Wrights Motorsport Ryan Hardwick and Jan Heylen piloting the Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport just missed on on taking victory at Mid-Ohio by a narrow 0.417 seconds in Saturday’s two-hour IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge race with the win going to number 13 AWA McLaren 570S GT4.

Following an injury resulting from a crash in January, driver Ryan Hardwick has undergone months of intense recovery and training to prepare for his return to the series. Two weeks ago, Hardwick got back behind the wheel of the No. 16 Porsche 911 GT3 R for the first time since January at a private test with the team at Mid-Ohio SportsCar Course. The test was deemed a success, and now the team will focus on continuing their momentum from the season to put in a strong result at their home track.

Hardwick had placed the Wright Motorsports Cayman on pole the day before, starting second to Hardwick was Chris Green in number 13 McLaren who overtook Hardwick for first place less than five minutes into the race on the 2.258-mile, 13-turn road course. Questions arose, however, when Green made a surprising pit stop for fuel only a half hour into the event. Green was in third place in the Grand Sport (GS) class when the first full-course caution came out with 68 minutes remaining. Wittmer took the wheel of the number 13 on the ensuing pit stop under yellow, passing Heylen for second place down the back straight with 46 minutes to go before pulling a similar maneuver for the decisive pass on Plumb.

Heylen pressured Wittmer late but couldn’t make a strong enough move to take the lead, settling for second in the number 16 Porsche. Bryce Ward and Alex Udell finished third in the number 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT GT4.

Five manufacturers – McLaren, Porsche, Mercedes, BMW and Audi – were represented in the top six finishers. Wright Motorsports is the only team to be fielding a Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport this year.

DRIVER QUOTES

Ryan Hardwick

Wow! What a fun race, and what a great way to come back after my injury in Daytona. Getting the pole position was something I'll remember for the rest of my life. That was an unbelievable lap. It was a fun race at the start, but I just did not have the pace of that McLaren. So I settled into second and just tried to take care of the car and give the car Jan in a good condition for him to be able to make a push. If the race went for a couple more laps, I think it may have been a different outcome. But it was a great race. A lot of good points for our team in the championship and right yeah, I'm really looking forward to the rest of the season in this class.

Jan Heylen

That was a super fun race. I really enjoyed that. Ryan did a really good job on that first stint. All the way down to those last five laps or so it was a fuel race. So Ryan did a good job keeping the pace and saving a bit of fuel. Then we were on a slightly different strategy than the McLaren. Our strategy was right, that McLaren was just a little too fast for us on the straightaways today. Apart from that, it was just an awesome weekend, super fun out there racing with these guys. I really enjoyed it, and it was good points for the championship. It should put us in the hunt going into the next one.