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The 2019 Chevrolet Sports Car Classic was a sports car race sanctioned by the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA). The race was held at The Raceway on Belle Isle in Detroit, Michigan, on June 1, 2019. This race was the fifth round of the 2019 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, and the second round of the 2019 WeatherTech Sprint Cup.

Background

International Motor Sports Association's (IMSA) president Scott Atherton confirmed the race was part of the schedule for the 2019 IMSA SportsCar Championship (IMSA SCC) in August 2018. It was the sixth consecutive year the event was held as part of the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, and the tenth annual running of the race, counting the period between 2007 and 2013 when it was a round of the Rolex Sports Car Series and the American Le Mans Series respectively. The 2019 Chevrolet Sports Car Classic was the fifth of twelve sports car races of 2019 by IMSA, the shortest in terms of time, and it was the second of seven rounds held as part of the WeatherTech Sprint Cup. The race was held at the fourteen-turn 2.350 mi (3.782 km) Belle Isle Park in Detroit, Michigan on June 1, 2019.

Similar to the Grand Prix of Long Beach, this event ran in conjunction with the Detroit Grand Prix in the IndyCar Series, with one event held on the same day as the IMSA event, and another held a day after as a double-header.

Before the race, Pipo Derani and Felipe Nasr led the DPi Drivers' Championship with 120 points, ahead of Hélio Castroneves and Ricky Taylor in second followed by Jordan Taylor and Renger van der Zande with 113 points in third. In GTD, Mario Farnbacher and Trent Hindman led the Drivers' Championship with 84 points, 4 points ahead of Frankie Montecalvo and Townsend Bell. Cadillac and Lamborghini were leading their respective Manufacturers' Championships, while Whelen Engineering Racing and Meyer Shank Racing each led their own Teams' Championships. The event did not count towards the overall in GTD as it only contented towards the WeatherTech Sprint Cup, in an attempt to cut costs for the class.

Entries

On May 22, 2019, the entry list for the event was released, featuring 23 cars in total. There were 11 cars in the Daytona Prototype International class and 12 entries in the GTD class. The Le Mans Prototype (LMP2) and GT Le Mans (GTLM) classes would not be participating in the event. Due to only counting towards the WeatherTech Sprint Cup, full-season GTD entries Riley Motorsports, Pfaff Motorsports, and Moorespeed decided to forego the Detroit event in favor of pursuing the full-season championship. Meyer-Shank Racing were initially among the teams that decided to miss the Detroit event, until confirming at the eleventh hour a full-time program in both the full-time and sprint championships with both of their cars.

Pfaff Motorsports driver Zach Robichon, who was initially due to miss the event, filled a vacant spot at Park Place Motorsports, replacing Patrick Lindsey, who was preparing for the official test sessions for the 2019 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Practice

There were two practice sessions preceding the start of the race on Sunday, one on Friday morning and one on Friday afternoon. The session on Friday morning lasted 90 minutes while the second session on Friday afternoon lasted 110 minutes.

Practice 1

The first practice session took place at 8:30 am ET on Friday and ended with Pipo Derani topping the charts for Whelen Engineering Racing, with a lap time of 1:20.583. Hélio Castroneves was second fastest in the No. 7 Acura followed by Filipe Albuquerque in the No. 5 Mustang Sampling Racing Cadillac. The GTD class was topped by the No. 57 Heinricher Racing w/Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3 Evo of Katherine Legge with a time of 1:30.304, ahead of Bryan Sellers in the No. 48 Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini. Zacharie Robichon was third fastest in the No. 73 Porsche followed by Richard Heistand in the No. 14 Lexus in fourth position. The Mazda Team Joest entries did not set a time due to mechanical issues. The session was red flagged two times. Simon Trummer crashed the No. 84 JDC-Miller Motorsports Cadillac and brought out the first red flag. The final stoppage came when Misha Goikhberg crashed the No. 85 JDC-Miller Motorsports Cadillac at turn 2 and collided with Matt Plumb's McLaren. The No. 85 Cadillac suffered extensive damage while the No. 76 McLaren lost a door.

Practice 2

The second and final practice session took place at 12:50 PM ET on Friday and ended with Pipo Derani topping the charts for Whelen Engineering Racing, with a lap time of 1:20.387. Jordan Taylor was second fastest in the No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac entry followed by Hélio Castroneves in the No. 7 Acura. The GTD class was topped by the No. 73 Park Place Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R of Zacharie Robichon with a time of 1:30.011, ahead of Christina Nielsen in the No. 57 Acura. Bill Auberlen was third fastest in the No. 96 BMW followed by Mario Farnbacher in the No. 86 Acura in fourth and Jack Hawksworth's No. 14 Lexus rounded out the top five. The Compass Racing did not set a time.

Qualifying

Friday's late afternoon qualification session was broken into two sessions that lasted 15 minutes each. Cars in GTD were sent out first and, after a ten-minute interval, DPi vehicles drove onto the track. All cars were required to be driven by one participant and the starting order was determined by the competitor's fastest lap. IMSA then arranged the grid so that the DPi field started in front of all GTD cars.

The first was for cars in the GTD class. Robby Foley set the fastest time driving the No. 96 car for Turner Motorsport. However, the team were sent to the back of the GTD grid after the car failed post-qualifying technical inspection where it was discovered that the BMW was found to not have complied with mandated camber range settings. As a result, Zacharie Robichon's No. 73 Park Place Motorsports Porsche was promoted to pole position. Christina Nielsen in the No. 57 Acura started in second position followed by Trent Hindman's No. 86 Acura. The No. 8 Starworks Motorsport Audi of Parker Chase did not set a time due to suspension problems.

The final session of qualifying was for cars in the DPi class. Juan Pablo Montoya qualified on pole driving the No. 6 car for Acura Team Penske, beating teammate Hélio Castroneves in the No. 7 Acura by 0.207 seconds. Jonathan Bomarito qualified the No. 55 Mazda Team Joest entry in third position followed by Pipo Derani's No. 31 Whelen Engineering Racing Cadillac. João Barbosa in the No. 5 Mustang Sampling Racing Cadillac started from fifth place. Following in sixth was the No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac Cadillac DPi-V.R of Renger van der Zande followed by Tristan Nunez's No. 77 Mazda in seventh place. The duo of JDC-Miller Motorsports Cadillacs were eighth and tenth: Simon Trummer in the No. 84 car was faster than the sister No. 85 entry of Misha Goikhberg. They were separated by the ninth-placed Victor Franzoni in the No. 50 Juncos Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R.

Qualifying Results

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

Pos.	Class	No.	Team	Driver	Time	Gap	Grid
1	DPi	6	Acura Team Penske	Juan Pablo Montoya	1:19.373	_	1‡
2	DPi	7	Acura Team Penske	Hélio Castroneves	1:19.580	+0.207	2
3	DPi	55	Mazda Team Joest	Jonathan Bomarito	1:19.960	+0.587	3
4	DPi	31	Whelen Engineering Racing	Pipo Derani	1:19.991	+0.618	4
5	DPi	5	Mustang Sampling Racing	João Barbosa	1:20.239	+0.866	5
6	DPi	10	Konica Minolta Cadillac	Renger van der Zande	1:20.448	+1.075	6
7	DPi	77	Mazda Team Joest	Tristan Nunez	1:20.508	+1.135	7
8	DPi	84	JDC-Miller Motorsports	Simon Trummer	1:20.663	+1.290	8
9	DPi	50	Juncos Racing	Victor Franzoni	1:21.075	+1.702	9
10	DPi	85	JDC-Miller Motorsports	Misha Goikhberg	1:23.313	+3.940	10
11	DPi	54	CORE Autosport	Jon Bennett	1:24.631	+5.258	11
12	GTD	96	Turner Motorsport	Robby Foley	1:29.704	+10.331	23
13	GTD	73	Park Place Motorsports	Zacharie Robichon	1:29.735	+10.362	12‡
14	GTD	57	Heinricher Racing w/Meyer Shank Racing	Christina Nielsen	1:30.126	+10.753	13
15	GTD	86	Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian	Trent Hindman	1:30.242	+10.869	14
16	GTD	14	AIM Vasser Sullivan	Richard Heistand	1:30.453	+11.080	15
17	GTD	12	AIM Vasser Sullivan	Frankie Montecalvo	1:30.505	+11.132	16
18	GTD	48	Paul Miller Racing	Ryan Hardwick	1:30.763	+11.390	17
19	GTD	76	Compass Racing	Matt Plumb	1:30.814	+11.441	18
20	GTD	44	Magnus Racing	John Potter	1:30.926	+11.553	19
21	GTD	63	Scuderia Corsa	Cooper MacNeil	1:31.953	+12.580	20
21	GTD	74	Lone Star Racing	Gar Robinson	1:31.970	+12.597	21
22	GTD	8	Starworks Motorsport	None	None	N/A	22
Sources:

• The No. 96 Turner Motorsport entry initially qualified on pole position for the GTD class. However, the car was found to not have complied with mandated camber range settings. By IMSA rules, the entry was moved to the rear of the GTD field on the starting grid.

Race

Post-race

With a total of 152 points, Derani and Nasr's second place finish kept them atop DPi Drivers' Championship while Cameron and Montoya's victory allowed them to advance from fourth to second. Jordan Taylor and Renger van der Zande dropped from third to fifth. GTD drivers, teams, and manufactures did not score full season points due to the event only counting towards the WeatherTech Sprint Cup. Cadillac continued to top the DPi Manufactures' Championship while Whelen Engineering Racing continued to top the DPi Teams' Championship with seven rounds left in the season.

Race Results

Class winners are denoted in bold and ‡.

Pos	Class	No.	Team	Drivers	Chassis	Laps	Time/Retired
					Engine
1	DPi	6	Acura Team Penske	Dane Cameron Juan Pablo Montoya	Acura ARX-05	58	1:40:15.563‡
					Acura AR35TT 3.5 L Turbo V6
2	DPi	31	Whelen Engineering Racing	Pipo Derani Felipe Nasr	Cadillac DPi-V.R	58	+0.820s
					Cadillac 5.5 L V8
3	DPi	7	Acura Team Penske	Hélio Castroneves Ricky Taylor	Acura ARX-05	58	+14.887s
					Acura AR35TT 3.5 L Turbo V6
4	DPi	84	JDC-Miller Motorsports	Stephen Simpson Simon Trummer	Cadillac DPi-V.R	58	+15.050s
					Cadillac 5.5 L V8
5	DPi	85	JDC-Miller Motorsports	Misha Goikhberg Tristan Vautier	Cadillac DPi-V.R	58	+16.205s
					Cadillac 5.5 L V8
6	DPi	5	Mustang Sampling Racing	Filipe Albuquerque João Barbosa	Cadillac DPi-V.R	58	+22.583s
					Cadillac 5.5 L V8
7	DPi	54	CORE Autosport	Jon Bennett Colin Braun	Nissan DPi	58	+26.978s
					Nissan VR38DETT 3.8 L Turbo V6
8	DPi	50	Juncos Racing	Victor Franzoni Will Owen	Cadillac DPi-V.R	58	+27.390s
					Cadillac 5.5 L V8
9	DPi	10	Konica Minolta Cadillac	Jordan Taylor Renger van der Zande	Cadillac DPi-V.R	57	+1 lap
					Cadillac 5.5 L V8
10	DPi	77	Mazda Team Joest	Oliver Jarvis Tristan Nunez	Mazda RT24-P	57	+1 lap
					Mazda MZ-2.0T 2.0 L Turbo I4
11	GTD	14	AIM Vasser Sullivan	Jack Hawksworth Richard Heistand	Lexus RC F GT3	56	+2 laps‡
					Lexus 5.0 L V8
12	GTD	73	Park Place Motorsports	Patrick Long Zacharie Robichon	Porsche 911 GT3 R	56	+2 laps
					Porsche 4.0 L Flat-6
13	GTD	12	AIM Vasser Sullivan	Townsend Bell Frankie Montecalvo	Lexus RC F GT3	56	+2 laps
					Lexus 5.0 L V8
14	GTD	44	Magnus Racing	Andy Lally John Potter	Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo	56	+2 laps
					Lamborghini 5.2 L V10
15	GTD	48	Paul Miller Racing	Ryan Hardwick Bryan Sellers	Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo	56	+2 laps
					Lamborghini 5.2 L V10
16	GTD	8	Starworks Motorsport	Parker Chase Ryan Dalziel	Audi R8 LMS Evo	56	+2 laps
					Audi 5.2 L V10
17	GTD	74	Lone Star Racing	Lawson Aschenbach Gar Robinson	Mercedes-AMG GT3	56	+2 laps
					Mercedes-AMG M159 6.2 L V8
18	GTD	76	Compass Racing	Paul Holton Matt Plumb	McLaren 720S GT3	56	+2 laps
					McLaren M480T 4.0 L Twin-turbo V8
19	GTD	57	Heinricher Racing w/Meyer Shank Racing	Katherine Legge Christina Nielsen	Acura NSX GT3 Evo	56	+2 laps
					Acura 3.5 L Turbo V6
20 DNF	GTD	96	Turner Motorsport	Bill Auberlen Robby Foley	BMW M6 GT3	53	Transmission
					BMW 4.4 L Turbo V8
21 DNF	DPi	55	Mazda Team Joest	Jonathan Bomarito Ryan Hunter-Reay	Mazda RT24-P	39	Crash
					Mazda MZ-2.0T 2.0 L Turbo I4
22 DNF	GTD	86	Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian	Mario Farnbacher Trent Hindman	Acura NSX GT3 Evo	20	Crash
					Acura 3.5 L Turbo V6
23 DNF	GTD	63	Scuderia Corsa	Cooper MacNeil Toni Vilander	Ferrari 488 GT3	0	Crash
					Ferrari F154 3.9 L Turbo V8
Sources:

Standings after the race

DPi Drivers' Championship standings Pos. +/– Driver Points 1 Pipo Derani Felipe Nasr 152 2 2 Dane Cameron Juan Pablo Montoya 147 3 1 Hélio Castroneves Ricky Taylor 146 4 1 Filipe Albuquerque João Barbosa 137 5 2 Jordan Taylor Renger van der Zande 135 Source:

LMP2 Drivers' Championship standings Pos. +/– Driver Points 1 Cameron Cassels Kyle Masson 99 2 Matt McMurry 95 3 Gabriel Aubry 60 4 Sebastián Saavedra Pastor Maldonado Ryan Cullen Roberto González 35 5 Andrew Evans 35 Source:

GTLM Drivers' Championship standings Pos. +/– Driver Points 1 Earl Bamber Laurens Vanthoor 126 2 Antonio García Jan Magnussen 119 3 Patrick Pilet Nick Tandy 117 4 Connor De Phillippi 111 5 Dirk Müller Sebastien Bourdais 108 Source:

GTD Drivers' Championship standings Pos. +/– Driver Points 1 Mario Farnbacher Trent Hindman 84‡ 2 Frankie Montecalvo Townsend Bell 80‡ 3 Richard Heistand Jack Hawksworth 77‡ 4 Patrick Long 77‡ 5 Andy Lally John Potter 76‡ Source:

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for all sets of standings.
• ‡: Points count towards WeatherTech Sprint Cup championship only.

DPi Teams' Championship standings Pos. +/– Team Points 1 #31 Whelen Engineering Racing 152 2 2 #6 Acura Team Penske 147 3 1 #7 Acura Team Penske 146 4 1 #5 Mustang Sampling Racing 137 5 2 #10 Konica Minolta Cadillac 135 Source:

LMP2 Teams' Championship standings Pos. +/– Team Points 1 #38 Performance Tech Motorsports 99 2 #52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports 95 3 #18 DragonSpeed 35 4 #81 DragonSpeed 30 Source:

GTLM Teams' Championship standings Pos. +/– Team Points 1 #912 Porsche GT Team 126 2 #3 Corvette Racing 119 3 #911 Porsche GT Team 117 4 #25 BMW Team RLL 111 5 #66 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing 108 Source:

GTD Teams' Championship standings Pos. +/– Team Points 1 #86 Meyer-Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian 84‡ 2 #12 AIM Vasser Sullivan 80‡ 3 #14 AIM Vasser Sullivan 77‡ 4 #73 Park Place Motorsports 77‡ 5 #44 Magnus Racing 76‡ Source:

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for all sets of standings.
• ‡: Points count towards WeatherTech Sprint Cup championship only.

DPi Manufacturers' Championship standings Pos. +/– Manufacturer Points 1 Cadillac 167 2 Acura 166 3 Mazda 146 4 Nissan 146 Source:

GTLM Manufacturers' Championship standings Pos. +/– Manufacturer Points 1 Porsche 135 2 BMW 121 3 Chevrolet 120 4 Ford 118 5 Ferrari 32 Source:

GTD Manufacturers' Championship standings Pos. +/– Manufacturer Points 1 Lamborghini 100‡ 2 Lexus 91‡ 3 Audi 86‡ 4 Acura 85‡ 5 Ferrari 81‡ Source:

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for all sets of standings.
• ‡: Points count towards WeatherTech Sprint Cup championship only.

References

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8. Dagys, John (22 May 2019). "Robichon Joins Park Place for Detroit in Sprint Cup Bid". sportscar365.com. John Dagys Media. Retrieved 28 May 2019.
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22. O'Malley, J.J. (May 31, 2019). "Robichon awarded Detroit IMSA GTD pole". racer.com. Retrieved November 16, 2023.
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25. ^ Dagys, John (May 31, 2019). "Montoya Leads Acura Penske Front Row Sweep in Detroit". sportscar365.com. Retrieved November 16, 2023.
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30. "2019 Chevrolet Sports Car Classic". racing-reference.info. Retrieved November 7, 2023.

External links

• 2019 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season
• 2019 in sports in Michigan
• June 2019 sports events in the United States
• Detroit Sports Car Classic