LONG BEACH, California – A trio of Mercedes-AMG Motorsport Customer Racing teams withstood a weighty challenge, an opening-lap traffic jam and several contact incidents to secure a string of top-five finishes Saturday in a hard-fought IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship 100-minute sprint race at the Grand Prix of Long Beach. Mike Skeen and Mikael Grenier co-drove the No. 32 Team Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 to a season-best fourth-place finish in the GT Daytona (GTD) class finish while the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 and the No. 79 WeatherTech Racing/Proton Competition Mercedes-AMG GT3 finished fifth in the GTD and GTD Pro classes, respectively.
Winward Racing co-drivers Russell Ward and Philip Ellis joined the Korthoff team and drivers in scoring a season-best finish on the unforgiving 1.968-mile road course on the streets of Long Beach.
Both GTD top-five finishers and the WeatherTech Mercedes-AMG GT3 sustained first-lap contact damage but the No 79 had a further setback in the Long Beach circuit’s notorious hairpin turn.
A contact incident just in front of starting driver Daniel Juncadella forced him to stop on track for a costly 10 seconds. The time lost and minimal in-race yellow flag cautions took away any chance Juncadella and his teammate Jules Gounon had at reconnecting with the GTD Pro leaders. Gounon took the checkered flag in the fifth and final GTD Pro finishing position.
Korthoff and Winward survived the first-lap contact incidents to put together a pair of clean runs to the finish. Although pre-race rules adjustments prevented either team from challenging the GTD top-three finishers, both Korthoff and Winward left Long Beach with nothing more than minor bodywork and cosmetic damage on their Mercedes-AMG GT3s.
Next up for Mercedes-AMG Motorsport Customer Racing teams in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship is a return to California next month for Round 4 of the season at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.
Mike Skeen, Driver – No. 32 Team Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3: “I feel pretty good about it. It is exciting coming here and I like this track. It was a bit tough with the Balance of Performance (BoP) rules changes we had this weekend, but you get that ebb and flow all of the time. We did what we could with the capability we had this week. We started fourth and finished fourth. That looks kind of boring on paper, but we had a good battle at the beginning, and Mikael did a heck of a job at the end holding off Ellis. It’s nice to be the highest finishing Mercedes-AMG GT3, get some points and get the momentum headed in the right direction.”
Mikael Grenier, Driver – No. 32 Team Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3: “Long Beach is quite unique because you can’t make any mistakes here or you will be in the tire barriers. Mike did a really good job at the start, had a few contact hits he just couldn’t avoid, and it is good to come out of here with the car in one piece. All in all, it was quite solid with good points for the championship. At Daytona and Sebring, I think we could have won both races, so it is good to finally finish a race without any mistakes. It is good for momentum. The team did an amazing pit stop. It was quite a short fuel and they had to do the tire changes quickly. Everything was on point.”
Philip Ellis, Driver – No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3: “I think we reached our goals to at least get some points finally this season after two unlucky races where we should have been at the very front. It was definitely a tricky weekend as well, but Russell did a really good job. We are lucky the car stayed more or less intact after the early contact at the start. It probably hurt us a bit on performance as well, but nothing else happened and the car stayed together. That was good, the car was good, we just couldn’t get to the front, so we did what we had to do and were the best of the rest.”
Daniel Juncadella, Driver – No. 79 WeatherTech Racing/Proton Competition Mercedes-AMG GT3: “I was in a bad spot because I was the first car right after the blockage and I had nowhere to go. I had to reverse a bit and wait for them to clear. This is what happens when you start in the back, but we were a little unfortunate in qualifying. It was kind of a boring race. Not much happened, just two yellows early on and one at the end, but that was our only hope. We needed more yellows in the first half of the race to play our strategy, but it didn’t come. We have to hope IMSA looks at the performance analysis. We had a pretty big hit on the BoP after Sebring, and that comprised qualifying and the whole weekend. I hope we get something back for the next races.”
Jules Gounon, Driver – No. 79 WeatherTech Racing/Proton Competition Mercedes-AMG GT3: “We tried our best to work the strategy but to get a result today was nearly impossible. The WeatherTech Racing/Proton crew did a great pit stop. Dani and I gave it our all on the track, and I think I touched the wall six times pushing flat out. We will see what the next step is and be prepared to bounce back for WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.”
