Van der Zande, Yelloly win incident riddled IMSA Grand Prix of Long Beach, end Porsche dominance

Credit: Meyer Shank Racing via X

The No.93 Meyer Shank Racing Acura crossed the finish line first in the aptly named Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, becoming the first non-Porsche winners of 2026, after exploiting a stroke of luck early on.

Renger van der Zande and Nick Yelloly won a close race, battled throughout with the No.31 Wheelen Cadillac of Jack Aitken and Frederik Vesti, with a crucial safety car 29 laps in, playing a crucial role in the race's outcome.

Starting from Pole Position were the No.93 Meyer Shank Racing Acura of Nick Yelloly in the GTP class and the No.36 DXDT Racing Chevrolet Z06 GT3.R of Robert Wickens in the GTD class. The original polesitter for the latter, the No.89 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus of Frankie Montecalvo, was disqualified from the session after it was found that the car had a ground clearance violation.

Early on both retained their respective leads, with a lap one Full Course Yellow, turning into a brief Safety car after contact between the No.81 Corvette of DragonSpeed and another car, with debris thrown onto the track.

Credit: Dominic Loyer

Immediately after racing resumed, the No.5 JDC-Miller Porsche gambled with their strategy, making a very early pitstop for fuel and a driver-swap, with Tijmen van der Helm giving way for Laurin Heinrich. Soon thereafter the No.60 Acura followed suit.

Meanwhile Yelloly and second place man Jack Aitken in the No.31 Wheelen Cadillac stormed away from the third placed No.25 BMW of Marco Wittmann, whilst battling amongst each other for the lead.

Aitken cleverly grabbed it just under 20 minutes in, when the Acura encountered traffic between Turns 14 and 15, exploting it to create a buffer of around three seconds. A few laps later more GTP cars made their way to the pits, seeing that Heinrich in the No.5 Porsche had strong rhythm, also probably thinking more disruptions were to follow.

Around that time the race for GTD's second place man Russell Ward unraveled, as the No.57 Winward Racing Mercedes was called into the pits by race control due to ''FAILURE TO ADHERE TO TIRE OPERATIONAL REQUIREMENTS'' having shown a mechanical black flag to him.

Soon enough on Lap 29 and with the No.93 Acura back in the lead, as the No.31 Cadillac had pitted on Lap 26, with Frederik Vesti taking over the reigns from Aitken, a collision between the No.5 Porsche and the No.25 of -now- Philipp Eng, forced the Austrian into the wall of Turn eight.

The collision ripped the BMW's rear wing off and left a good amount of debris on track, with the second safety car being called, which was a blessing timing-wise for Acura, as the No.93 car was able to pit and retain the lead, with Renger van der Zande on the wheel. The JDC-Miller Porsche would later receive a penalty of ''STOP PLUS 60'' for the incident.

On Lap 36, with 47 minutes to go the race resumed with Van der Zande in the lead though the yellows and the Safety car were called upon straight again, due to an incident between Sheldon van der Linde and Roman de Angelis, with the BMW driver divebombing his way past the Aston Martin in Turn one, while the Canadian was stuck facing the barriers, needing the help of the marshals to get back going again.

When racing resumed, victory loomed ever closer for Acura, as Van der Zande proceeded to build a gap of three seconds to the chasing pack of Vesti, Vanthoor, Nasr and Van der Linde, with them battling in pairs for second and fourth respectively, giving us some pretty good racing.

However a wrench was thrown into the works, as with 25 minutes to go the No.40 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac of Jordan Taylor was seen crashing into the barriers, on the exit of Turn six, forcing the race officials to call upon the safety car yet again. At the same time GTD race had turned on its head, as the No.12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus had gone into the lead, at the hands of Aaron Telitz, with Robby Foley second in the No.96 Turner Motorsport BMW and Conquest Racing's Albert Costa in the No.34 Ferrari in third.

Van der Zande retained the lead when green flag conditions returned, with the chasing Vesti not letting him off easy, with the Acura driver retaining the lead all the way through to the finish, despite a final full course yellow with eight minutes to go, due to an incident between the No.46 Pfaff Motorsports Lamborghini and the No.66 Gradient Racing Ford, that left the latter without a front spoiler, and the former with a Drive Through Penalty.

Thus through circumstance and of course skill van der Zande finished the race just 0.8 seconds ahead of second place man Vesti, securing a long-awaited win for Acura, its maiden win on the streets of Long Beach.

Penske Porsche despite losing their winning streak, still found a way to secure a 3-4 finish with the No.6 car of Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor grabbed the last podium spot, ahead of the sister No.7 car Julien Andlauer and Felipe Nasr. The No.24 BMW of Sheldon van der Linde and Dries Vanthoor rounded up the top five for the GTP class.

As for the GTD class, the No.12 Lexus won by a comfortable five seconds from the aforementioned No.96 BMW with the No.34 Ferrari right on its tail in third. The No.36 Chevrolet that lead much of the race, ended up only sixth in class, behind the fourth-placed No.70 Inception Racing Ferrari and the No.89 Vasser Sullivan Lexus in fifth.