points back of GTD leaders Winward Racing, Mercedes-AMG and Philip Ellis and Russell Ward who came home fourth in the No. 57 Mercedes AMG GT3 today.
The next round of the WeatherTech Championship is the May 9-11 Monterey SportsCar Championship at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. The 2-hour, 40-minute race will be televised live on NBC at 3 p.m. ET on Sunday, May 11.