The Action Express Racing team claimed its third victory of the season in Saturday’s Chevrolet Sports Car Classic in Detroit, and with its second different Cadillac DPi-V.R.

Whelen Engineering’s No. 31 Cadillac driven by Eric Curran and Felipe Nasr joined the sister No. 5 Mustang Sampling Cadillac in winning during the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship 2018 season. The No. 5 car has won twice this year in Prototype while the No. 31 car now has its first win of the year.

Action Express split its strategies. The No. 31 car pitted for full service during a full-course caution 19 minutes into the race, switching from Curran to Nasr and taking on four tires. Its No. 5 car of Joao Barbosa and Filipe Albuquerque stayed out, planning only a single stop.

For the final stop, this meant the No. 31 car could force Acura Team Penske’s hand and pit for fuel only, and seven minutes later the Penske cars were in. The No. 7 car took fuel and four tires while the No. 6 car took fuel only.

Despite the fresher tires on the No. 7 Acura, Ricky Taylor was unable to hunt down Nasr. Nasr controlled the pace and carved through traffic at a great rate. This ensure he kept General Motors’ streak of victories in Detroit alive.

A GM product has won in every IMSA-sanctioned race at Belle Isle Park since 2007.

“It took a few races to come, but I’ll take it,” Nasr said (Photo courtesy of IMSA, left). “The way we made it this weekend, Eric, the whole Action Express team did an amazing job, especially after our free practice. I had a little mistake that put us on the back foot, the guys put the car back together, Eric put on an amazing qualifying and a mega start.”

Unfortunately the sister car ran out of fuel just two corners from the finish, and Albuquerque and Barbosa fell to sixth after limping the car home.

Provisionally, both sets of Action Express Racing teammates – Albuquerque and Barbosa and Nasr and Curran – are tied for the championship lead with 144 points. The No. 5 car pair holds the tiebreak by way of two wins to one.

In Prototype, Cadillac leads Acura by 12 points (167-155) in the manufacturer’s standings.

IMSA resumes at Watkins Glen on July 1, with the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen.