Photo: Mike Levitt/IMSA
Nick Tandy hailed Team Penske’s 100th sports car victory as an “incredible achievement” after an unforgettable weekend for Roger Penske and Porsche.
Tandy’s late pass over Jack Aitken provided the historic victory on Sunday’s Monterey Course Presented by Hyundai N at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, which also marked Porsche’s record 600th and 601st in IMSA competition.
It came on a weekend that also saw Penske take its 100th sports car pole, for Saturday’s FIA World Endurance Championship race, as well as finishing on the podium at the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps as part of a result of 1-2 for the Porsche 963.
“It’s an incredible achievement,” Tandy said. “This goes with everything that the Penske and Roger team and everyone who works there has achieved. It’s simply an incredible achievement.
“The fact that we achieved the 100th pole at Spa in [WEC] weekend and again the 100th win here in IMSA, in both programs, to reach those milestones is just a huge accomplishment in one weekend, let alone doing 100 of each for one organization.”
Jaminet added: “It’s incredible to bring Team Penske’s 100th sports car victory with Roger here. I think he had a 14-hour struggle to get here because yesterday he was in Spa watching the [WEC] race and the race ended late.
“It shows Roger’s commitment to this program and to this team and to all of us, the drivers, and the trust he has in this. It’s definitely a little emotional for us and I think we can be proud of what we did today and just thank the team.”
Tandy credited the initial race strategy that put the No. 6 Porsche in contention for the win, followed by the team’s final fuel-only stop, while Jack Aitken’s No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac V-Series.R took right-side tires. .
“I learned very quickly that our car was probably better in the long term than in the short term on restarts,” he said.
“I struggled a lot when the tire was cold and the Cadillac was very good at the restart.
“On the other hand, it showed in the long term that we were very good with the tires in the long term, better than the Cadillacs.
“We opted to go long before the last stop to see what we had again in clean air and the pace was decent, so we thought we would keep the tire and see what we could do.
“In the end we had a better pace than 31 and I think they used two tires and we were still faster than him.”
Despite being the fastest car in long races, Tandy admitted he probably wouldn’t have been able to get around Aitken without the help of traffic.
“In clean air, we had nothing for him because you need to be significantly faster in a direct fight with these cars to be able to overtake a circuit like Laguna, which is so dependent on aerodynamics,” he explained.
“I was able to get close in about a second, but as soon as I got close to that I started to lose tire temperature and pace.
“We were faster, so whenever we managed to hit traffic, I knew I needed to put pressure on him. If you have a ten second gap, it will be easy to get through traffic.
“You can choose and you don’t need to move and you can wait and pass at the exit. But when someone is pushing you and has been pushing you for 20-30 laps, decisions have to be quicker and more improvised.
“Nine times out of ten it’s pretty obvious.
“I feel for Jack. It wasn’t obvious what would happen when two cars fought. He picked a side as soon as they started going that way and I sat in the stands to see where they were going and managed to go the other way and take the lead.
“Without this pressure, it is very easy to maintain the lead. That’s part of racing.”
