Matt Campbell has claimed a breakthrough victory in the IMSA Weathertech SportsCar Championship.

Alongside former Formula 1 driver, Felipe Nasr, luck was on their side from the beginning of the race, with pole sitters Pipo Derami and Alexander Sims crashing out on the warmup lap, promoting Campbell into an unofficial pole position and allowing him to start the race with clean air ahead.

Upon the race start, Campbell built an impressive 10 second lead during his opening stint, leaving Nasr to maintain the lead during his massive double stint.  

The duo would go on to cross the line just under five seconds ahead of second place finishers, Colin Braun and Tom Blomqvist to claim their first win of the season.  

“Obviously, we got a little bit lucky with the No. 31 having an incident in the warm-up,” Campbell said post-race.

“I had such an incredible lack of traffic at the beginning and that’s why the gap got as big as it was at times.

“We’ve been fast on quite a few occasions, but luck has never been on our side. Today we just executed perfectly and it’s nice to get a win on the board after a tough year.”

From Road America to the streets of Nashville, Will Power unfortunately had an uncharacteristically disappointing weekend in the NTT IndyCar Series Big Machine Music City Grand Prix, settling for 10th place.  

After an impressive practice session saw the 2022 champion finish atop the timesheets, it all went downhill from there as Power found himself in the wall only a matter of laps after posting his fastest time.  

Fortunately, there were no injuries, and the car was repaired in time for qualifying, but a small mistake late in the session meant the Queenslander missed out on the all-important Fast Six.  

Starting seventh, Power was late in the car after a scramble to find communication gear at the race start and was unable to do an extra lap on the first stint due to fuel usage, dropping positions and crossing the line in 10th as a result.  

Meanwhile, Scott McLaughlin continued his brilliant form with a second-place finish behind race winner, Kyle Kirkwood.  

After claiming an emphatic pole position the day before, the New Zealander and Aussie favourite endured an entertaining battle with Kirkwood in the dying stages of the race – ultimately falling short by just seven-tenths of a second.  

Racing at the same meet, Nathan Herne has broken a streak of bad luck to finish on the podium in the American Trans Am Series.  

His second-place finish came off the back of a brilliant P2 in qualifying the day before, with the Lismore product even having led the race at one stage before a poorly timed yellow flag demoted him back down to second.

Despite missing out on the win, Herne still secured his first podium finish since the second round of the season.  

Another driver suffering from some poor luck last weekend was Harri Jones in the Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland, finishing in 14th in race one before a DNF in the final outing.  

The 14th place and second class finish may seem bleak on paper, but the result came after a penalty was awarded due to an earlier incident, demoting the Australian down after crossing the line in 10th outright and first in the rookie class.  

The second race was looking extremely positive throughout, with Jones running in the top five in the challenging, wet conditions before being on the receiving end of a desperation move from a competitor behind – damaging the car enough for the team to retire in P18.  

Despite the unfortunate result, Jones now leads the Rookie Championship after a drama-filled weekend across the rest of the grid as well.