The Top Five GTP Teams in the Championship Points Hold the Top Five Positions after Eight Hours at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta
By Mark Robinson
Motul Petit Le Mans Eight-Hour Results
BRASELTON, Ga. – The battle for the Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) championship was still wide open as darkness fell at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta and the final two hours of the 26th annual Motul Petit Le Mans remained today to determine the title winners in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s popular new hybrid power prototype class.
Catch the exciting conclusion of the iconic endurance race live on USA Network, Peacock and IMSA Radio.
After eight hours of intense racing on the 2.54-mile road course, Sebastien Bourdais led the race in the No. 01 Cadillac Racing Cadillac V-Series.R. The top nine GTP cars were still on the lead lap after 326 laps, including those with realistic championship aspirations holding the top five spots. The No. 10 Konica Minolta Acura ARX-06 was running in second place, the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac was third, the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 fourth and the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Acura fifth.
Scott Dixon, the six-time IndyCar Series champion and endurance driver for the No. 01 Cadillac from Chip Ganassi Racing, ran in first or second place throughout his midrace stint before turning the car back over to Bourdais. Dixon’s main goal was keeping the No. 01 clean for his co-drivers to finish strong.
“This place can be tricky,” Dixon said. “Very high risk, high reward, which I love these old-school American circuits. It’s a privilege to race here.
“I could have pushed harder (but) I wanted to offload it to my teammates in a good place. … The last half stint for me, I used the tires a bit. I could have pushed harder throughout. Now’s when people start taking risks. Traffic can slow you up. When you feel pressure from behind, that creates accidents. Hopefully, the (No.) 01 can stay out of trouble.”
Alexander Sims drove a lengthy midrace stint in the No. 31 Cadillac to help set up the team for the finish. The Brit is confident he and co-drivers Pipo Derani and Jack Aitken can be in the mix at the end.
“The car feels the best it’s been all the time we’ve been here at Road Atlanta this year, honestly,” Sims said. “We’ve done a couple of test days and all through practice here, and it’s now in a really nice window.”
Jenson Button, the 2009 Formula One World Champion making his WeatherTech Championship debut, turned his first race laps in the No. 5 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche 963 in a midrace stint. The Brit was pleased with the outing.
“I had great fun out there,” Button said. “I had a great scrap with Josef Newgarden (in the No. 7 Penske Porsche), it was very cool. I enjoyed it. Just fighting with any of these guys and keeping up with them my first time in the car, I’m pretty happy with it.
“Sometimes it’s tricky with traffic, it really is, but I didn’t get overtaken by anyone because of traffic – just because I wasn’t quick enough. I had a couple of little scary moments where I went through the middle of two cars, but I’m having a lot of fun in my first experience of IMSA. It was a pleasant one but a manic one.”
Leaders in the other classes after eight hours were: the No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA LMP2 07 in Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2), the No. 30 Jr III Racing Ligier JS P320 in Le Mans Prototype 3 (LMP3), the No. 63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 in Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) and the No. 32 Korthoff Preston Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 in GT Daytona (GTD). Forty-five of the 52 cars that started this morning were still in the race.
Unlike the first four hours filled with incidents affecting the primary combatants, teams and drivers settled into a better rhythm over the next four hours of the race. Still, a few favorites encountered issues that ended their race prematurely.
Off-Course Excursion Sidelines No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus
The No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 clinched the GTD PRO season championship when it started the race, but the day ended for co-drivers Ben Barnicoat, Jack Hawksworth and Kyle Kirkwood when Barnicoat took a rough ride over a curb in the Turn 7 grass just past the four-hour mark.
Barnicoat had just made a pit stop and wasn’t prepared for the handling difference with the full fuel load. When the Lexus bottomed out in the wet, muddy grass, it tore off the front end and left it unrepairable.
“As the fuel burns down, you kind of creep up using more and more and more curbing,” Barnicoat said. “But the tank was now full again and I used a little bit too much curb, (combined with) low tire pressures, so when I landed, the car just slammed down and completely bottomed out.
“Really sorry to the guys, we really didn’t want it to end like this. Of course, we’re champions but you never want to make mistakes like that.”
Corvette Racing’s C8.R Program Comes to Premature End
An undetermined engine issue also cut short the race for another GTD PRO frontrunner, the No. 3 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C8.R GTD at the halfway mark of the race. Tommy Milner slowed suddenly going down the front straight and came to a stop in Turn 3, eliciting the eighth full-course caution of the day.
It brought to a close the four-year run of the C8.R race car, as Corvette moves to a customer program with its new Z06 GT3.R in 2024. Jordan Taylor, who along with co-driver Antonio Garcia, won back-to-back GT Le Mans (GTLM) championships with Corvette in 2020 and ’21, and first raced for the historic brand in 2012, fought back tears when he spoke with NBC Sports after the car retired.
“It’s been an amazing journey starting back in 2012, 20 years old coming in with this team,” Taylor said. “Definitely overwhelming back then and just intimidated by the whole situation. I’ve grown over the years with these guys and Antonio’s been my teammate since 2012 for almost half of my life.
“We’ve won Le Mans, Daytona, Sebring. This was the only one missing, Petit, so sad to not get this one. … Too bad it ended the way that it did but some amazing memories and relationships that we made along the way. … Sad, I mean, it’s hard.”
TDS Racing Eliminated from LMP2 Title Contention
The No. 11 TDS Racing ORECA was locked in a battle for the LMP2 championship with two other cars until Mikkel Jensen slid into a tire barrier with a little more than three hours to go. The car sustained significant right-side damage and limped back around to pit lane and straight to the garage area.
That left the No. 04 Crowdstrike Racing by APR ORECA and No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA to determine the class champion in the final two hours.
IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup Update
The Motul Petit Le Mans is also the final round of the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup consisting of the four longer races on the schedule. Teams in each class may earn a Michelin Endurance Cup championship by acquiring points for their position in class at designated junctures in the race. Points at Motul Petit Le Mans are awarded at the four- and eight-hour marks as well as the race finish.
At the eight-hour juncture, Michelin Endurance Cup championships had been clinched in three classes: the No. 31 Whelen Cadillac in GTP, the No. 74 Riley Ligier in LMP3 and the No. 79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 in GTD PRO. Leaders in the other classes are the No. 04 Crowdstrike Racing by APR ORECA in LMP2 and the No. 32 Korthoff Preston Motorsports Mercedes in GTD.