2022 IMSA SportsCar Weekend

The 2022 IMSA SportsCar Weekend was a sports car race sanctioned by the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA). The Race was held at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin on August 7, 2022. The race was the tenth round of the 2022 IMSA SportsCar Championship, and the seventh round of the WeatherTech Sprint Cup.

Background

International Motor Sports Association's (IMSA) president John Doonan confirmed the race was part of the schedule for the 2022 IMSA SportsCar Championship (IMSA SCC) in August 2021. It was the ninth consecutive year the event was held as part of the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. The 2022 IMSA SportsCar Weekend was the tenth of twelve scheduled sports car races of 2022 by IMSA , and it was the seventh of eight rounds held as part of the WeatherTech Sprint Cup. The race was held at the ten-turn Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin on August 7, 2022.

During this race weekend, IMSA holds their "State of the Series" annual press conference, in which they confirm and announce their future plans for the series they sanction. After only one entry committed to the WeatherTech Sprint Cup, IMSA announced that the WeatherTech Sprint Cup would be discontinued after the 2022 season ended. However, plans were reversed and the WeatherTech Sprint Cup would be reinstated for 2023. The LMP3 class was given a one-year extension to remain in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

The events start time was moved from 1:40 pm CT to 10:40 am CT after an opportunity to have USA Network broadcast the event live became available.

On August 3, 2022, IMSA released the latest technical bulletin outlining Balance of Performance for the event. In DPi, the Acura ARX-05 received a 10 kilogram weight increase. In GTD Pro and GTD, the Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo and Porsche 911 GT3 R were given weight increases of 20 and 10 kilograms, respectively.

Before the race, Tom Blomqvist and Oliver Jarvis led the DPi Drivers' Championship with 2737 points, 56 points ahead of Filipe Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor in second position. The LMP2 Drivers' Championship was led by John Farano with 1294 points; 37 points clear of Juan Pablo Montoya and Henrik Hedman in second followed by Steven Thomas and Jonathan Bomarito with 1232 points in third position. In LMP3, Jon Bennett and Colin Braun led Drivers' Championship; the duo held a 98 point advantage over Garett Grist and Ari Balogh. With 2441 points, Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet led the GTD Pro Drivers' Championship by 226 points over Antonio García and Jordan Taylor in second followed by Ben Barnicoat in third with 2181 points. Stevan McAleer led the GTD Drivers' Championship with 2071 points; 40 points ahead of Ryan Hardwick and Jan Heylen while Roman De Angelis was third with 2010 points. Acura, Porsche, and BMW were leading their respective Manufactures' Championships while Meyer Shank Racing, PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports, CORE Autosport, Pfaff Motorsports, and Gilbert Korthoff Motorsports each led their own Teams' Championships.

Entries

37 cars took part in the event split across 5 classes. 6 were entered in DPi, 6 in LMP2, 9 in LMP3, 5 in GTD Pro, and 11 in GTD. In LMP2, Tristan Nunez replaced Jonathan Bomarito in the #11 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports entry. Patrick Kelly and Josh Pierson returned to the #52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports entry. Fabio Scherer joined Dennis Andersen in the High Class Racing entry. In LMP3, Malthe Jakobsen replaced Lance Willsey in the Sean Creech Motorsports #33. James French joined Cameron Shields in the Performance Tech Motorsports entry. JDC-Miller MotorSports added a one-off entry featuring Gerry Kraut and Scott Andrews. In GTD, NTE Sport returned after skipping the previous round at Lime Rock. Daniel Juncadella joined Cooper MacNeil in the WeatherTech Racing entry.

Practice

There were two practice sessions preceding the start of the race on Sunday, both on Friday. The first session on Friday morning lasted one hour while the second session on Friday afternoon lasted 75 minutes.

Practice 1

The first practice session took place at 11:05 am CT on Friday and ended with Ricky Taylor topping the charts for WTR - Konica Minolta Acura, with a lap time of 1:09.583.

Practice 2

The second and final practice session took place at 3:15 pm CT on Friday and ended with Alex Lynn topping the charts for Cadillac Racing, with a lap time of 1:49.321.

Qualifying

Saturday's morning qualifying was broken into three sessions, with one session for the DPi and LMP2, LMP3, GTD Pro and GTD classes, which lasted for 15 minutes each, and a ten minute interval between the sessions. The rules dictated that all teams nominated a driver to qualify their cars, with the Pro-Am (LMP2/LMP3/GTD) classes requiring a Bronze/Silver Rated Driver to qualify the car. The competitors' fastest lap times determined the starting order. IMSA then arranged the grid to put DPis ahead of the LMP2, LMP3, GTD Pro, and GTD cars.

Filipe Albuquerque claimed overall pole for the event for WTR - Konica Minolta Acura.

Qualifying results

Pole positions in each class are indicated in bold and by .

* The No. 01 Cadillac Racing entry had its two fastest laps deleted as penalty for causing a red flag during its qualifying session.
* The No. 42 NTE Sport/SSR car had all its qualifying times disallowed as per Article 40.2.9 of the Sporting regulations (driver exiting the car during qualifying without permission by the officials).
* The No. 51 Rick Ware Racing car had all its qualifying times disallowed as per Article 40.2.9 of the Sporting regulations (driver exiting the car during qualifying without permission by the officials).

Race

Post-Race

Filipe Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor's victory allowed them to retake the lead of the DPi Drivers' Championship while Blomqvist and Jarvis dropped to second. The final results of LMP2 meant Farano was still in the lead of the Drivers' Championship, but his advantage was reduced to 33 points as Dalziel and Merriman took over second position. Hedman and Montoya dropped from second to fourth. The final results of LMP3 kept Bennett and Braun atop the Drivers' Championship while Robinson advanced from third to second. Fidani jumped to fifth after being sixth coming into Road America. The final results of GTD Pro kept Campbell and Jaminet atop the Drivers' Championship as Barnicoat took over second position. The final results of GTD meant McAleer atop the Drivers' Championship, but his advantage was reduced by 4 points by seventh-place finishers Hardwick and Heylen. Acura, Porsche, and BMW continued to top their respective Manufacturers' Championships, while PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports, CORE Autosport, Pfaff Motorsports, and Gilbert Korthoff Motorsports kept their respective advantages in their Teams' Championships. Wayne Taylor Racing took the lead of the DPi Teams' Championship with two rounds remaining.

Race 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

{{Road Race Showcase at Road America
2022 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season
August 2022 sports events in the United States
2022 in sports in Wisconsin
Road America 500