2019 Sports Car Challenge of Mid-Ohio
[2] The race was held at the thirteen-turn 2.258 mi (3.634 km) Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio on May 5, 2019.
[4] Two and a half weeks prior to the event, Ford announced they would end their factory program with Chip Ganassi Racing in the GTLM class in both the World Endurance Championship and the WeatherTech championship at the end of 2019.
In GTD, the Lamborghini Huracán GT3, which had been victorious in the previous two rounds at Daytona and Sebring, received a 30 kilogram weight increase and a 1-liter reduction in fuel capacity.
In contrast, the Audi R8 LMS and Mercedes-AMG GT3 cars were given weight reductions of 25 and 20 kilograms, respectively.
[7] In LMP2, Cameron Cassels and Kyle Masson led the Drivers' Championship with 67 points; the duo held a seven-point gap over Matt McMurry and Gabriel Aubry.
Lone Star Racing returned to IMSA competition in the GTD class, having previously participated at Laguna Seca in 2017.
Starworks Motorsport driver Parker Chase, who had previously only been on contract for the endurance events, would sign an agreement to run the full season with Starworks in 2019, alongside the existing full-season driver Ryan Dalziel.
[9] The biggest addition to the entry list, however, was Compass Racing, who would field a new McLaren 720S GT3 with factory backing in the full Sprint Cup-only campaign for the season.
[13] The first practice session took place at 10:05 am ET on Friday and ended with Juan Pablo Montoya topping the charts for Acura Team Penske, with a lap time of 1:41.568.
[15] The second practice session took place at 3:15 PM ET on Friday and ended with Oliver Jarvis topping the charts for Mazda Team Joest, with a lap time of 1:28.158.
[19] The Konica Minolta Cadillac, Whelen Engineering Racing, and Starworks Motorsport entries did not set a lap time.
[22] The third and final practice session took place at 8:00 am ET and ended with Hélio Castroneves topping the charts for Acura Team Penske, with a lap time of 1:12.737.
86 Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3 Evo of Trent Hindman with a time of 1:21.818.
[27] The final stoppage came when Bell's co-driver, Frankie Montecalvo went wide at the Carousel and got stuck in the grass.
Montecalvo got the car back to the pit lane and the session was restarted with 6 minutes remaining.
[26] Saturday's late morning qualification session was broken into three groups that lasted 15 minutes each.
All cars were required to be driven by one participant and the starting order was determined by the competitor's fastest lap.
[30] IMSA then arranged the grid so that the DPi, LMP2, and GTLM cars started in front of the GTD field.
Seefried had his best two laps from the session deleted for causing a red flag, effectively leaving him with no time set.
66 car for Ford Chip Ganassi Racing, besting Laurens Vanthoor in the No.
38 Performance Tech Motorsports Oreca set the fastest time in LMP2, but the car would be dropped to the rear of the LMP2 field because the team changed their starting driver.
As a result, Eric Lux was promoted to first and would start the race from pole position.
The final results of DPi kept Derani and Nasr atop the Drivers' Championship with 120 points while Albuquerque and Barbose dropped from third to fifth.
[40] The final results of LMP2 kept Cassels and Masson atop the Drivers' Championship, but their advantage was reduced to four points by race winner McMurry.
[40] Farnbacher and Hindman took the lead of the GTD Drivers' Championship with 84 points while the absent Bortolotti, Breukers, and Ineichen dropped to sixth.
[40] Cadillac, Porsche, and Lamborghini continued to top their respective Manufacturers' Championships while, Whelen Engineering Racing, Performance Tech Motorsports, and Porsche GT Team kept their respective advantages in their Teams' Championships.
Meyer Shank Racing took the lead of the GTD Teams' Championship with eight rounds left in the season.
