Penske Porsche of Matt Campbell, Felipe Nasr wins at Road America

ELKHART LAKE – The biggest crowd for an IMSA weekend at Road America in more than 40 years was treated to a glorious day Sunday, with blue skies, bright sun, temperatures in the low 70s and a moderate breeze.

Spectators got their first look at the most advanced cars many of them will see this season being raced by drivers challenged even more than usual by a demanding track.

They saw the sixth different winning car in seven WeatherTech Championship races this season, the No. 7 Penske Porsche of Matt Campbell and Felipe Nasr.

Results:IMSA SportsCar Weekend WeatherTech Championship race

What the fans didn’t see for most of 2 hours and 40 minutes, unfortunately, was much head-to-head competition in the premier GTP class.

Some days are just like that.

“I was just happy that everything finally came together this weekend,” Nasr said.

“The whole weekend I felt we’ve done a great job all around to set for the race. Matt did a great qualifying, maximizing the package and getting up front in the race and looking after his tires, looking after his pace.”

Campbell and Nasr finished 4.636 seconds ahead of the No. 60 Meyer Shank Acura of Colin Braun and Tom Blomqvist in a timed race that went 80 laps, the last 71 of them caution-free.

Both teams – the top five, in fact – caught a break in the morning warmup when Pipo Derani slipped the championship-leading No. 31 Cadillac off track and into a wall, costing Derani and Alexander Sims their pole position. They ended up sixth.

“This track, with the surface now, it’s incredibly hard to pass, and also once you get close the aero is quite extreme,” said Campbell, who had qualified second. “Just having that track position out front … and I had such incredible luck with traffic at the beginning.

“I feel like our pace was really, really good, I was looking after the tires well, and I was just quite comfortable out front, slowly chipping away.

“I think we got lucky in traffic. That’s why the gap looked so big at times. Even I was surprised just how easy it was to get through.”

The victory was Campbell’s 11th and Nasr’s ninth in IMSA WeatherTech competition.

Blomqvist narrowed the gap from about seven seconds to 1 ½ seconds, seemingly setting up the possibility of a third victory for himself and Braun, but the challenge was short lived.

“I got lucky with some of the traffic in that last stint,”Blomqvist said. “At one point Felipe got held up … well … basically all the way to the start/finish straight, and I got this train of seven cars on the straight. That put me into that closer range, and, yeah, traffic always ebbs and flows. He got more fortunate than I did those last five laps or so of the race.

“Obviously it’s one thing getting close, but passing is a completely different matter.”

Navigating traffic is always an issue in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, with five classes of cars on track together with their lap times spanning more than 20 seconds. This year the puzzle gained two pieces.

The first is the new GTP cars. Built around a universal hybrid powertrain system by the four involved manufacturers and their teams, the cars come with an extra layer of complexity, and they’re still relatively new.

“Those cars, there is a combination of factors to put everything together,” Nasr said, “especially on the software side with all the hybrid components.

“You just can’t say how many details there are all around to put it together.”

Then specific to Road America in 2023, teams were searching for grip on a new surface. Even after six large-scale events and numerous track days, the 4.048-mile ribbon of asphalt is slick, particularly outside of the preferred line.

“It’s making it quite challenging, especially in a place like the Carousel,” Campbell said. “Unless you get past a GT car in the first part of it, you’re stuck behind him. You’ve just got to be patient, take the loss and wait for the exit. Otherwise it’s way too risk going around the outside.”

Paul-Loup Chatin and Ben Keating won in LMP2 with Keating scoring his third victory at Road America and the 21st of his career, Chatin his second in seven IMSA starts and PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports its 29th in the series

Josh Bourdon and Gar Robinson won in LMP3 for Riley Motorsports, the team’s fourth at the track, Robinson’s fourth of the season and Bourdon’s third.

In the GT classes, Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas won in GTD Pro in the Heart of Racing Aston Martin and Bryan Sellers and Madison teamed in a Paul Miller Racing BMW to win in GTD.

IMSA officials called the crowd the largest for one of its races at Road America since 1979, although the track doesn’t divulge attendance figures.

That 1979 race predated the original GTP era and was won by David Hobbs and Derek Bell in a BMW 320i at a distance of 500 miles.

Is it time for a return of the Road America 500, drivers were asked? Would the extra distance have affected how Sunday played out?

“How many miles did we do?” Braun asked. About 320, he was told.

“Why not? More racing. Who knows?”