Privateer Porsche Stuns at Laguna Seca

“This kid is incredible,” said team principal John Church of the young German on loan from the factory. “I mean the drive he put on and did everything right. So couldn’t be happier for the whole team.”

The cynics may also suggest that Balance of Performance (BoP) played an outsized role in the first privateer victory in the current GTP era that began in 2023.

IMSA has indeed created a new subcategory applicable only to the Porsche 963 team of JDC-Miller. The factory Porsches of the Penske team have new aerodynamics, but because JDC-Miller did not update to the new bodywork, it did not receive the handicap applied to the winning team at Daytona and Sebring. Thus, a weight break for the privateers and original bodywork that worked quite well at Laguna, thank you.

Welcome to the “new era” where the Porsches have only won the first three of four races. That’s in place of last year’s sweep.

It bears pointing out that at least Laguna’s outcome was in play until the last lap, when Heinrich passed Bamber’s Action Express Racing Cadillac with the help of timely traffic and a quicker pace. The victory was about execution, tire management, and pit strategy. Unlike the “36 hours of Florida," this Porsche crew did not dominate from pillar to post like the Penske squad.

JDC-Miller last won a prototype race at Sebring’s 12-hour in 2021, which confirms that teams can make a difference in addition to the BoP.

Likewise, the Mustang GT3 team of Ford Racing and its Multimatic crew found an edge in the closing stages. The winning GTD Pro team gambled on pitting early with an undercut and that no caution would bunch the field. Thus, it turned an earlier penalty for contact with a GTP car into an advantage.

In GTD, Danny Formal and Trent Hindman led 40 laps in their Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2 to get the win for Wayne Taylor Racing.

“We didn’t expect to be completely up front here," said Christopher Mies, who co-drove the winning Mustang with Frederic Vervisch. “And if you see the pace from the cars behind, they probably had a bit more in it, and we were just lucky to gamble and that there was no late yellow.”

If that sounds like a message to IMSA officials to go easy on BoP for the EVO version of the Mustang prior to the race in the streets of Detroit at the end of the month, so be it.