Wickens Wins Pole, but Lexus Wins GTD at Long Beach

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Wickens Wins Pole, but Lexus Wins GTD at Long BeachBrandon Badraoui

Thirty years after team co-owner Jimmy Vasser won the IndyCar race on the streets of Long Beach, the Vasser Sullivan team emerged victorious in the GTD class of the IMSA WeatherTech Championship race.

The victory by a five-second margin of the No. 12 Lexus RC F GT3 driven by Aaron Telitz and Benjamin Pedersen helped ease the pain of a technical infraction for ride height that had moved the team’s No. 89 entry from the class pole to a last place start in the 17-car field.



“It’s such a big win,” said Telitz, who ran away from the runner-up BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Robby Foley. “We’ve had a bit of a drought… It’s been a couple of years since the RC F went back in victory lane, but couldn’t be more proud to do it here at the Grand Prix of Long Beach.”

It was a weekend of what might have been for DXDT Racing, whose drivers Robert Wickens and Mason Filippi finished sixth after an auspicious start.

Using improved hand controls built by Bosch in the DXDT Corvette, former IndyCar driver Wickens won his first pole in the IMSA WeatherTech Championship after the disqualification of Vasser Sullivan’s Lexus. The paraplegic driver perhaps caught some by surprise given that he had not driven in a race since piloting the team’s Z06 GT3.R in August of last year.

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Driver change for DXDT Racing drivers Robert Wickens and Mason Filippi.Michael L. Levitt

“DXDT Racing and Corvette Racing are doing an amazing job,” said Wickens of his qualifying stint that initially put him on the outside of the front row. “The car is so nice to drive. Hopefully, with a little more experience, I can get a little more from the car and from the hand control system from Bosch. Going into this weekend, if you told me I’d be on the front row, I would have taken it.”

Starting from the pole, Wickens led for his entire stint before pitting at the 36-minute mark of the 100-minute race for GTP and GTD teams. After DXDT’s 17-second pit stop, co-driver Mason Filippi retained first place among those on a traditional one-stop strategy thanks to the fact Wickens had built a six-second lead in class. But then things went awry for Filippi, a rookie racing at Long Beach for the first time in GTD.

Swarmed by a GTP car and a gaggle of class competitors, Filippi was jostled down several positions as Telitz, Foley in the Turner Motorsports entry and Albert Costa in the Conquest Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 EVO swept past shortly after a restart. Filippi and DXDT ended up sixth at the finish.

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