Alfa Romeo triples up in IMSA at Road America

The story of the TCR battle in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge at Road America can be told in two halves. Hyundai dominated qualifying with four of the top five spots, yet in the race the sole Alfa Romeo and the sole new Audi finished ahead of the seven-car armada of Hyundai Elantra N.

An epic scrap occurred between Tim Lewis in the #5 KMW Motorsports with TMR Engineering Alfa Romeo Giulietta Veloce and Mikey Taylor in the #17 Unitronic/JDC-Miller MotorSports Audi RS 3 LMS in the waning stages of the race.

Taylor’s co-driver Chris Miller rocketed to the lead early but fell back to fourth on the pit stop, behind three Hyundai cars: the #91 van der Steur Racing car and the #98 and #33 Bryan Herta Autosport cars. 

However, with 34 minutes to go, Taylor put together a sequence of moves and darted around the outside of Tyler Maxson, in the van der Steur Hyundai, for the lead. But Lewis, who had taken over for Roy Block, was keen to extend the KMW Alfa Romeo win streak to three; with a methodical charge and an eventual pass for the win, the #5 car was back on top of the box.

“The pass was a few laps in the making, trying to figure out where we were good and where he was good,”Lewis said. “I felt like the fuel number on the dash kept getting closer to zero.”

Taylor added, “It was a super-good battle. They’re good friends and it’s great they’re up there as well. We would have been there but had to save on fuel. The pace they were running was super good, and hard to maintain.”

Fuel saving became a story in TCR as several cars ran out of fuel. The pole-sitting #33 Hyundai of Harry Gottsacker and Robert Wickens was best of the bunch in third, while their championship-contending teammates Mark Wilkins and Mason Filippi in the #98 Hyundai were not so lucky with an apparent stop on the backstraight.

These results meant that Wickens-Gottsacker took the lead in the standings, 80 points clear of Taylor-Miller, while Wilkins-Filippi slipped down to third, ten further points adrift.

The series will resume at Virginia International Raceway on August 25/26.

Road America – Race

1. T. Lewis/R. Block (KMW Motorsports, Alfa Romeo Giulietta Veloce), 46 laps

2. M. Taylor/C. Miller (JDC Miller MotorSports, Audi RS 3 LMS II), 8.213

3. R. Wickens/H. Gottsacker (Bryan Herta Autosport, Hyundai Elantra N), 11.562

Championship points

1. R. Wickens/H. Gottsacker, 2090 pts; 2. C. Miller/M. Taylor, 2010; 3. M. Wilkins/M. Filippi, 2000

Picture: IMSA/LAT Images