Welcome, everybody, to the finale of a long sports car racing season, on a mild and sunny afternoon at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta, just outside of Atlanta, Georgia, in the suburb of Braselton, for the 23rd annual running of the Petit Le Mans, an endurance racing classic, first run, to begin the unification of sports car racing, back in 1998, and a race that has since become an action packed event and the fourth and final round of the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup. This, is a championship within a championship. But, today's focus, will be on the overall title and the title in Daytona Prototype International, to be fought by two top teams with rich legacies in the modern era of the sport.
Action Express Racing, led by team owner Bob Johnson and team manager Gary Nelson, with drivers Felipe Nasr, Pipo Derani, and Mike Conway, racing for Cadillac in the Cadillac DPi-V.R., will compete for honors against the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura ARX-05 to be shared by Ricky Taylor, Filipe Albuquerque, and IndyCar stalwart, Alexander Rossi. These two teams, have been close competitors all year. Sports cars at full speed, for ten hours, day and night. The coolest cars on the planet, piloted by the biggest names from the world of motorsports.
What a gorgeous day! This is the final event of the WeatherTech Sports Car Championship. We have a temperature in the 50s, later in the year compared when we have run this race before. The speeds are mad. 43 cars set to start. Watch out for the hours of darkness, and it is going to be frigidly cold. Stay warm tonight. The track conditions will be a big deal. Over a quarter of the drivers have no experience in this race. In the practice sessions, Porsche #16 tangled with an LMP2 car. We have a lot of things to talk about as the engines have started. Cadillac #31 has been on a tear, nine points behind the Wayne Taylor Racing Acura.
Can the #31 win the title? They have work to do in the championship. In GT Daytona it will be a battle between the #1 Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini and the #9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche. We have a going away party for GTLM which are retiring. We are set for a star studded field. 15 makes of cars will be racing here today. The diversity of cars on the grid is incredible. Qualifying was scintillating as championship contender Felipe Nasr sticks the #31 Whelen Cadillac on the overall pole. Ben Keating and his team mates on pole in LMP2. Nicklas Kreutten is the LMP3 polesitter. Jesse Krohn and BMW on pole in GTLM while Paul Miller Racing is ready to race too.
Survive the out laps and make sure tonight you have the headlights to survive the darkness. It is going to get cooler tonight. The track is short at 2.54 miles with 43 cars on track. Everyone is amped up. Stay in control. Through turn ten, down the rollercoaster. Green flag and away we go! Felipe Nasr leads ahead of Oliver Jarvis and Dane Cameron. Through turn three for the first time on cold tires. Now we start the GT cars and it is a clean start as BMW is leading the two WeatherTech Porsche's, the Corvette's and the sister BMW. Connor De Philippi making his move. The prototypes stretch themselves into a rhythm.
Grab tire temp and tire degradation we should not really have to worry about. Mazda #55 of Harry Tincknell. We have leaves on the track in the autumn. Watch for that. Tight squeeze between the GT Daytona cars, Porsche vs, Lamborghini vs. McLaren as Trent Hindman has a cut left rear tire in the #16 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R and he will have to drive a full lap! Hindman tries leaving room but makes contact with Fred Schandorff in the McLaren and one of the Audi R8 LMS's. So, Pfaff Motorsports is going to press hard. Tincknell and Cameron are scrapping and letting Felipe Nasr pull away.
Cameron side by side with the Mazda. It is the swansong for the Mazda program. Felipe Nasr has put daylught between himself and these two. Here comes the #5 JDC-Miller Cadillac of Sebastien Bourdais, too! This is fair fight. Trent Hindman still has a long way to be in limp home mode. Hindman sharing with Jan Heylen and the retiring Patrick Long who is running his final race as a Porsche factory driver, today. Hindman, mercifully has made it to the lane. Patrick Long is in his final full-time drive. So, the pit crew is changing the tire now. They didn't even expect to make qualifying but they did.
The tire totally delaminated and the Hindman/Long/Heylen team will have a long road to hoe as we seen Nicklas Kruetten of Germany, leading in the LMP3 class sharing the #2 United Autosports Ligier with Brits Tom Gamble and Andy Meyrick. The battle is on in GT Daytona as the leaders come back through with Nasr still leading Tincknell. We also see the #60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura and working it's way through traffic, the sister Action Express/Hendrick Motorsports Cadillac #48 of Jimmie Johnson, Simon Pagenaud, and Kamui Kobayashi.
Brief spin for the #7 Forty7 Motorsports Duqueine with Canada's Stefan Rzadzinski at the controls sharing with American Mark Kvamme and Peruvian Rodrigo Pflucker. Championship time for Texan Ben Keating and PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports in LMP2 and Corvette Racing #3 of Jordan Taylor and Antonio Garcia in GT Le Mans. Tincknell is 1.3 seconds behind Nasr as we have traffic all over the shop here with LMP3, GTLM, and DPi. We ride aboard the #48 Kamui Kobayashi driven Action Express/Hendrick Motorsports Ally Cadillac. Again, this track is going to get extremely cold tonight. These tires are only at 65 degrees Fahrenheit on pit lane.
Cold tires will be a huge deal. No different than if we had ice on the road. You turn the wheel and the car wants to go straight. The ambient temperature are extremely cold. We are now off Daylight Saving Time too. Matt Campbell is pushing to try and catch Jesse Krohn. 170 miles an hour in GT Le Mans. What a glorious sound, the scream of that 4.2 liter Porsche flat six. Unbelievable. 125 feet of elevation change on this track. Matty Campbell, Porsche factory driver, takes it around, a Le Mans winner. This is a two-car effort for WeatherTech Racing. #79 being shared by Cooper MacNeil, Matthieu Jaminet, and Matt Campbell, and the #97 sister car for Fred Makowiecki, Michael Christensen, and Kevin Estre, fresh from Europe and the FIA World Endurance Championship finale in the factory Porsche in Bahrain last weekend.
You can still cut the traffic with a knife. That's how thick it is. Cadillac battle. JDC-Miller vs. Ganassi Racing. #5 vs. #01. #01 has Renger van der Zande, Scott Dixon, and new recruit, Earl Bamber, beginning early. Regular driver Kevin Magnussen who is leaving the team, ruled out as he is ill. He will be moving next year to Peugeot and their Le Mans Hypercar program in FIA WEC. Gorgeous, chamber of commerce weather in Atlanta, in northern Georgia. Harry Tincknell is still pressurizing Felipe Nasr. Sometimes you catch breaks, and sometimes you get stymied.
Jan Heylen and company have to shift their focus a tad. They have to hang in there and hope for a yellow to get their lap back. This is the end of the road for Mazda after 11 years in IMSA, since 2010 in the old Grand American Road Racing Championship. Their fans are surely sad to see Mazda go. Jonathan Bomarito wonders if he will; get the last drive in the car, sharing with Harry Tincknell and Oliver Jarvis. The cold, the darkness, the traffic. This is going to be a wild race. Bomarito might just get tapped to race tonight. SpeedSource, Team Joest, and Multimatic, all three teams have run this operation for Mazda.
They won the most recent endurance event at Watkins Glen but since then it has been an uphill road. More traffic as Matty Campbell is pressing hard. Kyle Kirkwood in the #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus, champion in Indy Lights. He will race next year full-time in IndyCar for A.J. Foyt Racing. Kirkwood and company had a ride height infraction. Kirkwood sharing with Aaron Telitz and Jack Hawksworth. Kirkwood will be the endurance driver for Vasser Sullivan in the WeatherTech Championship alongside his efforts with A.J. Foyt Racing in the IndyCars. Felipe Nasr continues to lead this motor race. Ben Keating in LMP2, Niklas Kruetten in LMP3, Jesse Krohn in GTLM, and Madison Snow in GTD.
Felipe Nasr has lapped traffic ahead as he is bounding over the curbsd. Major battle is on in the middle of the pack in DPi between the Ganassi Cadillac, the Wayne Taylor Racing Acura, and the JDC-Miller Cadillac. JDC-Miller and #5 have their core trio of Sebastien Bourdais, Loic Duval, and Tristan Vautier, "the French connection", in that automobile. Kamui Kobayashi is giving it a great run aboard the #48 Action Express/Hendrick Motorsports Ally Financial Cadillac running just ahead now of Harry Tincknell. Mazda in the pit lane, #55 is in, Harry Tincknell.
Dwight Merriman and the #18 Era Motorsports Crayon Car has just wrecked in the final turn! Ouch! That's a broken left front wheel and suspension! What a massive impact! Dwight Merriman will be OK. But that car could be a pile of junk. Big break for the #55 Mazda machine. Merriman is OK. Sad for Owen, the young Canadian fan, who is here watching the race today. He is here this weekend and will be disappointed for his team. The whole left front corner of that car has been completely obliterated.
In replay, we see Merriman did not see the #10 Acura and he was out in the gray area, No contact. An overcorrection by Dwight Merriman in response to the #10 Acura. Pit stop time for the DPi field. Everyone is in the lane. Dane Cameron brings the #60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura. The car is just OK. Pit stop time for both Action Express entries. Fuel only for the Mazda team. Kamui Kobayashi and Felipe Nasr, they need to be tightened up. Four fresh tires for both cars. Kobayashi is a 24 Hours of Le Mans winner, and a champion in the FIA World Endurance Championship.
GT Daytona pit stops underway, and GTLM too. Corvette, BMW, WeatherTech Porsche's, Pfaff, Paul Miller, Turner Motorsports, all have just taken service. Jimmie Johnson says the traffic and the commitment level at night will be amazing. He is experienced with off road racing in the desert. Of course, last weekend, we saw Kyle Larson win the championship in NASCAR Cup. He has proven unstoppable and a worthy champion in NASCAR. Wouldn't it be great to see Kyle Larson come back and race in a sports car? Maybe, for Action Express? We shall find out. We continue under yellow for the time being. The cars circulating behind the safety car.
We will be back to green shortly. The temperatures are cool and will only get cooler as we race into the night. Mazda #55 now leads the motor race. Acura #10 have not had the pace. Maybe the darkness will pay off for them and find speed. They need to finish ahead of the #31 Whelen Cadillac. Likewise, the #31, if they want to win the title, they must finish ahead of the #10. Helio Castroneves reflects on his fourth Indianapolis 500 victory. He is driving for Meyer Shank Racing in the #60 Acura ARX-05 DPi. He is co-driving with Dane Cameron and Juan Pablo Montoya, before Helio Castroneves goes back to full-time IndyCar in 2022.
Zacharie Robichon has handed the #9 Pfaff Porsche 911 GT3R to rapid German Lars Kern. He says the start was scrappy. They are looking to go for the championship. His description of the traffic mirrors Helio Castroneves. Insane traffic, especially with the LMP3 cars. United Autosport, from England, they are back in IMSA, running in five different championships, with Richard Dean and Zak Brown, team owners. Zak Brown also owns the McLaren Formula 1 team. Richard Dean was a driver in the American Le Mans Series days. They've run six straight races in six different nations!
Green flag as Renger van der Zande passes Felipe Nasr and Kamui Kobayashi is back there. Kamui Kobayashi is being monstered now by the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura. Long race yet. Filipe Albuquerque is pushing hard. Traffic will be the great equalizer and make the difference. The two Lexus RC F GT3's will enjoy the cooler conditions. #12 ahead of #14. Frankie Montecalvo leading Kyle Kirkwood. The factory Corvette's are together as well as Antonio Garcia in the yellow and silver #3 leading Nick Tandy in #4. The C8.R will be modified to run in GTD-Pro. There will be one car, and the second car will race the FIA World Endurance Championship, and the two cars will be at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Corvette have been developing a new ABS system, a new antilock braking system for GT3. Garcia has never won the Petit Le Mans and they have not won since 2010. We have a spun LMP3 car. He might be high centered in the gravel trap. Car #7, Mark Kvamme for Forty7 Motorsports. It is like yanking a e-brake on your road car. Check that. It was Ari Balogh in the #30 JR III. entry. Huge announcement with BMW Team RLL and the BMW M4 GT3. They will also run the LMDh program for BMW in IMSA in 2023 and 2024. BMW have won 20 races between the M6 GTLM, the M6 GTD, and the M8 GTLM.
The M6 and M8 are big cars and the new M4 will be much smaller. So we look forward to that as the Aston Martin gets biffed by the McLaren! Ian James at the wheel.
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