RS1 breaks through with MPC victory at Laguna Seca

Racing drivers and teams dream of days when everything goes just exactly perfect. Saturday was one of those days for Jan Heylen, Luca Mars, and RS1.

Heylen and Mars took advantage of a perfect strategy call by RS1 to claim the Grand Sport (GS) class and overall victory in the WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca 120 in the No. 28 Porsche 718 GT4 RS CS. For the team, the result in the third round of the 2025 IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge was vindication, as the RS1 Porsche had been knocking at the door at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca with second place finishes the last three years.

Heylen and Mars arrived in Monterey as the GS class point leaders after two runner-up finishes in the opening two rounds at Daytona International Speedway and Sebring International Raceway. In Monterey, Mars qualified the No. 28 Porsche fourth fastest, then held the position during his opening stint.

At 52 minutes into the two hour race, RS1 called Mars in to hand the car over to Heylen, just a few seconds prior to the first of four full-course cautions that punctuated the contest. When the majority of the GS field pitted under yellow a few minutes later, Heylen made another brief visit to pit lane to top off his fuel and emerged in the lead.

Heylen was then able to manage the race from the front, holding off his competitors through an additional three restarts. His closest challenger – the No. 44 Ibiza Farm Motorsports McLaren Artura GT4 driven by Moisey Uretsky and Michael Cooper – was eliminated when Daniel Morad, driving the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT GT4, was assessed a drive-through for incident responsibility after contacting Cooper off-track at Turn 6. That caused the final caution with 28 minutes remaining.

When the green flew, Heylen aced the final restart and the RS1 Porsche paced the final 15 minutes to cross the line 0.676s ahead of the No. 71 Rebel Rock Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4 Evo shared by Frank DePew and Robin Liddell. The No. 54 Panam Motorsport Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO2 and drivers Caio Chaves and Thiago Camilo earned the final spot on the podium.

Earlier in the week, Heylen told the IMSA Wire Service that any time spent in a racing car has been therapeutic as he worked through a series of personal challenges, including the birth of twin sons shortly after he and his wife saw their Florida home destroyed by Hurricane Milton.

Winning is even sweeter.

“The restarts were a ton of fun and the team killed it on the pit stops and with the strategy. That really helped us out today,” Heylen commented. “There are these weekends where it all comes together, and there are ones where you miss out. Today it came to us, and I couldn’t be more happy.

“I love coming here and Laguna Seca always makes for a good race, with the high tire degradation,” added Heylen, whose resume includes the 2021 GS class championship. “I thought we were going to be a little bit off, just because of the way our car performs here in the heat. But at the end, we had good pace relative to the field. The restarts also brought a lot of pressure, because that’s where we were the most vulnerable, going up the hill on the Rahal Straight. But that’s part of the fun.”

Mars, a 19-year-old from greater Pittsburgh, paid tribute to his experienced teammate after his first career triumph in Michelin Pilot Challenge competition. He won last year’s IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge Grand Sport X (GSX) title and has been on the doorstep of a breakthrough Michelin Pilot Challenge win for a couple of seasons.

“Jan is one of the best drivers you could have as a teammate and he’s helping me so much,” Mars said. “The guys killed the pit stop – we pitted in fourth and came out first. He held those guys off at the end there and helped us extend our championship lead. It’s been an incredible start to the year, and I can’t wait to see how it keeps going.”

Once again, Liddell managed to pull a magical result on a day when the No. 71 Aston Martin started 18th in class, and DePew ran a solid, clean first stint to position Liddell to charge forward.

“We’re amazed, to be honest with you,” Liddell said. “That’s way beyond our expectations for the weekend. The restarts were very intense but a lot of fun, and we still bumped and bored our way up to P2. I’m absolutely delighted.”

Herta Hyundai squad sweeps WeatherTech Raceway TCR podium

Michael Levitt/IMSA

Bryan Herta Autosport with Curb Agajanian and its trio of Hyundai Elantra N TCR cars broke out the brooms with a podium sweep of Touring Car (TCR) at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. The only question was in what order would they appear.

The team’s No. 33 Hyundai Elantra N TCR of Mark Wilkins qualified on pole and handed off to Bryson Morris, as the somewhat snakebit squad sought its first win of the season. As they led the field on lap 58 before a restart ahead of the No. 7 Precision Racing LA Audi RS3 LMS TCR of Ryan Eversley, the No. 98 Herta Hyundai wheeled by Mason Filippi, the No. 52 Baker Racing Audi of James Vance and the No. 76 Herta Hyundai driven by Denis Dupont.

Then it all changed on one wild restart into Turn 11 after the fourth full-course caution of the two-hour race.

Eversley got a great launch to take the apparent lead in the Audi. The only problem, after teammate Celso Neto had driven from the rear of the field up to podium position, was that his restart was too good. The No. 7 car was assessed a drive-through penalty for a jumped restart.

Dupont leapt into second from fifth place in the No. 76 car, with Vance up to third, Morris down to fourth and Filippi down to fifth. Dupont took over the lead a lap later.

From there, Dupont held off his surging teammates, as Filippi and Morris drove back to second and third. Filippi got within 0.191s on lap 68 but fell to 0.441s behind on lap 69 and ultimately, 0.325s for the margin of victory after the 70-lap race.

It’s Dupont and Brown’s second win this season (BMW M Endurance Challenge At Daytona), and the pairing’s first in a standard-length two-hour Michelin Pilot Challenge race. The two have won the last two four-hour races in TCR at Daytona this year and the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course last June.

Filippi and Harry Gottsacker, who inherited the Sebring win, finished second on the road in the No. 98 car with Morris and Wilkins third. Vance and Dean Baker in a season-best fourth place denied the Herta team a sweep of the top-four positions, as Suellio Almeida and Maddie Aust finished fifth in Herta’s No. 9 car unofficially dubbed its “incubator” program.

Herta’s Hyundai squad has swept the podium several times before in Michelin Pilot Challenge competition, including in September 2021 at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. That day, Gottsacker and Wilkins were the winning pair ahead of Parker Chase and Ryan Norman in second, and Taylor Hagler and Michael Lewis in third.

Dupont rather succinctly described his magical restart to go from fifth to second in a traffic-laden corner, which became first.

“It was a happy restart… well everyone broke inside, and I decided to go on the other side of the track, so that went pretty well,” the Belgian said.

Filippi, who nearly tracked Dupont down towards the finish, was left to lament the near-miss but thankful to be part of the podium lockout.

“It’s tough to be second, but it’s a great day for Bryan Herta Autosport and Hyundai getting a 1-2-3. It’s been a long time since we’ve had that,” he said. “I got close a few times. We tried to get up to him, but the driver always wants a couple more laps. It was awesome, clean racing.”

The Michelin Pilot Challenge resumes with the O’Reilly Auto Parts 4 Hours of Mid-Ohio on June 8 at the aforementioned Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.

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