Road Atlanta Post-Race Notebook

Photo: Jake Galstad/IMSA

***Pipo Derani, Alexander Sims, Action Express Racing and Cadillac won the first GTP titles of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship era in Saturday’s season-ending Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta, following a hard-fought season that saw six driver pairings enter the event with a mathematical chance of the championship.

***Four of those driver pairings — Derani and Sims, the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport duo of Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque, BMW M Team RLL’s Connor De Phillippi and Nick Yelloly and the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport pair of Matt Campbell and Felipe Nasr, all provisionally led the GTP standings at points during the ten-hour contest.

***Cadillac claimed its fourth IMSA manufacturer championship, fifth Michelin Endurance Cup manufacturer championship, fourth driver/team championship, fifth Endurance Cup driver championship and third Endurance Cup team championship since entering IMSA prototype competition in 2017.

***Meyer Shank Racing’s Tom Blomqvist and Colin Braun, who along with Helio Castroneves won Saturday’s race, finished 22 points behind Derani and Sims in the standings, meaning the Acura duo would have been crowned champions had they not received the 200-point penalty due to the team’s tire pressure manipulation in the season-opening Rolex 24 at Daytona.

***Renger van der Zande stretched the energy of the No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-Series.R to a 1 hour and 33-minute final stint, en route to a second-place finish for the car that led a race-high 223 laps. “Making it to the end, it was about saving fuel a bit but it was mainly the yellows,” van der Zande told Sportscar365. “I think the yellows made it possible. It was maybe a bit of a gamble but we made it to the end.”

***Van der Zande’s co-driver Sebastien Bourdais credited Michelin’s medium SHT compound tire for their pace on Saturday. “Quite honestly, we’ve said it all along, on the Michelin SHT, we’ve been strong and have been happy making grip,” the Frenchman said. “It’s just not been true with the MHT and all summer we were on the MHT tire.”

***Filipe Albuquerque was evaluated and released from a local hospital following his late-race accident involving Derani while fighting for second in the race and the effective championship lead. “I am fine,” Albuquerque wrote on X. “Thanks everyone for the messages. My right hand hurts a bit and back but I will be fine. Thanks IMSA for the quick assistance and to my teammate[s] that were waiting for me at the hospital.”

***The title-winning No. 31 Whelen Engineering-sponsored Cadillac bounced back from a stop-plus 60-second penalty in the second hour when Sims ran the pit exit light and was rear-ended by the No. 25 BMW M Hybrid V8 of Sheldon van der Linde, requiring a rear deck change for the Cadillac.

***The BMW, meanwhile, also received a stop-plus 60-second penalty and an additional drive-through for incident responsibility. Both BMWs struggled on pit road all race, unable to match the times of their competition.

***With its GTP title win, Action Express has earned an automatic invite to next year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, while George Kurtz (LMP2) and Brendan Iribe (LMGT3) have picked up entries to the French endurance classic, courtesy of winning the Jim Trueman and Bob Akin awards, respectively.

***Porsche Penske Motorsport changed the entire rear end of its No. 6 Porsche 963 after Nick Tandy was caught up in a multi-car accident early in the second hour. “The rear corner was damaged and there was a lot of bodywork damage all around the car,” Porsche factory LMDh director Urs Kuratle told Sportscar365. “That was an hour repair or so.”

***Kuratle added that the No. 7 Porsche, which finished fourth in the hands of Matt Campbell, Felipe Nasr and Josef Newgarden, ran with a damaged splitter in the evening. “That for sure did not help,” he said. “But Matt did a great job. He stayed a long time in the car.”

***Campbell told Sportscar365 that his Porsche had four laps more fuel over the other GTPs based on a fuel-saving strategy. “I felt that we could have done the same as the No. 01 and maybe stayed out on the track [at the first final-hour caution],” he said. “We had the fuel advantage over everyone so it might have worked out.”

***Results in the GTP class remain provisional until final technical inspection is completed later this week at NASCAR’s R&D facility in Concord, N.C. for “additional impounded components.”

***LMP2 class champion Ben Keating praised Alex Quinn’s recovery through the gravel trap aboard the No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca 07 Gibson in the closing hours to salvage a third-place class finish, enough to score the title over race winners CrowdStrike Racing by APR.

***Silver-rated Quinn said: “For those that don’t know, when I’m not at a race track, I’m a farmer, so I think that paid off, the experience I learned from getting stuck in fields during the winter or whatever. I just had to manage it.”

***Ben Hanley and George Kurtz and CrowdStrike by APR, meanwhile, picked up the Endurance Cup titles in LMP2, having taken class wins at the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen and Petit Le Mans. The No. 04 Oreca came back from a drive-through penalty in the opening hour for passing under yellow.

***Jr III Racing won the final LMP3 race in the WeatherTech Championship following Garett Grist’s late-race move on the No. 74 Riley Ligier JS P320 Nissan of Felipe Fraga, which forced Fraga to the pits with a left-rear puncture. Riley, which clinched the season-long class title with driver Gar Robinson by just starting the race, finished third in class.

***Grist said of the incident: “I had a good run out of T7 and was catching him down the backstraight in his draft. I think he was probably a bit surprised that I sent it from that far back. But I was a long way up aside him once we got to the apex. Unfortunately there was contact; there’s been a lot of contact between those two cars this year. Unfortunately he got a puncture. I didn’t want that to happen to them. It was my best opportunity so I took it.”

***The No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 of Jack Hawksworth and Ben Barnicoat recorded its first retirement since the 2022 Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring after Barnicoat damaged the nose of the GTD Pro championship-winning car when it dug into the grass at the Esses in the fifth hour.

***Hawksworth and Barnicoat locked up the class title by starting the race, marking a long-awaited first championship for Lexus.

***The GTD class-winning No. 78 Forte Racing by US RaceTronics Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 of Loris Spinelli, Misha Goikhberg and Patrick Liddy overcame three drive-through penalties — one for jumping the restart in the fourth hour, another for incident responsibility with the No. 27 The Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 with three hours to go and an additional one for working outside the pit box.

***It marked Lamborghini’s maiden WeatherTech Championship win for the Huracan GT3 EVO2 and the Italian manufacturer’s first triumph in the series since Long Beach 2021 with Paul Miller Racing. USRT also delivered Lamborghini’s first] Endurance Cup GTD victory since Paul Miller Racing won the 2020 Rolex 24 at Daytona more than three and a half years ago.

***Risi Competizione took its second podium of the year, although reigning Endurance Cup champion Davide Rigon felt the Balance of Performance worked against the Ferrari 296 GT3 in its first season. “The team put us always in a good strategy,” he told Sportscar365. “But when we needed to have the pace, we didn’t have it. The only race that pretty fair was Watkins where we were quite competitive.”

***Rahel Frey told Sportscar365 that the No. 83 Iron Dames Lamborghini suffered a broken right-rear damper after being hit by an LMP3 car at Turn 6. It ended a promising early run for the all-female lineup after Doriane Pin charged into the GTD lead at the start of the race.

***Iron Lynx team principal Andrea Piccini could hardly believe his team’s misfortune as it lost another opportunity to capitalize on a competitive car. Despite starting from the back, the No. 63 Lamborghini was one of the quickest machines in GTD Pro but it got caught up in a multi-car incident at the final restart.

***Piccini told Sportscar365: “Nothing went the right way. The last four races we did, we qualified on the first row, both here and in GT World Challenge [Europe]. It will come. We brought the car to a very good level after struggling at the beginning of the season. That’s the positive we can take from this race.”

***Proton Competition had two lineups on two different podiums as the German squad finished third overall with its customer Porsche 963 and engineered the GTD Pro-winning WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

***It could end up being a farewell victory for its Mercedes-AMG, which was not shown on last Thursday’s 2024 WeatherTech Championship entry list, raising questions about its future. Sportscar365 understands that WeatherTech, which announced a five-year contract extension as the series’ title sponsor, is exploring options of remaining on the grid. Cooper MacNeil was on-site this weekend.

***GTD Pro winner Daniel Juncadella said he and Pfaff Motorsports’ Kevin Estre had a “qualifying battle” in the closing stages. “I haven’t had the chance in the last couple of years to be in this position to finish a race for a win, but today I think I showed that I can do it as well,” Juncadella told Sportscar365.

***WeatherTech Racing took the GTD Pro lead at the final pit stops under caution. “The [Pfaff] Porsche took a gamble pitted early and were a bit off-set on fuel,” said Juncadella. “I just focused on fuel-saving in my second-last stint to jump them in the pits if we got a yellow, and that’s what happened. It was our only chance because we were a little bit behind on outright pace at the time.”

***The race featured 13 full-course cautions, totaling 93 laps or three-and-a-half hours of time behind the safety car.

***Driving standards were mentioned by many drivers during in-race broadcast interviews as incidents peppered the running. One team manager proposed to Sportscar365 that a behavior warning points system, such as that used by SRO Motorsports Group, or stricter licensing requirements could be an effective way to reduce incidents.

Daniel Lloyd contributed to this report

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John