WeatherTech Racing drivers Cooper MacNeil (Hinsdale, Ill.) and Toni Vilander (Kankaanpää, Finland) finished second in GTD in today’s running of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Monterey SportsCar Championship Powered by McLaren at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca (WTRLS).
Vilander, left, and MacNeil second at WTRLS.
MacNeil took the start in the No. 63 WeatherTech Racing Ferrari. It took just 15-minutes for him to get by the No. 86 Acura and move to second place. Vilander took over the Scuderia Corsa prepared Ferrari in second and set off to hunt down the lead Lamborghini. The race went caution free which kept the Finn from catching the class winning No. 48 Lambo.
The podium is the second in as many races as the team packs up and heads off to the season finale Petit Le Mans where they are the defending GTD Class winners from 2018.
“This is great,” MacNeil said. “This place is really tough. With the tire degradation we saw this weekend the game was really just managing tires and I think we did a great job doing that. It was a struggle at the end of the stint, but we still did really well with it. We had nothing for the Lamborghini there at the end, they were really strong all weekend. It’s good to have two podiums in a row for the team. Now we’re on to Petit Le Mans where we won last year and we’re looking for a repeat.”
“This is such a competitive field,” Vilander said. “When Cooper qualified well yesterday, I knew we had a good chance. It’s a demanding race track where it’s hard to get a good flying lap and hard to keep the tires alive over 40 laps in a stint. I could see a lot of cars that struggled with that today. I was trying to maintain what we had and it worked out well. At the end of the race I wanted to make sure I maintained my place while still gaining on first place. That’s two in a row for us now and I’m looking forward to Road Atlanta. We’ve done some testing there so I think we should be good. It was a struggle at the beginning of the year and now it’s coming around nicely. Cooper drove one of his best stints of the year. It’s a good note to end on.”
The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship will conclude at the traditional season ending Petit Le Mans to run at Road Atlanta, October 9-12.
Source. Kyle Chura/WeatherTech Racing
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