Torrential rain prevents a victory at the Road America.

This weekend should have been completely different. Initially, Laurens Vanthoor and his team mate Earl Bamber wanted to clinch their first class victory at the Road America and take the lead in both the drivers' and the constructors' championship. Initially, the sister car of Frédéric Makowiecki and Nick Tandy wanted to do the same. And initially, everything looked like the plan would work out. Initially. But then, 50 minutes before the end of the race, torrential rain showers set in, ruining all the plans. In the end, Tandy and Makowiecki finished in fourth place and Bamber and Vanthoor in fifth. The Wright Motorsport customer team also finished the race in fifth place.

But let's start at the beginning. With the Porsche 911 RSR #912 driven by Laurens Vanthoor in pole position. With a time of 2:00.590 minutes, the Belgian set a new track record in the GTLM class and, of course, pole position for the 2:40 hour race at Road America. The second 911 RSR #911 driven by Frédéric Makowiecki started the fourth race of the season in sixth position.

Laurens Vanthoor started with his 911 RSR #912 ahead of all the other drivers in the GTLM class. After the start, he had to give up the lead to a Corvette for a short time, but reclaimed it after 15 laps. And pulled away. After the pit stop, his team mate Earl Bamber took over and escaped the competition by more than 20 seconds. It also looked like a successful afternoon for the #911 sister car at the Road America, the birthplace of American motorsport. Frédéric Makowiecki was able to take advantage of the more stable tyre performance of his 911 RSR from lap 10 and drove up to third place. And suddenly the rain started. This had been forecast on the radars. But nobody predicted how heavy it would be. There was real chaos on the track. The leader, Bamber in the #912, spun off the track and lost two laps trying to come back. The confusion flushed Nick Tandy in the #911 into first place, but behind the safety car he had to make another pit stop just before the end of the race and lost two places. With a spectacular race to catch up, the British Nick Tandy wanted to make the dream of class victory come true after all. However, it tore him off the track two laps before the end of the race. Fortunately, Nick Tandy was not hurt. In the end, the Porsche 911 RSR #911 finished in fourth. Bamber in the #912 was fifth.

Already at the beginning of his double stint, Porsche works driver Patrick Long worked his way up from 10th to seventh position. In the chaos of the rain, Long was able to advance to fourth place in the meantime. After a chaotic race, the customer team crossed the finish line in fifth place with its 911 GT3 R.

The Porsche works drivers always approach the next race hungry for victory. But for the race on 23 August at the Virginia International Raceway, the motivation of the drivers should be unstoppable. The works team enters the 5th race of the season nine points behind. The title defenders in the driver standings, Bamber and Vanthoor, are still in second place and their brand colleagues, Makowiecki and Tandy, in fifth place. Now it's time to shake off that dampened weekend and focus fully on Virginia on 23 August. #teamporsche