Click for more.
IMSA says that 241 race transporters as well as the cars and trucks that carried in thousands of week-long campers and daily ticket holders to the Road Atlanta infield where the 10-hour Petite LeMans was scheduled to run was at capacity by early Thursday afternoon. Local landowners then rented their properties to IMSA to create additional parking areas outside the 2.54-mile circuit for the season ending series finale.
“We had a complete sellout,” said IMSA President John Doonan. “We had to stop selling tickets because we couldn’t fit any more people in. From the attendance to the racing, it was truly an epic weekend.”
Race day at Road Atlanta began when Porsche factory driver Julien Andlauer withdrew from the race for medical reasons. The Frenchman was scheduled to join Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet in the No. 6 car. then took on a double role, driving stints in both of the factory team’s Porsche 963 cars as the third driver.
Under partly cloudy skies and temperatures of 25 degrees Celsius, shortly after the start, Felipe Nasr in the No. 7 advanced into three The No. 6 sister car later spent a long stint at the front. After ten hours of racing at Petit Le Mans on Road Atlanta, victory once again eluded them. The two Porsche 963s finished in third and tenth place. However, that was enough to secure all championship crowns. (Read Ken Zino of AutoInformed.com on: Porsche Dumps World Endurance Cup!)
“I struggle to find the words – sweeping the title pool two years running is simply incredible,” said Thomas Laudenbach, Vice President Porsche Motorsport. “I want to pay a huge compliment to everyone involved. I’m immensely proud. Achievements like this don’t come around often, and I’ll need some time to fully appreciate the scale of these successes.”
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“This championship is a testament to the entire Porsche Penske Motorsport team and the hard work and dedication they invest into this program every day,” said Roger Penske, Founder and Chairman of the Penske Corporation. “The season started with four consecutive victories, including back-to-back 24 Hours of Daytona wins, and has continued into 10 total podiums. That type of success isn’t accomplished without great drivers, leaders and a resilient crew. The commitment to winning together has been unwavering and defending the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship title is reflection of those efforts from all the men and women across both Mooresville and Germany.”
At General Motors Things were inarguably smoother. Cadillac Racing successfully defended its Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) victory in the Motul Petit Le Mans as the No. 31 Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R took the checkered flag for the second consecutive race. Cadillac has recorded five victories in the annual 10-hour IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season-ending clash since entering prototype competition in 2017 and scored its 33rd IMSA triumph in that span. The No. 31 Whelen Cadillac, campaigned by Action Express Racing, owns two Petit Le Mans wins (2019 in DPi era). The No. 31 Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R was quickest in two daylight practice sessions, earned a front row start, led the most laps led, set the quickest lap of the race and had faultless pit stops, which all combined to secure the victory.
“Congratulations to Cadillac Racing and the No. 31 Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R on their win in the 28th Motul Petit Le Mans. The overall victory showcases the deep capabilities and determination of the Cadillac Racing team,” said John Roth, vice president, Global Cadillac. “Drivers Jack Aitken, Earl Bamber and Frederik Vesti and every single member of the team can be proud of today’s victory. Racing is in our DNA and showcases our innovation while helping us develop future technologies for our cars and customers.”
The No. 10 Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing V-Series.R, with Ricky Taylor, Filipe Albuquerque and Will Stevens sharing driving duties on the 2.54-mile, 12-turn Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta road course, finished sixth. Jordan Taylor, Louis Deletraz and Norman Nato combined to drive the No. 40 Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing V-Series.R to eighth place after starting 11th in the 12-car GTP field. Three weeks earlier at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Aitken relieved Bamber and held off multiple challenges while driving the final 82 minutes to register the team’s 30th IMSA victory and Cadillac’s first at the Brickyard. At Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta, Bamber took over from Aitken with the lead and raced the final 1 hour, 59 minutes under the green flag. He prevailed by 5.182 seconds following a splash of fuel with 13 minutes left. The result advanced Aitken to second in the full-season Driver Championship and Action Express Racing to second in the Team Championship.
Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports capped an incredible day at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta with a pair of podium finishes to go along with a GTD PRO championship sweep at the 10-hour Petit Le Mans on Saturday. Tommy Milner, Nicky Catsburg and Nico Varrone placed second in class with their No. 4 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R, just ahead of the GTD PRO Drivers Championship pairing of Antonio Garcia and Alexander Sims plus Daniel Juncadella in the No. 3 Corvette.
It marked the first double-podium for the Pratt Miller Corvette squad since 2008. The result didn’t just secure the class Drivers Championship but also the Manufacturers Championship for Chevrolet and the Teams’ title for the No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports group.
In No. 3 Corvette, the focus was to finish ahead of the No. 81 Ferrari – the closest competitor for the class championship. “Garcia began eighth but couldn’t gain much ground on the No. 81 given nearly 30 minutes of full-course yellow in the race, “Corvette racing said.
Garcia drove the first three hours and handed over to Sims with the Corvette in the top-five but still behind the Ferrari. That changed just after the four-hour mark when the No. 3 Corvette team got Sims in and out of the pit-lane quicker than their championship rivals. The two cars ran close together for the next two-and-a-half hours before the Corvette moved ahead for good with three hours to go.
“This was really tight. I would have liked a more relaxed fight with not around 10 points between us! It was a very tight race. We turned things around between qualifying and now,” said Antonio Garcia (No. 3 Corvette Z06 GT3.R), I knew the car was there since Lap One. We just needed to stay focused and keep getting places. We didn’t have the pace to pass people on track, but we did a fantastic job by saving fuel, doing everything right, gaining positions and taking every opportunity where we could. So six championships! It’s a group effort. That doesn’t happen without Corvette Racing and all the teammates I’ve had over the past 16 years.”
In GTD, AWA celebrated winning both the season-long Bob Akin Award and taking the race’s Akin trophy with the No. 13 Corvette Z06 GT3.R as the highest-finishing GTD car with a Bronze-rated driver. Orey Fidani, who teamed with Matt Bell and Lars Kern, won his second straight Akin championship and a return trip to next year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. The trio finished ninth in class after starting 19th to cap a season that began with a class victory in the Rolex 24 At Daytona.
DXDT Racing’s trio of Charlie Eastwood, Alec Udell and Salih Yoluc likewise raced through the field to finish seventh in GTD. Their No. 36 Corvette began 17th but Yoluc drove a triple-stint at the front – same as Fidani – to open up the strategy options. Udell and Eastwood split the mid-race driving before Eastwood went to the end and wrapped up the team’s first season in IMSA.
There will always be an England – Aston Martin’s new Valkyrie Hypercar achieved its first podium finish anywhere in the world with a run to finish second overall at the Motul Petit Le Mans. It was the first outright podium for an Aston Martin in IMSA, and the first for a hypercar derived from a road-going counterpart in the top tier GTP class.
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Valkyrie on Thursday led the timesheets in an official IMSA session for the first time as 2022 IMSA GTD champion Roman De Angelis (CAN) went fastest in night practice. This was followed by team-mate Ross Gunn (GBR) taking the hypercar’s best qualifying result to date with fifth place on Friday. De Angelis and Gunn, THOR’S regular IMSA season drivers, were joined at Petit Le Mans by Alex Riberas (SPA); part of Aston Martin THOR Team’s FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) line-up and a multiple race winner in IMSA’s GTD classes.
All three drove well, and with some clever strategic calls from the pit crew, raced Valkyrie #23 into a podium spot with two hours to go. Key here was a decision to make a final pitstop with 50 minutes left, rather than hypothetically staying out in case of a Full-Course Yellow period, which could have allowed the car’s energy reserves to be stretched without an additional stop. This meant that De Angelis ran at full attack to the end of the race.
Despite dropping to seventh, 50 seconds behind the leader, he charged back into contention while gaining positions as the track remained ‘green’ and others made their final fuel stops. The Valkyrie slotted into second with less than 10 minutes remaining. De Angelis closed to within six seconds of the victory while securing the best result for Valkyrie in all competitions, completing an IMSA season in which the car finished every race and completed over 4300 miles of hard racing around eight North American motorsport venues.
Full Petit Le Mans Race Results here.
About Ken Zino
Ken Zino, editor and publisher of AutoInformed, is a versatile auto industry participant with global experience spanning decades in print and broadcast journalism, as well as social media. He has automobile testing, marketing, public relations and communications experience. He is past president of The International Motor Press Assn, the Detroit Press Club, founding member and first President of the Automotive Press Assn. He is a member of APA, IMPA and the Midwest Automotive Press Assn.
He also brings an historical perspective while citing their contemporary relevance of the work of legendary auto writers such as Ken Purdy, Jim Dunne or Jerry Flint, or writers such as Red Smith, Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson – all to bring perspective to a chaotic automotive universe.
Above all, decades after he first drove a car, Zino still revels in the sound of the exhaust as the throttle is blipped during a downshift and the driver’s rush that occurs when the entry, apex and exit points of a turn are smoothly and swiftly crossed. It’s the beginning of a perfect lap.
AutoInformed has an editorial philosophy that loves transportation machines of all kinds while promoting critical thinking about the future use of cars and trucks.
Zino builds AutoInformed from his background in automotive journalism starting at Hearst Publishing in New York City on Motor and MotorTech Magazines and car testing where he reviewed hundreds of vehicles in his decade-long stint as the Detroit Bureau Chief of Road & Track magazine. Zino has also worked in Europe, and Asia – now the largest automotive market in the world with China at its center.
IMSA Petit Le Mans – Cadillac, Corvette, Porsche Win in Finale
Click for more.
IMSA says that 241 race transporters as well as the cars and trucks that carried in thousands of week-long campers and daily ticket holders to the Road Atlanta infield where the 10-hour Petite LeMans was scheduled to run was at capacity by early Thursday afternoon. Local landowners then rented their properties to IMSA to create additional parking areas outside the 2.54-mile circuit for the season ending series finale.
“We had a complete sellout,” said IMSA President John Doonan. “We had to stop selling tickets because we couldn’t fit any more people in. From the attendance to the racing, it was truly an epic weekend.”
Race day at Road Atlanta began when Porsche factory driver Julien Andlauer withdrew from the race for medical reasons. The Frenchman was scheduled to join Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet in the No. 6 car. then took on a double role, driving stints in both of the factory team’s Porsche 963 cars as the third driver.
Under partly cloudy skies and temperatures of 25 degrees Celsius, shortly after the start, Felipe Nasr in the No. 7 advanced into three The No. 6 sister car later spent a long stint at the front. After ten hours of racing at Petit Le Mans on Road Atlanta, victory once again eluded them. The two Porsche 963s finished in third and tenth place. However, that was enough to secure all championship crowns. (Read Ken Zino of AutoInformed.com on: Porsche Dumps World Endurance Cup!)
“I struggle to find the words – sweeping the title pool two years running is simply incredible,” said Thomas Laudenbach, Vice President Porsche Motorsport. “I want to pay a huge compliment to everyone involved. I’m immensely proud. Achievements like this don’t come around often, and I’ll need some time to fully appreciate the scale of these successes.”
Click for more.
“This championship is a testament to the entire Porsche Penske Motorsport team and the hard work and dedication they invest into this program every day,” said Roger Penske, Founder and Chairman of the Penske Corporation. “The season started with four consecutive victories, including back-to-back 24 Hours of Daytona wins, and has continued into 10 total podiums. That type of success isn’t accomplished without great drivers, leaders and a resilient crew. The commitment to winning together has been unwavering and defending the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship title is reflection of those efforts from all the men and women across both Mooresville and Germany.”
At General Motors Things were inarguably smoother. Cadillac Racing successfully defended its Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) victory in the Motul Petit Le Mans as the No. 31 Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R took the checkered flag for the second consecutive race. Cadillac has recorded five victories in the annual 10-hour IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season-ending clash since entering prototype competition in 2017 and scored its 33rd IMSA triumph in that span. The No. 31 Whelen Cadillac, campaigned by Action Express Racing, owns two Petit Le Mans wins (2019 in DPi era). The No. 31 Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R was quickest in two daylight practice sessions, earned a front row start, led the most laps led, set the quickest lap of the race and had faultless pit stops, which all combined to secure the victory.
“Congratulations to Cadillac Racing and the No. 31 Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R on their win in the 28th Motul Petit Le Mans. The overall victory showcases the deep capabilities and determination of the Cadillac Racing team,” said John Roth, vice president, Global Cadillac. “Drivers Jack Aitken, Earl Bamber and Frederik Vesti and every single member of the team can be proud of today’s victory. Racing is in our DNA and showcases our innovation while helping us develop future technologies for our cars and customers.”
The No. 10 Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing V-Series.R, with Ricky Taylor, Filipe Albuquerque and Will Stevens sharing driving duties on the 2.54-mile, 12-turn Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta road course, finished sixth. Jordan Taylor, Louis Deletraz and Norman Nato combined to drive the No. 40 Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing V-Series.R to eighth place after starting 11th in the 12-car GTP field. Three weeks earlier at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Aitken relieved Bamber and held off multiple challenges while driving the final 82 minutes to register the team’s 30th IMSA victory and Cadillac’s first at the Brickyard. At Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta, Bamber took over from Aitken with the lead and raced the final 1 hour, 59 minutes under the green flag. He prevailed by 5.182 seconds following a splash of fuel with 13 minutes left. The result advanced Aitken to second in the full-season Driver Championship and Action Express Racing to second in the Team Championship.
Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports capped an incredible day at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta with a pair of podium finishes to go along with a GTD PRO championship sweep at the 10-hour Petit Le Mans on Saturday. Tommy Milner, Nicky Catsburg and Nico Varrone placed second in class with their No. 4 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R, just ahead of the GTD PRO Drivers Championship pairing of Antonio Garcia and Alexander Sims plus Daniel Juncadella in the No. 3 Corvette.
It marked the first double-podium for the Pratt Miller Corvette squad since 2008. The result didn’t just secure the class Drivers Championship but also the Manufacturers Championship for Chevrolet and the Teams’ title for the No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports group.
In No. 3 Corvette, the focus was to finish ahead of the No. 81 Ferrari – the closest competitor for the class championship. “Garcia began eighth but couldn’t gain much ground on the No. 81 given nearly 30 minutes of full-course yellow in the race, “Corvette racing said.
Garcia drove the first three hours and handed over to Sims with the Corvette in the top-five but still behind the Ferrari. That changed just after the four-hour mark when the No. 3 Corvette team got Sims in and out of the pit-lane quicker than their championship rivals. The two cars ran close together for the next two-and-a-half hours before the Corvette moved ahead for good with three hours to go.
“This was really tight. I would have liked a more relaxed fight with not around 10 points between us! It was a very tight race. We turned things around between qualifying and now,” said Antonio Garcia (No. 3 Corvette Z06 GT3.R), I knew the car was there since Lap One. We just needed to stay focused and keep getting places. We didn’t have the pace to pass people on track, but we did a fantastic job by saving fuel, doing everything right, gaining positions and taking every opportunity where we could. So six championships! It’s a group effort. That doesn’t happen without Corvette Racing and all the teammates I’ve had over the past 16 years.”
In GTD, AWA celebrated winning both the season-long Bob Akin Award and taking the race’s Akin trophy with the No. 13 Corvette Z06 GT3.R as the highest-finishing GTD car with a Bronze-rated driver. Orey Fidani, who teamed with Matt Bell and Lars Kern, won his second straight Akin championship and a return trip to next year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. The trio finished ninth in class after starting 19th to cap a season that began with a class victory in the Rolex 24 At Daytona.
DXDT Racing’s trio of Charlie Eastwood, Alec Udell and Salih Yoluc likewise raced through the field to finish seventh in GTD. Their No. 36 Corvette began 17th but Yoluc drove a triple-stint at the front – same as Fidani – to open up the strategy options. Udell and Eastwood split the mid-race driving before Eastwood went to the end and wrapped up the team’s first season in IMSA.
There will always be an England – Aston Martin’s new Valkyrie Hypercar achieved its first podium finish anywhere in the world with a run to finish second overall at the Motul Petit Le Mans. It was the first outright podium for an Aston Martin in IMSA, and the first for a hypercar derived from a road-going counterpart in the top tier GTP class.
Click for more.
Valkyrie on Thursday led the timesheets in an official IMSA session for the first time as 2022 IMSA GTD champion Roman De Angelis (CAN) went fastest in night practice. This was followed by team-mate Ross Gunn (GBR) taking the hypercar’s best qualifying result to date with fifth place on Friday. De Angelis and Gunn, THOR’S regular IMSA season drivers, were joined at Petit Le Mans by Alex Riberas (SPA); part of Aston Martin THOR Team’s FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) line-up and a multiple race winner in IMSA’s GTD classes.
All three drove well, and with some clever strategic calls from the pit crew, raced Valkyrie #23 into a podium spot with two hours to go. Key here was a decision to make a final pitstop with 50 minutes left, rather than hypothetically staying out in case of a Full-Course Yellow period, which could have allowed the car’s energy reserves to be stretched without an additional stop. This meant that De Angelis ran at full attack to the end of the race.
Despite dropping to seventh, 50 seconds behind the leader, he charged back into contention while gaining positions as the track remained ‘green’ and others made their final fuel stops. The Valkyrie slotted into second with less than 10 minutes remaining. De Angelis closed to within six seconds of the victory while securing the best result for Valkyrie in all competitions, completing an IMSA season in which the car finished every race and completed over 4300 miles of hard racing around eight North American motorsport venues.
Full Petit Le Mans Race Results here.
About Ken Zino
Ken Zino, editor and publisher of AutoInformed, is a versatile auto industry participant with global experience spanning decades in print and broadcast journalism, as well as social media. He has automobile testing, marketing, public relations and communications experience. He is past president of The International Motor Press Assn, the Detroit Press Club, founding member and first President of the Automotive Press Assn. He is a member of APA, IMPA and the Midwest Automotive Press Assn. He also brings an historical perspective while citing their contemporary relevance of the work of legendary auto writers such as Ken Purdy, Jim Dunne or Jerry Flint, or writers such as Red Smith, Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson – all to bring perspective to a chaotic automotive universe. Above all, decades after he first drove a car, Zino still revels in the sound of the exhaust as the throttle is blipped during a downshift and the driver’s rush that occurs when the entry, apex and exit points of a turn are smoothly and swiftly crossed. It’s the beginning of a perfect lap. AutoInformed has an editorial philosophy that loves transportation machines of all kinds while promoting critical thinking about the future use of cars and trucks. Zino builds AutoInformed from his background in automotive journalism starting at Hearst Publishing in New York City on Motor and MotorTech Magazines and car testing where he reviewed hundreds of vehicles in his decade-long stint as the Detroit Bureau Chief of Road & Track magazine. Zino has also worked in Europe, and Asia – now the largest automotive market in the world with China at its center.