The 2018 Chevrolet Sports Car Classic was a sports car race sanctioned by the

International Motor Sports Association The International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) is a North American sports car racing sanctioning body based in Daytona Beach, Florida under the jurisdiction of the ACCUS arm of the FIA. It was started by John Bishop, a former executive direc ...

(IMSA). The race was held at the Raceway on Belle Isle in

Detroit, Michigan Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

on June 2, 2018. The race was the fifth round of the

2018 IMSA SportsCar Championship The 2018 IMSA SportsCar Championship was the 48th motor racing championship sanctioned by the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) (which traces its lineage to the 1971 IMSA GT Championship). It was the fifth season of the United Sport ...

Background

Similar to the Grand Prix of Long Beach, this event was held in conjunction with the Detroit Grand Prix in the IndyCar series, with one event held on the same day as the IMSA event, and another held a day after as a double-header.

's (IMSA) president Scott Atherton confirmed the race was part of the schedule for the

(IMSA SCC) in August 2017. It was the fifth consecutive year the event was held as part of the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, and the ninth annual running of the race, counting the period between 2007 and 2013 when it was a round of the

Rolex Sports Car Series The Rolex Sports Car Series was the premier series run by the Grand American Road Racing Association. It was a North American-based sports car series founded in 2000 under the name Grand American Road Racing Championship to replace the failed ...

and the

American Le Mans Series The American Le Mans Series (ALMS) was a sports car racing series based in the United States and Canada. It consisted of a series of endurance and sprint races, and was created in the spirit of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The American Le Mans' hea ...

respectively. The 2017 Chevrolet Sports Car Classic was the fifth of twelve scheduled sports car races of 2017 by IMSA, the shortest in terms of time, and was the third round not held on the held as part of the North American Endurance Cup. The race was held at the fourteen-turn

Belle Isle Park Belle Isle Park, known simply as Belle Isle (), is a island park in Detroit, Michigan, developed in the late 19th century. It consists of Belle Isle, an island in the Detroit River, as well as several surrounding islets. The U.S.-Canada border ...

on June 2, 2018. After the Sports Car Challenge of Mid-Ohio three weeks earlier, Filipe Albuquerque and João Barbosa led the Prototype Drivers' Championship with 119 points, ahead of

Eric Curran Eric Curran (born June 8, 1975) is an American race car driver who competes in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship for Action Express Racing with co-driver Felipe Nasr. Curran and previous co-driver Dane Cameron won their first race together, t ...

and

Felipe Nasr Luiz Felipe de Oliveira Nasr (born 21 August 1992) is a Brazilian racing driver. He is the 2018 IMSA Sportscar champion and won the 2019 12 Hours of Sebring. After a year as the official test driver for Williams in 2014, he joined Sauber a ...

with 109 points, and Jordan Taylor and Renger van der Zande with 104 points. In GTD, the Drivers' Championship was led by

Bryan Sellers Bryan Sellers (born August 19, 1982 in Daytona Beach, Florida, Dayton, Ohio) is an American racing driver. Sellers won the title in the U.S. F2000 National Championship, U.S. F2000 in 2002 and later competed in the Atlantic Championship and in r ...

and

Madison Snow Madison Snow (born December 26, 1995) is an American racing driver who currently competes in the IMSA SportsCar Championship. In 2018 Snow became only the second driver in IMSA history to win two championships in the same year, winning both the W ...

with 95 points, ahead of

Katherine Legge Katherine Anne Legge ( ; born 12 July 1980) is a British professional auto racing driver, competing in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. She is also featured in ''Richard Hammond's Crash Course''. Racing career Early racing and Atlantics ...

and Álvaro Parente with 87 points.

Cadillac The Cadillac Motor Car Division () is a division of the American automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM) that designs and builds luxury vehicles. Its major markets are the United States, Canada, and China. Cadillac models are distributed i ...

and

Lamborghini Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. () is an Italian brand and manufacturer of luxury sports cars and SUVs based in Sant'Agata Bolognese. The company is owned by the Volkswagen Group through its subsidiary Audi. Ferruccio Lamborghini (1916–1993) ...

were leading their respective Manufacturers' Championships, while Mustang Sampling Racing and

Paul Miller Racing Paul Miller Racing is an American auto racing team that is part of Paul Miller Auto Group and associated with former racing driver . The team has operations that are headquartered in Buford, Georgia; the Racing team also has operations in Par ...

each led their own Teams' Championships. On May 25, 2018, IMSA released the latest technical bulletin outlining

Balance of performance In sports car racing, balance of performance (BoP) is a regulation and mechanism that maintains parity between competing vehicles by adjusting limits on a car's parameters, such as horsepower, weight, engine management, and aerodynamics to preven ...

for the GTD class. The

Lexus RC F GT3 The Lexus RC (Japanese: レクサス・RC, ''Rekusasu RC'') is a Compact executive car, compact executive two-door coupé manufactured by Lexus, Toyota's luxury division. The RC which according to Lexus stands for "Radical Coupe" is a two-door co ...

received a 25 kilogram weight increase. The Mercedes AMG GT3 received a 10 kilogram weight break. No changes made in P.

Entries

A total of 26 cars took part in the event split across two classes. 14 cars were entered in P, and 12 in GTD. In P,

Spirit of Daytona Racing Spirit of Daytona Racing (known as VisitFlorida Racing from 2015 to 2018) was an auto racing team that competed last in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Prototype Class with the No. 90 Cadillac DPi-V.R, driven by Tristan Vautier, Matt M ...

made their first appearance since Sebring. Performance Tech Motorsports skipped to focus on testing before the Watkins Glen round. Harry Tincknell returned to the Mazda Team Joest No. 55 entry. GTD saw a number of driver changes.

Robby Foley Robby Foley (born July 20, 1996) is an American racing driver who currently competes in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Career Raised in Randolph, New Jersey, Foley's motorsports career was kickstarted in 2010 by a severe injury sustain ...

joined

Bill Auberlen Bill Auberlen (born October 12, 1968) is an American factory race car driver known for his affiliation with BMW, driving cars made and run by the famous German marque for a number of years. Auberlen currently competes for Turner Motorsport in ...

in the

Turner Motorsport Turner Motorsport (Also known as TMS Racing or Turner racing ) is a professional sports car racing team located in Newton, NH, and is the second most prolific BMW privateer racing team in the world, second only to Schnitzer Motorsport, who sto ...

entry while

Mario Farnbacher Mario Farnbacher (born 14 May 1992) is a German racecar driver who currently competes in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Career file:GT Masters Porsche 911 GT3 R Farnbacher.jpg, 255px, Farnbacher competing at the Nürburgring in 2012 In ...

substituted for Álvaro Parente in the Meyer Shank Racing No. 86 entry due to a clash with the

Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup The GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup, formerly for sponsorship reasons the Blancpain Endurance Series from 2011 to 2015 and Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup from 2016 to 2019, is a sports car racing series developed by SRO Motorsports Gr ...

round at Circuit Paul Ricard. Bernd Schneider joined

Kenny Habul Kenny Charles Edward Habul (born 24 May 1973) is an Australian professional race car driver and businessman. Born in Sydney, Australia, a former resident of Etobicoke, Ontario, Greenwich, CT, and a current resident of Mooresville, North Caro ...

in the SunEnergy1 Racing entry. Jeff Segal substituted for Alessandro Balzan in the

Scuderia Corsa Scuderia Corsa is an American automotive racing team with teams competing in the IMSA SportsCar Championship, Pirelli World Challenge and Ferrari Challenge in North America. Founded in 2012 by Giacomo Mattioli and Art Zafiropoulo, the team has t ...

entry due to a medical procedure.

Practice

There were two practice sessions preceding the start of the race on Saturday, two on Friday. The first ninety-minute session was on Friday morning. The second on Friday afternoon lasted 110 minutes.

Practice 1

The first practice session took place at 8:15 am ET on Friday and ended with

Ricky Taylor Ricky Taylor (born August 3, 1989) is an American racing driver, most notably in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. His career highlights include an IMSA Series Championship in 2017, as well as marquee wins at the Daytona 24, 12 Hours o ...

topping the charts for

Acura Acura is the luxury vehicle, luxury and performance division of Japanese automaker Honda, based primarily in North America. The brand was launched in the United States and Canada on March 27, 1986, marketing luxury and performance automobiles. It ...

Team Penske, with a lap time of 1:21.909.

Practice 2

The second and final practice session took place at 1:05 pm ET on Friday and ended with Hélio Castroneves topping the charts for

Team Penske, with a lap time of 1:22.363.

Qualifying

Qualifying results

Pole position In a motorsports race, the pole position is usually the best and "statistically the most advantageous" starting position on the track. The pole position is usually earned by the driver with the best qualifying times in the trials before the rac ...

s in each class are indicated in bold and by . * The No. 44 Magnus Racing entry was moved to the back of the GTD field for starting the race with a different driver than who qualified. * The No. 85 JDC-Miller MotorSports entry had its two fastest laps deleted as penalty for causing a red flag during its qualifying session.

Race

Post-race

The result kept Albuquerque and Barbosa atop the Prototype Drivers' Championship with 144 points while Nasr and Curran tied them on points. The result kept Sellers and Snow atop the GTD Drivers' Championship with 122 points. Aschenbach and Marks advanced from sixth to fourth. Cadillac and Lamborghini continued to top their respective Manufacturers' Championships while Mustang Sampling Racing, and Paul Miller Racing kept their respective advantages in the Teams' Championships with seven rounds remaining.

Results

Class winners are denoted in bold and .

Standings after the race

* Note: Only the top five positions are included for all sets of standings. * Note: Only the top five positions are included for all sets of standings. * Note: Only the top five positions are included for all sets of standings.

References

External links

{{Sportscar Race Report, Year_of_race=2018, Sportscar_Series=IMSA SportsCar Championship, Previous_race_in_season= Sports Car Challenge of Mid-Ohio, Next_race_in_season=

6 Hours of The Glen The Six Hours of Watkins Glen (currently sponsored as the Sahlen's Six Hours of The Glen) is a sports car endurance race held annually at Watkins Glen International in Watkins Glen, New York. The race dates from 1948, and has been a part of the ...

Chevrolet Sports Car Classic Detroit Sports Car Classic Detroit Sports Car Classic