RNW Staff

The streets of downtown Long Beach roared with the sound of sports cars on Saturday afternoon as the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship conducted round three of the season. The Wright Motorsports duo of Ryan Hardwick and Jan Heylen put in another vigorous performance in the No. 16 Porsche 911 GT3 R, earning a top-five finish from a twelfth place starting position.  Despite contact on two occasions from other cars, the team recovered to finish the race, placing as the top Porsche in the field.

Thrilling motorsport, impressive racing series, and spectacular cars – spectators and fans can look forward to an even more attractive and entertaining support programme at ADAC GT Masters events this season. Featuring GT3 and GT4 series, as well as a variety of one-make cups, the German GT Championship will once again be one of the biggest platforms in Europe for GT cars. The new ADAC GT Masters season gets underway from 22nd to 24th April at Motorsport Arena Oschersleben.

The first race win for the new BMW M4 GT3 in North America is in the books. Paul Miller Racing won the GTD class of the 100-minute Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach (USA) on Saturday. For the team and its drivers, Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow (both USA), it was only the second race with the car after their debut at Sebring (USA). On Friday, Snow had recorded the first pole position for the BMW M4 GT3 in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. In the GTD PRO class, BMW M Team RLL showed great fighting spirit with the #25 MOTUL BMW M4 GT3, coming from the back of the field following a grid penalty after qualifying. In the end, the effort remained unrewarded due to unlucky circumstances in the race. Turner Motorsport came home fourth in the GTD class in the #96 BMW M4 GT3.

WeatherTech Racing drivers Cooper MacNeil (Hinsdale, Ill) and Raffaele Marciello (Switzerland) finished fifth in GTD Pro in today’s running of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Whelen Engineering drivers Pipo Derani (Brazil) and Tristan Nunez (Boynton Beach, Fla.) finished fifth in Saturday’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Meyer Shank Racing saw a podium finish on the streets of Long Beach slip away in the closing moments on Saturday, placing fourth in the Acura Grand Prix.

WeatherTech Racing drivers Cooper MacNeil (Hinsdale, Ill) and Raffaele Marciello (Switzerland) will start tomorrow’s running of the  IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach sixth on the GTD Pro grid.

Meyer Shank Racing (MSR) will start from the inside of the second row for Saturday’s Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, Round 3 of the 2022 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. The sprint event is the third race of the season, and marks a dramatic departure from the opening two races of the year that featured 24 and 12 hour formats. 

The Paul Miller Racing team tasted victory the last time the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship visited the Grand Prix of Long Beach, and Madison Snow and Bryan Sellers are looking to replicate that result this weekend.

Youngsters to the fore! The youngest was the fastest, both in DTM and in DTM Trophy. Sébastien Loeb, René Rast, Mirko Bortolotti, Laurens Vanthoor and defending champion Maximilian Götz: during the official DTM test at Hockenheim, the established stars all slotted in behind 19-year-old Marius Zug. At Hockenheim, the world’s GT racing elite assembled with 29 professionals from 15 nations. Never before in the 35 seasons of the long-standing series so far, the field had been more international and so many racecars hadn’t been on the grid since the DTM comeback in 2000. The start of the promising season with spectacular motorsport is in three weeks’ time, from 29 April until 1 May at the Portuguese Grand Prix circuit of Portimão.

Fast lap times, pit stop practice, and determined drivers and teams: The official ADAC GT Masters pre-season test in Oschersleben offered a taste of what spectators and fans can look forward to at the season-opener, which takes place at the same venue on 22nd April. Over the course of the six sessions, with a total duration of over eight hours, the drivers completed 3,182 laps and a distance of 11,668.394 kilometres. The test provided the drivers with their first opportunity to check out the new tyres from series partner Pirelli, which impressed in both dry and wet conditions. The teams also used the innovative fuel “Shell Blue Gasoline 98 GT Masters” for the first time. Roughly 50 percent of the components are renewable in the new fuel, which was developed by Shell exclusively for the German GT Championship. While the drivers held back a little on a damp track on Tuesday, the lap times fell consistently when the track dried out on Wednesday. The new ADAC GT Masters season gets underway from 22nd to 24th April at Motorsport Arena Oschersleben.

Twice an Audi on top: on both days of the official DTM test at Hockenheim, an Audi driver posted the fastest time. Two-time runner-up Nico Müller (SUI) topped the timing sheets on the second day with a time of 1m 38.532s in the Team Rosberg Audi R8. On the previous day, 19-year-old Marius Zug (GER/Attempto Racing) had been even faster with 1m 38.344s. Behind Zug and Müller, Lamborghini driver Mirko Bortolotti (ITA/Grasser Racing Team) was next up in the combined results of the two days with 1m 38.644s, followed by three-time DTM champion René Rast (GER/1m 39.682s), who is making his comeback in the long-standing series with the Team ABT Audi following a one-year absence.

Whelen Engineering/Action Express Racing is the defending Long Beach race winner from a year ago, and drivers Pipo Derani (Brazil) and Tristan Nunez (Boynton Beach, Fla.) hope to make it back-to-back wins when the team heads to the West Coast for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach April 8-9.

The long wait for GRT’s first outing in the DTM came to an end this week. On 5 and 6 April, the team made its debut at the pinnacle of GT3 racing in the official test at the Hockenheimring. With its four Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO, the Austrian squad had a strong showing right from the start at the first test. Lamborghini factory driver Mirko Bortolotti on each day finished one session at the top of the standings and concluded the event in second place on Wednesday. Rolf Ineichen, Clemens Schmid and Alessio Deledda showed a steep learning curve on their first appearance in the DTM.

The 2022 Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe Powered by AWS campaign is up and running after Imola delivered a typically combative Endurance Cup race on Sunday afternoon. 

The streets of Long Beach, California will come alive with the sound of race cars this weekend as the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship returns for another exciting race event. The 47th Grand Prix of Long Beach will take place April 8-10, and Wright Motorsports is on the hunt for another podium finish at the 1.968-mile temporary street course. The No. 16 Porsche 911 GT3 R secured a third-place finish in 2021, and now the 2022 pairing of Ryan Hardwick and Jan Heylen will fight for their second podium of the new season.

WeatherTech Racing is ready to take on the streets of Long Beach at this weekend’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, April 8-9. 

Connor De Phillippi and John Edwards will co-drive the GT Pro class No. 25 BMW M Team RLL BMW M4 GT3 in the 100-minute Long Beach Grand Prix race on April 9th, the shortest IMSA race of the season.  BMW M Team RLL will also focus on a single entry for the remainder of 2022.

While the Grand Prix of Long Beach is the third round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, the 100-minute event is the first “sprint” race of the season. It is also the first of the year outside of the state of Florida, beginning a two-race swing on the West Coast for North America’s top sports car racing series. The shortest event of the season, the April 9 race on the 1.968-mile, 11-turn temporary course laid out on the streets of Long Beach, California, features four Porsche customer teams campaigning the 911 GT3 R race car. Porsche is tied for most sports car wins by a manufacturer on the Southern California circuit with nine victories, the most recent in 2019.

The Aston Martin Vantage GT3 will make its ADAC TotalEnergies 24H Nürburging debut this year, when AMR partner team TF Sport takes on the famous race for the first time on 28-29 May.