Three leaders in last five laps in NASCAR nailbiter at Watkins Glen

Weekend Racing Wrap

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Three different drivers led during the final five laps as NASCAR’s annual visit to former F1 track Watkins Glen produced a nailbiting finish.

Also last weekend Cadillac’s domination of IMSA was finally broken.

NASCAR Cup

Race 22: Watkins Glen

Martin Truex Jnr took a calculated gamble to let Brad Keselowski and Ryan Blaney overtake him in the final laps at Watkins Glen as the Toyota driver tried to save fuel. It paid off: First Keselowski then Blaney dropped back as they started to run low, leaving Truex to claim his fourth win of the season, more than any other driver.

World Rallycross Championship

Race 8: Canada

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APE9eSJrTWA

Third in 2015, second in 2016, first in 2017? That’s how things are looking for Johan Kristoffersson following his third consecutive win of the season in World Rallycross. The Volkswagen driver took the chequered flag first ahead of two-times champion Petter Solberg and Sebastien Loeb. Kristoffersson now has a 35 point lead over Solberg at the top of the standings.

IMSA

Race 9: Road America

The IMSA series was won by the ESM Nissan team, the first time the headline DPi class was won by a car other than a Cadillac. It was the 22 car of Pipo Derani and Johannes van Overbeek ahead of the championship leading number 10 Cadillac of Wayne Taylor Racing, while the number 2 Nissan of Ryan Dalziel and Scott Sharp capped a fine day for the ESM team.

The JDC Miller ORECA of Stephen Simpson and Mikhail Goikhberg was leading before a flurry of yellow flag periods, but fell to the bottom of the prototype field after not pitting for fuel with only 45 minutes to go. The GTLM class was won by Joey Hand and Dirk Muller for Ford, PC honours were taken by Performance Tech, while GTD victory went the way of Turner Motorsports for BMW with Jens Klingmann and Jesse Krohn.

Video not available yet.

Over to you

What racing action did you watch last weekend? Let us know in the comments.

Next weekend’s racing

The following series are in action next weekend:

  • British Touring Car Championship races 19-21: Knockhill
  • NASCAR Cup race 23: Michigan

Thanks to Robert Mathershaw (@mathers) for contributing to this article.

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5 comments on “Three leaders in last five laps in NASCAR nailbiter at Watkins Glen”

  1. Profile Photo

    PorscheF1 (@xtwl)
    7th August 2017, 14:22

    Despite a not so fancy junior record Pipo Derani has set the IMSA on fire. His pace is often unmatched in that green machine. He deserves a second shot at a F1 career if you ask me.

    1. Don
      7th August 2017, 15:13

      He tested an IndyCar for SPM March 1st. That’s what he’s striving for.

  2. Mark in Florida
    7th August 2017, 20:44

    Yes Pipo did an awesome job, I’m really impressed by this young man. The last lap crash between the GTLM BMW and the Corvette was a little bit too much rough driving for me. A very good race though.

  3. Robert McKay
    7th August 2017, 21:27

    Considering how busy some weekends are for racing – there was one fairly recently that had F1 (with F2 & GP3), FE, WEC and WTCC all the same weekend (albeit different timezones so you could just about watch all of them) – then you look at weekends like the one just past and wonder just what’s the deal with the calendars.

    I mean, no offence to WRX (considering the format it contrives to not be very interesting, a bit like speedway somehow), but it was slim pickings with that, although I did watch some of the BSB too.

  4. FlyingLobster27
    7th August 2017, 22:07

    Like in IMSA, a long win streak came to an end in the Japanese Super GT Series. Lexus had won the first five rounds of 2017 with their new LC500, and a Honda took victory at round 6 at Fuji Speedway. This was no mean feat as Honda have been suffering similarly embarrassing issues in Super GT as they are in F1, but this time, the car entered by ARTA (basically Super Aguri) beat the full factory Nissan by a handful of seconds, with the first Lexus in third. ARTA scored a historic double victory, as their BMW GT3 won the small class ahead of the popular “Hatsune Miku” GSR Mercedes and a V8 Prius.
    Lexus may have won lots of rounds, but each time it’s been different crews, meaning that James Rossiter has a very slim lead in the championship, and the first non-Lexus crew, that of the full factory Nissan, is actually only a few points adrift. The next round is Super GT’s last Suzuka 1000 km (next year it becomes a 10-hour race for GT3 cars, part of the SRO galaxy) in three weeks’ time, and Jenson Button will be joining in for Honda.

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