Acura’s Louis Deletraz led the 54-car field to the green around the undulating 2.54-mile road course in Georgia but Sebastien Bourdais took little time in taking the lead, sweeping his Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac around the Wayne Taylor Racing ARX-06 outside at Turn 1 and quickly pulling clear.
But the race quickly went under caution as Ari Balogh crashed the #8 Tower Motorsports LMP2 car that he shares with IndyCar star Scott McLaughlin in the third minute of the race. A second yellow was required soon after to retrieve a detached tyre following a GTD clash.
There was also early drama in GTP as Porsche’s title contender Nick Tandy was given a drive-through penalty for not keeping in his lane at the very messy start, dropping him to ninth.
Bourdais and WTR third driver Deletraz stayed out as the other GTP cars pitted for fuel only after 30 minutes. Points leader Pipo Derani's Action Express Cadillac was the first of the pitters but got hung out to dry on the second restart and fell from third to sixth.
Just after the first hour, Deletraz passed Bourdais for the lead and the Frenchman got embroiled in a battle with the Meyer Shank Racing Acura of Tom Blomqvist. Deletraz then made his first pitstop after 70 minutes.
A huge crash on the approach to the downhill chicane put the race under caution again, as Tandy was taken out following a clash between the #20 High Class Racing LMP2 car of Dennis Andersen and the #023 Triarsi Ferrari GTD of Charles Scardina, a crash that also took out the #70 Inception McLaren GTD entry of Brendan Iribe.
The timing of the yellow hurt Bourdais, who fell back to sixth at this point.
The next major drama afflicted Blomqvist in the last IMSA outing with Acura for his MSR team before it begins a sabbatical from the series in 2024, who was right on Deletraz’s tail for the lead when he was sent into the pits for suspension repairs after being hit by the #1 BMW GTD at the exit of the chicane. The contact sent Corey Lewis into the tyrewall and caused a fourth full course yellow.
Source: Autosport