2019 Sports Car Challenge of Mid-Ohio
The 2019 Acura Sports Car Challenge of Mid-Ohio was a sports car race sanctioned by the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA). The race was held at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio, and was the fourth round of the 2019 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Background
This event marks the inaugural event of a new support championship for the GT Daytona (GTD) class called the WeatherTech Sprint Cup. It is a championship of all the non-endurance events in the GTD calendar, using the same scoring system as the overall full-time championship, unlike its sister support championship, the Michelin Endurance Cup.
Two and a half weeks prior to the event, Ford announced they would end their factory program with Chip Ganassi Racing in the GTLM class in both the World Endurance Championship and the WeatherTech championship at the end of 2019.[1]
On April 24th, 2019, IMSA released a technical bulletin regarding the Balance of Performance for the race. There were no changes made to either the DPi or GT Le Mans classes. In GTD, the Lamborghini Huracán GT3, which had been victorious in the previous two rounds at Daytona and Sebring, received a 30 kilogram weight increase and a 1-liter reduction in fuel capacity. In contrast, the Audi R8 LMS and Mercedes-AMG GT3 cars were given weight reductions of 25 and 20 kilograms, respectively. The McLaren 720S GT3 received its baseline weight of 1320 kilograms and RPM of 8,000 for its first IMSA event. [2]
Entries
On April 24th, 2019, the entry list for the event was released, featuring a total of 36 cars. There are scheduled to be 11 cars in the leading Daytona Prototype international (DPi) class, two in the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class, eight entries in GT Le Mans (GTLM), and 15 entries in the GTD class.[3]
There were some considerable additions and changes among the field. Lone Star Racing returned to IMSA competition in the GTD class, having previously participated at Laguna Seca in 2017. Starworks Motorsport driver Parker Chase, who had previously only been on contract for the endurance events, would sign an agreement to run the full season with Starworks in 2019, alongside the existing full-season driver Ryan Dalziel.[4] The biggest addition to the entry list, however, was Compass Racing, who would field a new McLaren 720S GT3 with factory backing in the full Sprint Cup-only campaign for the season. Their drivers were McLaren factory driver Paul Holton and Matt Plumb. On April 19th, 2019, McLaren Automotive signed a multi-year agreement with IMSA in which they officially became an automotive partner of the International Motor Sports Association.[5][6]
After initially confirming full-season programs, GTD teams Precision Performance Motorsports and P1 Motorsports would not return for Mid-Ohio, with the latter pulling the plug on using their Mercedes-AMG GT3 cars in championships.
Due to scheduling conflicts for full-season drivers Gabriel Aubry, Patrick Lindsey and Harry Tincknell, who were at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps for the FIA World Endurance Championship, drivers Eric Lux, Marco Seefried and Ryan Hunter-Reay respectively would replace these drivers for the Mid-Ohio event.[7]
Practice and qualifying
Qualifying Results
Pole positions in each class are indicated in bold and by 
.
| Pos. | Class | No. | Team | Driver | Time | Gap | Grid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | DPi | 77 | Mazda Team Joest | Oliver Jarvis | 1:10.705 | _ | 1 |
| 2 | DPi | 7 | Acura Team Penske | Hélio Castroneves | 1:10.727 | +0.022 | 2 |
| 3 | DPi | 6 | Acura Team Penske | Dane Cameron | 1:10.806 | +0.101 | 3 |
| 4 | DPi | 31 | Whelen Engineering Racing | Pipo Derani | 1:11.720 | +1.016 | 4 |
| 5 | DPi | 5 | Mustang Sampling Racing | João Barbosa | 1:12.320 | +1.615 | 5 |
| 6 | DPi | 55 | Mazda Team Joest | Ryan Hunter-Reay | 1:12.326 | +1.621 | 6 |
| 7 | DPi | 10 | Konica Minolta Cadillac | Renger van der Zande | 1:12.525 | +1.820 | 7 |
| 8 | DPi | 84 | JDC-Miller Motorsports | Simon Trummer | 1:12.595 | +1.890 | 8 |
| 9 | DPi | 50 | Juncos Racing | Will Owen | 1:13.394 | +2.689 | 9 |
| 10 | DPi | 85 | JDC-Miller Motorsports | Misha Goikhberg | 1:13.570 | +2.865 | 10 |
| 11 | LMP2 | 38 | Performance Tech Motorsports | Kyle Masson | 1:14.877 | +4.172 | 11 |
| 12 | DPi | 54 | CORE Autosport | Jonathan Bennett | 1:17.321 | +6.616 | 12 |
| 13 | GTLM | 66 | Ford Chip Ganassi Team USA | Sebastien Bourdais | 1:19.124 | +8.419 | 13 |
| 14 | GTLM | 912 | Porsche GT Team | Laurens Vanthoor | 1:19.399 | +8.694 | 14 |
| 15 | GTLM | 24 | BMW Team RLL | Jesse Krohn | 1:19.623 | +8.918 | 15 |
| 16 | GTLM | 4 | Corvette Racing | Tommy Milner | 1:19.721 | +9.016 | 16 |
| 17 | GTLM | 67 | Ford Chip Ganassi Team USA | Ryan Briscoe | 1:19.724 | +9.019 | 17 |
| 18 | GTLM | 25 | BMW Team RLL | Connor De Phillippi | 1:19.893 | +9.188 | 18 |
| 19 | GTLM | 3 | Corvette Racing | Jan Magnussen | 1:19.919 | +9.214 | 19 |
| 20 | GTLM | 911 | Porsche GT Team | Patrick Pilet | 1:20.026 | +9.321 | 20 |
| 21 | LMP2 | 52 | PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports | Eric Lux | 1:21.752 | +11.047 | 21 |
| 22 | GTD | 14 | AIM Vasser Sullivan | Richard Heistand | 1:24.281 | +13.576 | 22 |
| 23 | GTD | 33 | Riley Motorsports – Team AMG | Ben Keating | 1:26.109 | +15.404 | 23 |
| 24 | GTD | 12 | AIM Vasser Sullivan | Frankie Montecalvo | 1:26.451 | +15.746 | 24 |
| 25 | GTD | 19 | Moorespeed | Will Hardeman | 1:26.951 | +16.246 | 25 |
| 26 | GTD | 9 | Pfaff Motorsports | Zach Robichon | 1:27.113 | +16.408 | 26 |
| 27 | GTD | 96 | Turner Motorsport | Robby Foley | 1:27.152 | +16.447 | 27 |
| 28 | GTD | 48 | Paul Miller Racing | Ryan Hardwick | 1:27.300 | +16.595 | 28 |
| 29 | GTD | 76 | Compass Racing | Matt Plumb | 1:27.657 | +16.952 | 29 |
| 30 | GTD | 86 | Meyer Shank Racing w/ Curb-Agajanian | Trent Hindman | 1:27.725 | +17.020 | 30 |
| 31 | GTD | 8 | Starworks Motorsport | Parker Chase | 1:27.753 | +17.048 | 31 |
| 32 | GTD | 63 | Scuderia Corsa | Cooper MacNeil | 1:27.777 | +17.072 | 32 |
| 33 | GTD | 74 | Lone Star Racing | Gar Robinson | 1:30.778 | +20.073 | 33 |
| 34 | GTD | 44 | Magnus Racing | John Potter | 1:31.124 | +20.419 | 34 |
| 35 | GTD | 57 | Heinricher Racing with Meyer-Shank | Christina Nielsen | 1:31.851 | +21.146 | 35 |
| 36 | GTD | 73 | Park Place Motorsports | None | None | N/A | 36 |
| Source:[8] | |||||||
Results
Class winners are denoted in bold and .
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References
- Dagys, John (18 April 2019). "Ford Confirms End of Factory GT Program". sportscar365.com. John Dagys Media. Retrieved 26 April 2019.
- IMSA Competition (24 April 2019). "IMSA TECHNICAL BULLETIN IWSC #19-23" (PDF). Retrieved 3 May 2019.
- Dagys, John (24 April 2019). "Lone Star Returns; 36 Entries for Mid-Ohio in Sprint Cup Debut". sportscar365.com. John Dagys Media. Retrieved 26 April 2019.
- Malsher, David (22 April 2019). "Chase confirmed at Starworks for remainder of 2019". motorsport.com. Motorsport Network. Retrieved 26 April 2019.
- Malsher, David (19 April 2019). "McLaren confirms multi-year deal with IMSA". motorsport.com. Motorsport Network. Retrieved 26 April 2019.
- Dagys, John (19 April 2019). "McLaren Confirms Multi-Year Deal With IMSA". sportscar365.com. John Dagys Media. Retrieved 26 April 2019.
- Dagys, John (26 April 2019). "Hunter-Reay to Sub for Tincknell at Mid-Ohio". sportscar365.com. John Dagys Media. Retrieved 29 April 2019.
- "05/06 Mid-Ohio Sports Car Challenge--03 Results Qualifying" (PDF). 5 May 2019. Retrieved 7 May 2019.
External links
| WeatherTech SportsCar Championship | ||
|---|---|---|
| Previous race: 2019 BUBBA Burger Sports Car Grand Prix |
2019 season | Next race: 2019 Chevrolet Sports Car Classic |