Wastegate Racing produced one of the most unlikely GTP wins of the 2026 VSCA SportsCar Championship season at Watkins Glen, taking the Abruzzi Six Hours of the Glen after the #32 Ferrari 499P had fallen five laps behind midway through the race.
Kyle Birnie, Niclas Pedersen and Selena Ward recovered through repairs, wave-arounds and strategy to beat the #137 Gamma Sim Racing Ferrari by 28.219 seconds. The #96 Albrecht Motorsports Cadillac finished third, ahead of the #10 Vision 1 Motorsports Ferrari and the #12 Delta Racing BMW.
Martínez Starts From Pole As Cautions Take Over
Álvaro Martínez put the #51 World Of SimRacing Team Cadillac on pole with a 1:31.232 lap around the 3.40-mile Watkins Glen circuit, giving the defending champions an ideal starting point for their rebound attempt after CTMP.
The race quickly turned into a stop-start endurance test. The first Full-Course Yellow came out six minutes after the green flag, the second followed immediately after the restart, and the race eventually reached ten Full-Course Yellows with 2 hours, 50 minutes under yellow. There were 11 GTP lead changes, but very little rhythm.
Pedersen moved Wastegate Racing to the front on lap 39, but the team's race later appeared to fall apart. After an incident and repairs, the #32 Ferrari dropped five laps down. Birnie said the team could only wait for the race to come back. "From there it was just hoping for Full-Course Yellows, which we got. Through our strategy, we got back on the lead lap. Then the goal was just to get a top five. A podium would have been a great result, but to come out with a win was amazing, all things considered."
Wastegate Turns Recovery Into Control
The repeated cautions gave Wastegate Racing the wave-arounds it needed, and the team avoided the larger late mistakes that hit several rivals. The #32 did receive a warning for incident responsibility after contact with the #10 Vision 1 Motorsports Ferrari, but it stayed in contention when the race tightened in the final hour.
Pedersen said Watkins Glen made every pass difficult, even with a competitive car. "Racing around here is always difficult. It is hard to set up a pass, fighting other cars is tricky, and then you are dealing with all the traffic as well. I definitely had a couple of close moments out there."
He credited the whole Wastegate effort after the team's second straight points-paying victory. "We came here well prepared, did most things right on strategy and, even when we had some issues, we kept our heads cool and worked our way back. We can all be proud of our performance over these last couple of races."
Gamma Penalized After Crossing First
Gamma Sim Racing's #137 Ferrari was one of the strongest cars late and crossed the line first, but a 35-second post-race penalty for incident responsibility in Turn 9 dropped Charlie Rudd and Anthony Maffucci to second.
Jesse Deshazier said Gamma's first half was about damage limitation after two minor contacts, before pace and strategy brought the team forward. "In the second half, we found some great pace and got extremely lucky with a safety car that played into our strategy nicely," he said. "The difference between us and the winning Ferrari was a post-race penalty, which dropped us to second after crossing the line first. We are still happy with the progress and the team's momentum."
Albrecht Motorsports completed the podium with the #96 Cadillac. Maik Steinicke said the team did not push the car to its absolute limit because staying out of trouble mattered more than forcing the issue. That approach helped Albrecht move to second in the championship standings.
Vision 1 Climbs As World Of SimRacing Slips
The #10 Vision 1 Motorsports Ferrari gained seven positions, climbing from 11th on the grid to fourth at the finish with Thomas Martin and Jeremy Carter. The #12 Delta Racing BMW finished fifth after leading a race-high 51 laps, though its result was overshadowed by the final-lap crash.
Behind them, the #20 Bravo Snow Schatten BMW finished sixth, the #55 PAX Simsport Porsche seventh and the #7 VSR Competición Porsche eighth. The pole-sitting #51 World Of SimRacing Team Cadillac fell to ninth after multiple post-race penalties, while the #25 Tri-State Racing BMW completed the top ten after a difficult race.
Martínez was blunt about World Of SimRacing's afternoon. "The pace was great and the car was ready to win. Once again, the drivers failed, and that leaves the team with bad feelings after all the work that went into preparing the car." He added that chasing the championship is no longer realistic with only two top-five finishes so far this season.
Tri-State Racing's Seth Neufeld said the #25 had one of those days where nearly everything went wrong. "We got caught up in many people's messes and were involved in many collisions caused by the other party. As if that was not enough, we had some technical difficulties that set us back an extra lap. Everyone has weekends like this, and we had ours today."
Final-Lap Crash Leads To Indefinite Suspension
The race's most serious moment came on the final lap for the #12 Delta Racing BMW. Four laps after earlier contact between Joao Vitor Delgado in the #12 and Thomas Marcelino in the #3 Tri-State Racing GT AM BMW at Turn 3, the two cars met again on Straight 1 near the start-finish line.
VSCA Organizers later found that the #3 had continued for four laps with significant suspension damage, running around six seconds slower than normal pace while requiring approximately 45 degrees of left steering input to travel straight. As the #12 approached to pass on the right, the #3 straightened its steering wheel to approximately neutral and moved about two car widths right. Contact followed, heavily damaging both cars.
VSCA ruled the act intentional and retaliatory. The #3 was disqualified, Marcelino received 12 license penalty points for a Level 3 Personal Conduct Policy violation, was suspended immediately, and had his VSCA membership terminated indefinitely with no right to possible reinstatement.
Wastegate Leads Into The Summer Break
Wastegate Racing now leads the SportsCar Championship GTP standings with 2,980 points, 50 ahead of the #96 Albrecht Motorsports Cadillac and 80 ahead of the #25 Tri-State Racing BMW. Birnie said the lead is useful but not safe. "Our goal for the rest of the season is to race clean and let the races come to us, so by Petit Le Mans we can be in the fight for the championship."
The Endurance Cup remains even tighter. The #12 Delta Racing BMW still leads with 30 points, but the final-lap crash reduced its advantage over the #32 Wastegate Racing Ferrari to a single point with Road America and Road Atlanta remaining.
Road America Opens The Final Stretch
The SportsCar Championship returns from the summer break on August 15, 2026, for the Advanced Sim Racing Endurance Grand Prix at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. The race will be Round 9 of 11 and will be broadcast live on GreenFlag TV from 16:00 GMT.
For GTP, the break begins with the title fight reshaped. Wastegate Racing has turned two races into a major swing, Albrecht Motorsports has moved into second, Tri-State Racing needs a response, and Delta Racing's Endurance Cup lead is down to one point.