Porsche No. 6 Flips the Script in Monterey

A full-course caution was not needed to ensure a thrilling finish in the TireRack.com Monterey SportsCar Championship, the fourth race of the 2025 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season.

The top three competitors fighting for the overall and Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class win took the white flag near the finish of the two-hour, 40-minute race separated by less than a second, led by Mathieu Jaminet in the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963.

But while Jaminet handily threaded the No. 6 through traffic during his final tour of WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca to earn the first victory of the season for himself and co-driver Matt Campbell, teammate Nick Tandy in the sister No. 7 Porsche 963 entry encountered the Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) class No. 9 Pfaff Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 approaching the 11th and final corner. That allowed Motul Pole Award winner Dries Vanthoor in the No. 24 BMW M Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8 to pull alongside, making it three-wide into the tight left-hander.

There was side-to-side contact between all three cars, which sent Vanthoor’s BMW veering off the circuit to the right into a runoff area. Tandy recovered to complete Porsche Penske Motorsport’s third 1-2 finish of the season 1.692 seconds behind Jaminet in the No. 6.

Tandy and Felipe Nasr had claimed the GTP class victory in all three races earlier this year, with Campbell and Jaminet coming second at both the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring and the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. The win at WeatherTech Raceway helped the No. 6 duo close the gap in the championship to the No. 7 to an unofficial 91 points. Vanthoor and Philipp Eng are 280 points back after their second consecutive podium finish.

“Really hard racing out there, but what really made the difference was the great strategy calls by the team,” Jaminet said. “There was a lot of energy saving in the first stint to try to stretch it for such an early pit stop compared to the sister car. It worked out well in the end.

“It was fun out there,” he added. “I was stuck behind the lapped cars for a while, and that brought the pack together. I didn’t want to take too much risk, but at some points, I had to. It was exciting for the fans, and also inside the car. I ran the last laps like running for pole position.”

Campbell now owns 13 race wins in IMSA competition, with Jaminet one behind with 12. Campbell co-drove to the GTP and overall win at WeatherTech Raceway one year ago. It’s the first IMSA win for “the Matts” driving together since they did so with Pfaff in GTD PRO, then fielding a Porsche, at VIRginia International Raceway in 2022.

Campbell drove the opening stint and had a worrisome moment when his Porsche’s anti-stall system kicked in after contact with a GTD class runner about 45 minutes into the race. He dropped from third to fifth place but quickly got back up to speed.

WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca is known for producing competitive sports car races because of the large available windows for tire and fuel strategy, and that trend was enhanced by the complete lack of cautions in Sunday’s contest. The last caution-free race in the WeatherTech Championship came nearly three years ago at the Belle Isle street circuit in 2022. The last uninterrupted IMSA race at WeatherTech Raceway was in 2019.

The No. 6 executed a perfect undercut by being the first of the leaders to make a pit stop, 51 minutes into the race.

“I think we definitely made the right call boxing when we did, and Mathieu did a fantastic job to hold the lead to the end,” said Campbell.

Tandy and Nasr had little reason to be disappointed despite missing out on a fourth consecutive race win.

“Obviously, we want to win, but if we can’t, it’s great to see our teammates win,” said Tandy. “It was a good race. It wasn’t filled with caution and everybody stopping together which makes it a bit more open with strategy. It got a bit tight towards the end when the BMW was coming, and we had to push a bit harder through traffic. Overall, I had fun.” 

“Another great race, with good pace from both cars from PPM today,” added Nasr. “Just unfortunate that we couldn’t keep up the lead at the end, but Nick drove brilliant there at the end and secured another podium for us.” 

BMW M Team RLL was unable to convert pole position into a win for the fourth time this season, but the BMW M Hybrid V8 was once again demonstrably Porsche’s closest competition. Sheldon van der Linde and Marco Wittmann finished fourth, while Acura Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian’s No. 93 Acura ARX-06 rounded out the top five with drivers Nick Yelloly and Renger van der Zande.

Results are HERE