Sheena Monk secures seventh at Long Beach with strong, clean drive
- RACERS
- 3 hours ago
- 4 min read
Sheena Monk and Myers Riley Motorsports teammate Felipe Fraga maximized their package at Long Beach with a clean and consistent performance, securing seventh in GTD and valuable points in the Bob Akin Award standings.
Sheena Monk and Felipe Fraga converted a challenging start to the weekend into a strong seventh-place finish in the GTD class for Myers Riley Motorsports at the IMSA Long Beach Grand Prix. The result marked the duo’s best of the 2026 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season so far, and a significant step forward after a string of misfortunes in the opening endurance rounds at Daytona and Sebring.
The Long Beach event, first sprint race of the season following the 24 Hours of Daytona and 12 Hours of Sebring, presented a very different challenge, with a 100-minute contest around one of the shortest and most challenging circuits on the calendar. The tight street track, steeped in history across Formula 1, IndyCar and endurance racing, demands precision, track position, and flawless execution - qualities that Monk and Fraga would demonstrate across the race despite struggling with outright pace in the early sessions of the weekend.
Practice proved difficult for the #16 Ford Mustang GT3, with the Myers Riley Motorsports crew struggling to extract peak performance; the Monk/Fraga pairing ended both sessions 15th fastest in GTD. Nevertheless, steady improvements hinted at potential.
In qualifying, it was Bronze-rated driver Sheena Monk who took the wheel, delivering a 1:20.578 lap to secure P15 on the grid. Importantly, she placed second among the Bronze entries, trailing only Brendan Iribe in the #70 Inception Racing Ferrari, immediately putting herself in contention for valuable Bob Akin Award points.
At the start of the race, Monk made a clean getaway and immediately gained two positions to move up to P13 before an early full-course yellow was triggered by an incident involving the #81 DragonSpeed and #13 13Autosport Corvette. On the restart, she briefly dropped to P14 but quickly settled into a consistent rhythm, lapping in the low 1:21 range and eventually gaining another spot on the WTR Lamborghini of Danny Formal, reclaiming P13.
Throughout her stint, Monk demonstrated one of her hallmark strengths: consistency. Running clean laps in the 1:21–1:22 range, she steadily closed the gap to fellow Bronze contender Iribe, reducing it to around one second by lap 20. Maintaining strong pace without mistakes, she remained second among Bronze drivers and completed her drive time at the 40-minute mark.
Executing a well-timed stop with approximately one hour remaining, she handed the car over to Fraga from P12 after a disciplined and competitive opening stint.
Fraga’s run was immediately interrupted by several cautions. An incident among the GTP leaders, where the #25 BMW was forced into the wall, brought out another Full Course Yellow shortly after the pit stops, promoting Fraga to P11 in GTD but also trapping him a lap down behind the safety car.
A subsequent restart was quickly neutralized again following another GTP incident involving the #23 Aston Martin Valkyrie, but crucially, Fraga managed to regain his lap when racing resumed with 43 minutes to go.
Once back on the lead lap, Fraga began to showcase the car’s true pace. Setting laps in the 1:19.7 range and consistently running in the 1:19s, he matched the speed of those ahead, including Frederik Schandorff in the Inception Ferrari. Another caution, triggered by Ricky Taylor’s Cadillac hitting the barriers on lap 52, reset the field once more, setting up a tense final phase.
On the restart, Fraga kept the car clean and began to advance, moving up into the top ten and running closely behind Frankie Montecalvo’s Vasser Sullivan Lexus, while Bronze rival Schandorff continued to climb through the field. The closing stages became increasingly intense, with multiple position changes and incidents; Harry King dropped back in the AO Racing Porsche, while Corey Lewis was sent into the wall at the final corner following contact with Andrea Caldarelli’s Pfaff Lamborghini.
Fraga capitalized on the chaos, climbing to eighth overall before another late caution was deployed with just eight minutes remaining. A quick cleanup led to a final restart with six minutes to go, and a penalty for Caldarelli elevated the #16 Mustang further up the order. Fraga held position in the closing laps to take the chequered flag in seventh overall in GTD, securing second place among the Bronze entries.
The result marked a well-earned breakthrough for Monk and the Myers Riley Motorsports team, who maximized their package at Long Beach. It also translated into strong points for the Bob Akin Award, with Monk now moving up to third in the standings on 850 points after three rounds, confirming the American as one of the leading Bronze drivers in the field.
“We’re really happy for the team and for everyone at Myers Riley to come away with a finish and get the ball rolling for the season,” said Monk. “We scored good points in the Bronze Championship, and considering our pace relative to the field, I think we really maximized the package we had today."
"The car felt really nice to drive, Felipe and I kept it clean, and I was able to make up a few spots early in the race", she continued. "Felipe did a great job clawing through traffic during his stint. Hopefully this puts some of the bad luck behind us, and now we’re ready to attack the rest of the year.”
With momentum finally building after a difficult start to the season, Monk and Fraga will now look ahead to the next round at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca on May 2–3, where they will aim to build on this confidence-boosting result.