Porsche does the double Stateside with Formula E and IMSA wins

Porsche Penske Motorsport claimed a 1-2 in IMSA’s Long Beach street race, while the TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team scored its first victory of the 2024-25 season at Homestead Miami.

Felipe Nasr and Nick Tandy remain unbeaten in IMSA's headline GTP class, after following up their Daytona 24 Hours and Sebring 12 Hours triumphs with a Long Beach win, ahead of team-mates Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet - who'd also been second at Sebring.

Laurens Vanthoor joins Nasr and Tandy in the #7 Porsche for IMSA's endurance races, so had been part of their Daytona and Sebring wins. Not required in that car for the short Long Beach race, Vanthoor joined customer Porsche team AO Racing's #177 GTD car and paired up with Jonny Edgar for a GTD Pro victory.

In Formula E, reigning champion Pascal Wehrlein emerged from a wild finish with his first victory of his title defence at the series' inaugural visit to Miami's NASCAR venue Homestead. Team-mate António Félix da Costa had looked best placed for that win until a late red flag spoiled his strategy. He was still able to join Wehrlein on the podium in third place.

California dreaming: Third consecutive IMSA win

The two factory Porsche Penske cars filled the second row of the grid at California's famous Long Beach street track - a venue just as evocative in US motorsport history as Daytona and Sebring but a far more confined space, and hosting a sharp 1 hour 40 minute sprint race in sharp contrast to the enduros that began the campaign.

At the start, the Acura of Nick Yelloly got between the two Porsches into fourth at the first corner, but by the time the leaders were lapping GTD class traffic Jaminet was applying heavy pressure for that position and Tandy ahead was closing on the pair of race-leading BMWs.

A full course yellow 25 minutes into the race for a GTD class crash was Porsche's chance to take control. By the time all the GTP cars had made their sole scheduled pitstops during the caution period, the #7 and #6 cars had leapt up to first and second - now with Felipe Nasr and Matt Campbell at their wheels.

From there, the Porsche pair were unstoppable, managing the race to the finish through a further safety car period and amid heavy traffic to take a beautifully executed 1-2 finish with a comfortable margin.

IMSA customer racing

The #85 customer Porsche of JDC-Miller Motorsports looked set to join the factory cars in the top five of the Long Beach race, having also vaulted up the field with smart pit work.

Tijmen van der Helm's early eighth place became fifth for team-mate Gianmaria Bruni only for a clash with a GTD class car to send the Porsche spinning into the barriers around half-distance.

Bruni made it back to the pits for repairs and went on to finish 10th.

GTD Pro

It wasn't only the GTP class Porsche entries making gains through pit sequences in Long Beach - strategy was critical to AO Racing's dinosaur-liveried 'Rexy' #177 entry pulling off GTD class victory with new driver line-up Edgar and Vanthoor.

The GTD cars weren't able to take advantage of the early caution period in the same way as their GTP counterparts as they didn't have as flexible a fuel range, but running longer than their main rivals before making their stop under green flag racing conditions meant Edgar's early third place became first for Vanthoor as he emerged from a sharp pitstop.

Vanthoor kept the chasing Vasser-Sullivan Lexus entries at arm's length from there to seal victory.

Wright Motorsports drivers Adam Adelson and Elliott Skeer were part of a race-long battle just outside the top five in their #120 Porsche 992, eventually finishing seventh.

Homestead success: Double Formula E podium

The track layout for Formula E's inaugural Homestead race was always expected to produce a highly-tactical 'peloton' race of extreme energy-saving, with the whole field running in a big pack before those who'd conserved energy best tried to make a break in the final laps.

The TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team played this game to perfection, with da Costa and Wehrlein benefitting from others' slipstreams to save energy while working their way to the front, before then working together to maintain their lead.

Da Costa was saving more energy than anyone else in the field, so was well placed to take control of the final laps. He was building a gap using his second of two doses of 'attack mode' - which provides extra power and four-wheel-drive across two spells totalling eight minutes - when a three-car midfield tangle blocked the circuit's chicane and forced a red flag and restart.

The timing of that race stoppage not only wiped out several minutes of attack mode usage for leader Da Costa - who was in the middle of his second attack mode deployment but now couldn't use the rest of it - but brought a host of drivers who still had one attack mode to take right onto his tail for the restart.

There was a twist, though: the racing time lost to the red flag procedures meant there weren't enough laps left for those who still had six minutes of attack mode left to actually use it in full, meaning they were certain to get post-race 10-second time penalties for not using attack mode properly.

Wehrlein was in the best position: he only had four minutes of attack mode left, so could take it straight after the restart, use the extra speed in his car to surge to the lead, but then complete his full attack mode allowance before the finish as required by the rules.

He did just that, and though technically he lost first place to Nissan's Norman Nato in the final yards of the race as they charged to the line, the Nissan had a penalty looming that dropped it back and confirmed Wehrlein's victory. Da Costa - though gutted to have lost his chance of victory - did at least secure third place as the penalties for others were applied.

The Porsche drivers' double podium boosts both their title hopes - Da Costa and Wehrlein now second and third in the standings, and back within 15 and 18 points respectively of leader Oliver Rowland (Nissan).

Formula E customer racing

Porsche-powered Andretti driver Nico Müller carved a neat path through the chaotic pack and the post-race penalties to come away from a great fourth place from 19th on the grid. His team-mate Jake Dennis was ninth.

While it was David Beckmann impressing for Kiro in qualifying with a career best eighth on the grid, damage early in the race curtailed his day and left full attention on his team-mate Dan Ticktum - who ran a very canny race at the back doing extreme energy saving before charging forwards to seventh place.

The Porsche teams’ IMSA and Formula E title bids resume next month, with IMSA heading for classic road course Road America, while Formula E visiting the legendary Monaco street track on the first weekend of May.