2016 BUBBA Burger Sports Car Grand Prix

International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) president Scott Atherton confirmed the race was part of the schedule for the 2016 IMSA SportsCar Championship (IMSA SCC) in August 2015.^[1] It was the third consecutive year the event was held as part of the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, and the ninth annual running of the race, counting the period between 2006 and 2013 when it was a round of the Rolex Sports Car Series and the American Le Mans Series respectively.^[1] The 2016 Tequila Patrón Sports Car Showcase was the third of twelve scheduled sports car races of 2016 by IMSA, the shortest of the season in terms of distance, and it was the first round not held as part of the North American Endurance Cup.^[1] The race was held at the eleven-turn 1.968 mi (3.167 km) Long Beach street circuit in Long Beach, California on April 16, 2016.^[2] The PC category would participate in the event for the first time since the 2013 running.^[3]

 

Before the race, Ed Brown, Pipo Derani, Johannes van Overbeek, and Scott Sharp led the Prototype Drivers' Championship with 72 points, ahead of Scott Pruett with 62 points, and Filipe Albuquerque, João Barbosa, and Christian Fittipaldi in third with 60 points.^[4] With 66 points, PC was led by Robert Alon, Jose Gutiérrez, and Tom Kimber-Smith with a one-point advantage over Misha Goikhberg, Kenton Koch, Chris Miller, and Stephen Simpson.^[4] In GTLM, the Drivers' Championship was led by Marcel Fässler, Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner with 72 points; the trio held a ten-point gap over Earl Bamber, Michael Christensen and Frédéric Makowiecki.^[4] Honda and Chevrolet were leading their respective Manufacturers' Championships, while Tequila Patrón ESM, PR1/ Mathiasen Motorsports and Corvette Racing each led their own Teams' Championships.^[4]

IMSA altered the balance of performance to try to create parity within the Prototype and GTLM categories. The Ligier JS P2 received a reduction in turbo boost pressure while the Lola B12/80 received an increase in turbo boost pressure. The DeltaWing had its weight decreased by 10 kg (22 lb). The BMW M6 GTLM received a reduction in turbo boost pressure and a change in its refuelling hose restrictor. The Chevrolet Corvette C7.R and Ferrari 488 GTE also received a change in their refuelling hose restrictor.^[5]

Twenty-five cars were officially entered for the Tequila Patrón Sports Car Showcase, with most of the entries in the Prototype and Grand Touring Le Mans (GTLM) categories. Since the majority of the remaining rounds of the 2016 IMSA SportsCar Championship were sprint races, teams entered their regular driver pairings for the first time this season.^[6] The 2015 race winners, Wayne Taylor Racing (WTR), returned to defend their title.^[7] Action Express Racing (AER) fielded two Chevrolet Corvette DP cars while VisitFlorida Racing (VFR) and WTR fielded one.^[8] Mazda Motorsports had two Lola B12/80 cars and Michael Shank Racing (MSR) entered one Ligier JS P2. Panoz brought the DeltaWing car to Long Beach for the second successive year.^[9] Tequila Patrón ESM did not participate as the team solely focused on the 2016 North American Endurance Cup. Alegra Motorsports, DragonSpeed, and Highway to Help skipped the event. The Prototype Challenge (PC) class was composed of seven Oreca FLM09 cars: two from Starworks Motorsports. BAR1 Motorsports, CORE Autosport, JDC-Miller MotorSports, Performance Tech and PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports entered one car each.^[8] GTLM was represented by ten entries from five different brands.^[8] With the absence of the Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) class from the field, only three racing classes were represented in Long Beach.^[2]

There were two practice sessions preceding the start of the race on Saturday, one on Friday morning and one on Friday afternoon. The first session lasted two hours on Friday morning while the second session on Friday afternoon lasted 25 minutes.^[10]

In the first practice session, Jonathan Bomarito set the fastest time in the No. 55 Mazda with a time of 1 minute, 15.917 seconds, 0.039 seconds faster than Jordan Taylor's No. 10 Corvette DP.^[11] Ryan Hunter-Reay was third fastest in the No. 90 Corvette DP, Joel Miller's No. 70 Mazda placed fourth, and Dane Cameron's No. 31 AER car rounded out the top five.^[11] The fastest PC class car was Colin Braun in the No. 54 CORE Autosport car with 1 minute, 17.185 seconds, followed by Renger van der Zande in the No. 8 Starworks entry.^[11] The GTLM class was topped by the No. 4 Chevrolet Corvette C7.R of Oliver Gavin. Lucas Luhr in the No. 100 BMW was second and Jan Magnussen's No. 3 Corvette was third.^[11] The session ended prematurely when Richard Westbrook's No. 67 Ford GT caught fire in the closing minutes.^[12]

In the final practice session, Ricky Taylor's No. 10 car set the fastest time with a lap of 1 minute, 15.474 seconds. Braun was fastest again in PC and GTLM was topped by Earl Bamber's No. 912 Porsche.^[13]

 

Friday afternoon's 55-minute three-group qualifying session gave 15-minute sessions to all categories. Cars in GTLM were sent out first before those grouped in PC and Prototype had two separate identically timed sessions. Regulations stipulated teams to nominate one qualifying driver, with the fastest laps determining each classes starting order. IMSA arranged the grid to put Prototypes ahead of all PC and GTLM cars.^[14][10]

Christian Fittipaldi in the No. 5 AER Corvette DP took his first pole position of the season, and the 3rd of his career with a lap of 1 minutes, 14.962 seconds that he set on his fifth try.^[15] He was joined on the grid's front row by Ricky Taylor whose best lap in the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing car was 0.171 seconds slower.^[16] Tom Long's No. 70 Mazda took third followed by Eric Curran's No. 31 Corvette DP in fourth.^[17] Trisan Nunez's No. 55 Mazda started from fifth place.^[15] Andy Meyrick qualified the DeltaWing in sixth position.^[18] Marc Goossens spun the No. 90 Corvette DP at turn eleven and stalled; resulting in a red flag.^[15]

French set the fastest time in PC for Performance Tech Motorsports followed by Bennett in the No. 54 CORE Autosport car.^[15] Kvamme crashed at turn one. The red flag was thrown and caused the session to be abandoned. Misha Goikhberg was handed pole position as the session did not reach minimum time to be declared official and Starting positions were set by Teams' Championship standings.^[17]

In GTLM, Bill Auberlen took his second consecutive pole of the season with a lap of 1 minutes, 17.272 seconds.^[16] Porsche took second and third positions, led by its No. 912 car driven by Bamber (whose time was 0.183 seconds faster than Nick Tandy's third-placed No. 911 entry).^[16] The two Corvettes were fourth and fifth (the No. 4 car driven by Gavin in front of the No. 3 vehicle of Magnussen).^[19] Lucas Luhr qualified the No. 100 BMW M6 in sixth followed by Hand's No. 66 Ford GT in seventh, and the highest-placed Ferrari was Fisichella's No. 62 488 GTE.^[20] The No. 67 CGR Ford entry did not participate in qualifying as the team were continuing repairs.^[21]

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

Pos.	Class	No.	Team	Driver	Time	Gap	Grid
1	P	5	Action Express Racing	Christian Fittipaldi	1:14.962	—	1‡
2	P	10	Wayne Taylor Racing	Ricky Taylor	1:15.133	+0.171	2
3	P	70	Mazda Motorsports	Tom Long	1:15.641	+0.679	3
4	P	31	Action Express Racing	Eric Curran	1:15.741	+0.779	4
5	P	55	Mazda Motorsports	Tristan Nunez	1:15.792	+0.830	5
6	P	0	Panoz DeltaWing Racing	Andy Meyrick	1:16.006	+1.044	6
7	P	90	VisitFlorida Racing	Marc Goossens	1:16.163	+1.201	7
8	GTLM	25	BMW Team RLL	Bill Auberlen	1:17.272	+2.310	16‡
9	GTLM	912	Porsche North America	Earl Bamber	1:17.275	+2.313	17
10	GTLM	911	Porsche North America	Patrick Pilet	1:17.458	+2.496	18
11	P	60	Michael Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian	John Pew	1:17.513	+2.551	8
12	GTLM	4	Corvette Racing	Oliver Gavin	1:17.573	+2.611	19
13	GTLM	3	Corvette Racing	Jan Magnussen	1:17.676	+2.714	20
14	PC	38	Performance Tech Motorsports	James French	1:17.910	+2.948	13
15	GTLM	100	BMW Team RLL	Lucas Luhr	1:18.105	+3.143	21
16	GTLM	66	Ford Chip Ganassi Racing	Joey Hand	1:18.120	+3.158	22
17	GTLM	62	Risi Competizione	Giancarlo Fisichella	1:18.282	+3.320	23
18	GTLM	68	Scuderia Corsa	Alessandro Balzan	1:18.290	+3.328	25
19	PC	54	CORE Autosport	Jon Bennett	1:18.623	+3.661	12
20	PC	52	PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports	Robert Alon	1:19.012	+4.050	14
21	PC	85	JDC-Miller MotorSports	Misha Goikhberg	1:19.154	+4.192	9‡
22	PC	8	Starworks Motorsport	Alex Popow	1:20.281	+5.319	10
23	PC	20	BAR1 Motorsports	Tomy Drissi	1:21.633	+6.671	11
24	PC	88	Starworks Motorsport	Mark Kvamme	1:26.327	+11.365	15
25	GTLM	67	Ford Chip Ganassi Racing	Did Not Participate			24
Sources:[22][23]

Ricky Taylor was delighted with the victory, saying: "The guys give us an awesome car. It was a Corvette DP 1-2-3, which is very special. We couldn’t be happier. Jordan did and awesome job. Everybody was fantastic."^[24] Jordan Taylor said of the result : "I was able to pull a little bit of a gap thanks to the 31 and kind of maintain that until the end of the race. Thankfully, we didn’t catch too much traffic in the last 10 to 15 laps and we were basically able to hold our pace and get to the end."^[24] Fittipaldi stated : "We managed to get by the Mazda going into the hairpin. The No. 10 was about FOUR seconds ahead or something like that and we managed to close it down a little bit. It was a pretty solid race."^[24]

Makowiecki accepted responsibility for causing the late-race collision with Milner which cost the No. 912 Porsche victory in GTLM: " The collision in the penultimate lap was my fault. I was a touch too optimistic heading into the corner."^[25]

With a total of 93 points, Barbosa and Fittipaldi's second-place finish allowed them to take the lead of the Prototype Drivers' Championship. Jordan Taylor and Ricky Taylor advanced from sixth to third.^[4] As a result of winning the race, Goikhberg and Simpson took the lead of the Prototype Challenge Drivers' Championship with 101 points. Alon and Kimber-Smith dropped from first to third while Popow and van der Zande advanced from third to second.^[4] The final results of GTLM meant Milner and Gavin increased their gap to eighteen points as Auberlen and Werner took over the second position.^[4] Honda and Chevrolet continued to top their respective Manufacturers' Championships, while Corvette Racing continued to top the GTLM Teams' Championship. Action Express Racing and JDC-Miller Motorsports became the leaders of their respective class Teams' Championships with nine rounds left in the season.^[4]

Class winners are denoted in bold and ‡. P stands for Prototype, PC (Prototype Challenge), and GTLM (Grand Touring Le Mans).

Final race classification Pos Class No. Team Drivers Chassis Tire Laps Time/Retired Engine 1 P 10   Wayne Taylor Racing   Jordan Taylor   Ricky Taylor Corvette Daytona Prototype C 75 01:40:58.937‡ Chevrolet 5.5 L V8 2 P 5   Action Express Racing   João Barbosa   Christian Fittipaldi Corvette Daytona Prototype C 75 +2.958 Chevrolet 5.5 L V8 3 P 31   Action Express Racing   Eric Curran   Dane Cameron Corvette Daytona Prototype C 75 +4.159 Chevrolet 5.5 L V8 4 P 70   Mazda Motorsports   Tom Long   Joel Miller Mazda Prototype C 75 +7.618 Mazda MZ-2.0T 2.0 L I4 Turbo 5 P 55   Mazda Motorsports   Jonathan Bomarito   Tristan Nunez Mazda Prototype C 75 +10.606 Mazda MZ-2.0T 2.0 L I4 Turbo 6 p 90   VisitFlorida Racing   Marc Goossens   Ryan Hunter-Reay Corvette Daytona Prototype C 75 +31.943 Chevrolet 5.5 L V8 7 P 60   Michael Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian   John Pew   Oswaldo Negri Jr. Ligier JS P2 C 75 +33.061 Honda HR35TT 3.5 Turbo V6 8 PC 85   JDC-Miller MotorSports   Misha Goikhberg   Stephen Simpson Oreca FLM09 C 74 +1 Lap‡ Chevrolet 6.2 L V8 9 PC 8   Starworks Motorsport   Alex Popow   Renger van der Zande Oreca FLM09 C 74 +1 Lap Chevrolet 6.2 L V8 10 DNF PC 38   Performance Tech Motorsports   James French   Kyle Marcelli Oreca FLM09 C 73 Crash Chevrolet 6.2 L V8 11 GTLM 911   Porsche North America   Patrick Pilet   Nick Tandy Porsche 911 RSR M 73 +2 Laps‡ Porsche 4.0 L Flat-6 12 PC 20   BAR1 Motorsports   Tomy Drissi   Johnny Mowlem Oreca FLM09 C 73 +2 Laps Chevrolet 6.2 L V8 13 GTLM 4   Corvette Racing   Oliver Gavin   Tommy Milner Chevrolet Corvette C7.R M 73 +2 Laps Chevrolet LT5.5 5.5 L V8 14 GTLM 62   Risi Competizione   Toni Vilander   Giancarlo Fisichella Ferrari 488 GTE M 72 +3 Laps Ferrari F154CB 3.9 L Turbo V8 15 GTLM 67   Ford Chip Ganassi Racing   Ryan Briscoe   Richard Westbrook Ford GT M 72 +3 Laps Ford EcoBoost 3.5 L Twin-turbo V6 16 GTLM 25   BMW Team RLL   Bill Auberlen   Dirk Werner BMW M6 GTLM M 72 +3 Laps BMW 4.4 L Turbo V8 17 GTLM 68   Scuderia Corsa   Alessandro Balzan   Daniel Serra Ferrari 488 GTE M 72 +3 Laps Ferrari F154CB 3.9 L Turbo V8 18 PC 88   Starworks Motorsport   Mark Kvamme   Ashley Freiberg Oreca FLM09 C 71 +4 Laps Chevrolet 6.2 L V8 19 PC 52   PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports   Robert Alon   Tom Kimber-Smith Oreca FLM09 C 71 +4 Laps Chevrolet 6.2 L V8 20 DNF GTLM 912   Porsche North America   Earl Bamber   Frédéric Makowiecki Porsche 911 RSR M 70 Crash Porsche 4.0 L Flat-6 21 GTLM 66   Ford Chip Ganassi Racing   Dirk Müller   Joey Hand Ford GT M 70 +1 Lap Ford EcoBoost 3.5 L Twin-turbo V6 22 DNF GTLM 3   Corvette Racing   Antonio García   Jan Magnussen Chevrolet Corvette C7.R M 65 Crash Chevrolet LT5.5 5.5 L V8 23 DNF GTLM 100   BMW Team RLL   John Edwards   Lucas Luhr BMW M6 GTLM M 64 Crash BMW 4.4 L Turbo V8 24 DNF P 0   Panoz DeltaWing Racing   Katherine Legge   Andy Meyrick DeltaWing DWC13 C 56 Engine Élan (Mazda) 1.9 L I4 Turbo 25 DNF PC 54   CORE Autosport   Jon Bennett   Colin Braun Oreca FLM09 C 35 Rear Suspension Chevrolet 6.2 L V8 Sources:[26][27]

Tyre manufacturers Key Symbol Tyre manufacturer C Continental M Michelin

Prototype Drivers' Championship standings Pos. +/– Driver Points 1   2   João Barbosa   Christian Fittipaldi 93 2   2   Eric Curran   Dane Cameron 90 3   3   Jordan Taylor   Ricky Taylor 89 4   1   Marc Goossens   Ryan Hunter-Reay 84 5   3   Jonathan Bomarito   Tristan Nunez 75 Source:[4]

PC Drivers' Championship standings Pos. +/– Driver Points 1   1   Stephen Simpson   Misha Goikhberg 101 2   1   Alex Popow   Renger van der Zande 93 3   2   Robert Alon   Tom Kimber-Smith 92 4     Johnny Mowlem 86 5   4   José Gutiérrez 66 Source:[4]

GTLM Drivers' Championship standings Pos. +/– Driver Points 1     Oliver Gavin   Tommy Milner 105 2     Earl Bamber   Frédéric Makowiecki 87 2   1   Bill Auberlen   Dirk Werner 87 3   2   Giancarlo Fisichella   Toni Vilander 86 4   6   Patrick Pilet   Nick Tandy 82 5   1   Daniel Serra 80 Source:[4]

GTD Drivers' Championship standings Pos. +/– Driver Points 1     Andy Lally   John Potter   Marco Seefried 67 2     Alessandro Balzan   Christina Nielsen   Jeff Segal 62 3     Mario Farnbacher   Alex Riberas 53 4     Tim Pappas   Nicky Catsburg   Jesse Krohn   Michael Marsal   Markus Palttala 52 5     Paul Dalla Lana   Pedro Lamy   Mathias Lauda   Richie Stanaway 51 Source:[4]

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for all sets of standings.

Prototype Teams' Championship standings Pos. +/– Team Points 1   1   #5 Action Express Racing 92 2   1   #31 Action Express Racing 90 3   2   #10 Wayne Taylor Racing 89 4     #90 VisitFlorida Racing 88 5   1   #55 Mazda Motorsports 77 Source:[4]

PC Teams' Championship standings Pos. +/– Team Points 1   1   #85 JDC-Miller MotorSports 101 2   2   #8 Starworks Motorsport 93 3   2   #52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports 92 4   1   #20 BAR1 Motorsports 86 5   2   #54 CORE Autosport 85 Source:[4]

GTLM Teams' Championship standings Pos. +/– Team Points 1     #4 Corvette Racing 105 2   1   #25 BMW Team RLL 87 3   1   #912 Porsche North America 87 4   1   #62 Risi Competizione 86 5   5   #911 Porsche North America 82 Source:[4]

GTD Teams' Championship standings Pos. +/– Team Points 1     #44 Magnus Racing 67 2     #63 Scuderia Corsa 62 3     #23 Team Seattle/Alex Job Racing 53 4     #540 Black Swan Racing 52 5     #97 Turner Motorsport 52 Source:[4]

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for all sets of standings.

Prototype Manufacturers' Championship standings Pos. +/– Manufacturer Points 1     Honda 100 2     Chevrolet 99 3   1   Mazda 88 4   1   BMW 56 5     Ford 30 Source:[4]

GTLM Manufacturers' Championship standings Pos. +/– Manufacturer Points 1     Chevrolet 102 2     Porsche 97 3   1   Ferrari 88 4   1   BMW 86 5     Ford 80 Source:[4]

GTD Manufacturers' Championship standings Pos. +/– Manufacturer Points 1     Audi 65 2     Ferrari 60 3     Porsche 60 4     BMW 58 5     Dodge 54 Source:[4]

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for all sets of standings.