DETROIT — A 100-minute Chevrolet Detroit Sports Car Classic went through a litany of late-race twists and turns where any of three different manufacturers could have won the fifth race of the 2025 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season.
First Porsche appeared in control, then Cadillac charged to the front. But at the finish, the pendulum swung back to the Motul Pole Award-winning No. 93 Acura Meyer Shank Racing w/Curb-Agajanian Acura ARX-06 for the Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) and overall victory.
With just over three minutes remaining, Renger van der Zande made a bold move to the inside of Ricky Taylor’s No. 10 Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Series.R at the left-hand Turn 1, one of the narrowest corners on the 1.645-mile, nine-turn street circuit encircling the Renaissance Center.
It was the second bold pass for the lead in under 15 minutes, with Taylor having moved to the inside of previous leader Felipe Nasr, in the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963, at another tight corner, the right-handed Turn 4.
Nasr lost momentum through losing the position on that move, which allowed a decisive van der Zande and the other Porsche of Mathieu Jaminet through for position.
Taylor had the lead ahead of van der Zande, Jaminet and Nasr. But as the GTP leaders cycled through Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) class traffic, van der Zande appeared to carve through slightly better. Once he made the move, he extended the lead to 0.947 of a second by the end of the 84-lap race ahead of Taylor, with Jaminet third.
Van der Zande shared the winning car with Nick Yelloly, and in the process became the first GTP polesitters to win from pole since Meyer Shank Racing did so at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in 2023.
GTD PRO was only slightly less eventful for the class win, with the second Motul Pole Award-winning entry of the day also following through to win the race. Seb Priaulx and Mike Rockenfeller shared the No. 64 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Ford Mustang GT3 en route to the win by 1.623 seconds over the No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Corvette Z06 GT3.R of Antonio Garcia and Alexander Sims.
There was quite a bit of action behind them as the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 finished third. Late-race contact between the No. 77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R and No. 4 Corvette Z06 GT3.R put them back behind the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F GT3, which started last, incurred two in-race penalties and still finished fourth.
