Road Atlanta is super demanding in the dark with 50+ cars on a short lap. A crazy race that provides a ton of action. Congratulatons to TDS on the Endurance Cup championship! So long to James Hinchcliffe. We hope to see James in a car for next year especially with the Pfaff Motorsports McLaren program. Watch this space. James is set to support his team. We are now inside the final two hours of the 2024 season. 18 different manufacturers are involved in IMSA. All 18 have won races this year across the IMSA championships including the VP Racing Fuels Sports Car Challenge. Cupra will be a 19th brand in the TCR class in Michelin Pilot Challenge. We've got Kevin Lee, Calvin Fish, and Townsend Bell back to take us to the finish here at Petit Le Mans for 2024 to cap off the season.
Renger van der Zande is now sixth right behind Tom Blomqvist in the #31 Whelen Action Express Cadillac. Hugs and high fives from Sebastien Bourdais to the CGR team. They have been here in IMSA since 2016 with the Ford GT program in the old GT Le Mans category. Chip Ganassi Racing will need to dig deep. Of the now ten GTP cars in the field, well, make that nine, five of them are on the lead lap. Matt Campbell in Porsche #7, Ricky Taylor in Acura #10, Nick Tandy in Porsche #6, Jesse Krohn in BMW #24, and Tom Blomqvist in Cadillac #31. Penske Porsche, WTR Acura, BMW Team RLL, and Whelen Engineering Action Express Cadillac.
Sebastien Bourdais has had a lot of fast cars and great performances but lots of mechanical issues between 2021 and 2024 with Ganassi and the Cadillac program. Before the last pit stop, the #19 Iron Lynx Lamborghini was running well but now it appears they have hit a snag in their plans. Mirko Bortolotti says the tea has been running well and in the top two. Jordan Pepper handed the car off to Franck Perera and Mirko Bortolotti will get in the car and take it to the finish. Now it is totally, completely dark. The track is changing a lot in the nighttime hours.
It is a special feeling, with multi-class racing. Be careful and stay out of trouble if you want to win the race. Be fast, stay safe, bring it home. The GTP cars are right on the cusp, 52-54 minutes on the cycle between pit stops. Matt Campbell getting back up to speed on new tires. Penske has timed it to perfection and a lot of cars in each class are on the lead lap with an hour and 49 minutes of racing left. Let me tell you, we are thinking of the victims of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton. Michelin, Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta, VP Racing Fuels, they are all in this effort.
Go to www.smaritanspurse.org to make a donation if you want to help. VP Racing Fuels are sending gasoline and water to the first responders. There is a whole list of different supplies that have been gathered for accepting new and unopened donations in the categories of baby items, food, cleaning supplies, toiletries, kitchen supplies, and outdoor items and necessities. NASCAR, IMSA, Greg Biffle, a former NASCAR driver, lots of people competing this weekend wondering what they will be going home to, in Daytona Beach, and on Florida's west coast.
We've got the whole bunch ready and on deck here at NBC Sports to bring us to the finish. Again, Kevin Lee, Calvin Fish, Townsend Bell, Brian Till, and the crew in pit lane. Dillon Welch, Matt Yocum, Georgia Henneberry, and Ryan Myrehn. OK. Ricky Taylor leads the motor race for the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti squad with Konica Minolta, for Acura in the ARX-06. Right on his six, is in fact, the #6 Porsche Penske Motorsports Porsche 963 of Nick Tandy. The title is over. Tandy, Jaminet, and company, want to win the race.
Wayne Taylor Racing have come up short in the title fight here at Road Atlanta several times over the years, so the irony is that the one year they've not been in the title fight at all, they could very well win this thing, and win overall at Petit Le Mans like Wayne Taylor, the team owner, did as a driver, 26 years ago, in 1998, in a Ferrari 333SP. Porsche #7 pitted eight minutes ago and the #6 sister car has gone by. Tandy has moved into the lead around the #10 Ricky Taylor driven Acura. Nick Tandy burst onto the scene here in 2015 with the Falken Tire Porsche team. Nine years ago, that was Nick Tandy and Bryan Sellers sharing driving duties.
That was in the second year of the reunified series now known as the IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship. Who is this bloke, Nick Tandy? Well, he has definitely made his mark in the last nearly a decade as a driver. Taylor gets balked through the turn and Tandy had the run through the downhill. This is intense! This is hot! Tandy didn't want to get into the gray running at a buck 45, 145 miles an hour. The fight in GT Daytona between Parker Thompson in the #12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 and the #32 Korthoff Preston Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Kenton Koch has been subdued because of Koch pitting.
Parker Thompson started last in the Vasser Sullivan Lexus and is now up front. Everyone has one more stop still to make with about an hour and 40 minutes to go. Wright Motorsports could be in the pound seats in GT Daytona because they just recently stopped and run fourth in class with Jan Heylen, the Dutchman, at the wheel of the #120 Porsche 911 GT3R (992). Still a ton to play for to decide two more titles and four class winners. GTD Pro and LMP2 are still up for grabs. It will be wild and crazy in the waning moments. Cool temperatures in the darkness means that the racing can only heat up.
Keep an eye on your six but also remember that everyone will need to pit before this gunfight at the OK Corral is finished. So much left to play for. The #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3 is in the fight, and we have an interview with Petit Le Mans winner, and 2023 overall winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, with Ferrari, Alessandro Pier Guidi. Pier Guidi has more GT experience but is used to overtaking the GT cars in a prototype than having them overtake him. He prefers the prototype but in the GT car he knows he needs to look in the rearview mirror more. His driving stints are complete. But Pier Guidi is here for moral support for his team.
They are in a good spot but looking to with the Michelin Endurance Cup in GTD Pro. It is time to push with just over 90 minutes remaining. Pier Guidi is on the squad as a Silver-rated driver! What on earth? A driver ranking was changed during a session because Pier Guidi was in the car as a secret weapon and this was in the 2014 Rolex 24 at Daytona, at the beginning of the merger to create what we know today as the modern IMSA, so, as long as yours truly has had this blog to write about the sport, ten years. Gosh! Time flies when you are having fun!
Very quickly the driver rating was reshuffled. Jeff Segal, Townsend Bell, and Alessandro Pier Guidi all on the same team that time. OK. Nick Tandy in the #6 car, his son Felix Tandy is putting pressure on the Porsche Penske boys in the #6 for his dad to win one and Mathieu Jaminet, Tandy's co-driver knows this. We wonder. Is Felix still awake? Jaminet started on motorcycles and his mom said he needed to go to four wheels. He had to stop racing due to the money not being there and then he signed on with Porsche, ahd here he is today. Dream big and work for it.
At Porsche, if you had the talent, that is what mattered, and you got the ride. Mathieu Jaminet co-drove with James Sofronas in World Challenge, what is now the SRO GT World Challenge globally, and Sofronas and his team were looking at data, and noticed Jaminet was three to four tenths quicker than anyone else. That made everyone do a 180. 190 miles an hour in the pitch darkness at Road Atlanta with only four Full Course Yellows, but I think I just cursed it. It is pitch black dark with an hour and a half to go.
It has been incredibly clean thus far as we ride aboard with the #7 Porsche 963 Penske Porsche of Felipe Nasr currently fourth a lap down. If we get one yellow, the game will begin. Lay out the chess board. With pit stops required for the GTP cars and the GTD Pro and GTD cars, on cold tires, that is where the mistakes happen. Porsche #7 will win the title if they pass post-race scrutineering. This would be four titles for Dane Cameron in IMSA and three for Felipe Nasr. All of the drivers in the #57 Winward Mercedes have met the minimum drive time requirements. So, like the #7 Penske Porsche, they will clinch the championship in GT Daytona, barring any kind of post-race penalties.
LMP2 and GTD Pro are still way too close to call and yes, break out the calculator folks, because we've got to crunch the numbers, again.
1. #52 Dillmann/Boulle Inter Europol by PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca 07 2,197 points
2. #74 Robinson/Fraga Riley Oreca 07 2,166 points -31
3. #11 Steven Thomas TDS Racing Oreca 07 2,104 points -93
Felipe Fraga is second in LMP2 behind Hunter McElrea in the #11 car. If he takes the lead, that means Tom Dillmann has to finish sixth or better and is sixth now. So, now we move to take a close look at the points table in GTD Pro. At halfway I'd have said that the AO Racing Porsche might have been out of it. Now, there has not been a yellow, and they've not gotten a lap back. The scoop is that they are still only four points ahead of the #23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 of Ross Gunn.
1. #77 Laurin Heinrich AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3R (992) 3,122 points
2. #23 Ross Gunn Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin
Vantage AMR GT3 Evo 3,118 points -4
3. #1 Snow/Sellers Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 2,929 points -193
The championship scenario in GTD Pro remains as it has been all day. Ross Gunn must finish second or better and the #77 finishes 11th or worse, for the #23 Aston Martin team to take the trophy to the factory in Gaydon, Warwickshire, England. Right now, Heinrich and the dinosaur liveried Porsche, is 11th. "Rexy" cannot be happy. He is thrashing his tail, roaring and snarling, and breathing some fire borrowed from "Spike" the dragon, right now. I guarantee it. Heinrich has a title to himself because he has had four different co-drivers.
It is game on and it is paramount that the #23 Aston Martin gains at least one more place. Here is how the GT Daytona situation is stacking up. Currently, Loris Spinelli in the #78 Forte Racing Lamborghini leads by 31 seconds over Aaron Telitz in the #12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus. Both need one more pit stop, but Telitz will have half a tank of fuel. That is only 20 seconds of fuel required. Spinelli will need 40 seconds of fuel in the tank. This whole situation is far, far from over. Plus, chaos and mayhem is inevitable.
GTP speed as we ride along with the #10 WTR Andretti Acura. They could still end the season on a high note even with no chance of the championship. Taylor is keeping Nick Tandy honest and is just 2.7 seconds behind. They both have about 15% energy left in the tank. Drivers in trance mode. They might need a splash and a dash while Felipe Nasr in Porsche #7 can do it on just one more stop. He is a lap down but only slightly. The margin has shrunk to 2.1 seconds now. It feels like we could still have a yellow. Whoa! Taylor almost gets chopped by a GT Daytona car, the #120 Wright Motorsports Porsche! Yikes!
Look far down the road. Look at the taillights ahead. At Sebring you can see headlights off in the distance, everything is flat. Turn five at Daytona, a car in the parking lot can look like a spun car on the road if it has the headlights on. Taylor is chasing another GTP car. This is a program changing for next year. They will no longer be with Acura and are coming back to Cadillac where they were during the first portion of the Daytona Prototype International era of IMSA from 2017-2020. There are contracts that might put Jordan and Ricky Taylor in other places. One of the Porsche Penske drivers could be making a move. Renger van der Zande and Sebastien Bourdais will need new homes for next year with the Chip Ganassi Cadillac program going away.
Colin Braun could indeed find a seat back at Meyer Shank and maybe Tom Blomqvist as well. This is likely Blomqvist's last drive in Cadillac and Action Express colors. Filipe Albuquerque says that it is a tradition for WTR Andretti to be fighting for the win at Petit Le Mans. How will they deal with cold tires on the out lap? They have nothing to lose. Albuquerque really wants to win the Petit Le Mans. The Wayne Taylor team are always in the fight for Petit Le Mans victory hitting their marks running strategy to a T.
No yellows to worry about. Five hours, half the race without any yellows. Brendon Hartley and Ricky Taylor have been doing a good job and Ricky Taylor is going to finish. Hartley and Taylor have both won Petit Le Mans before. OK. Acura #10 and the other race leaders are in. Porsche #6 too. Scrubbed Michelin tires on the left side of the Acura and new ones on the right side. #10 Acura down and away and the #6 Porsche is going to drag race him out of the pit lane! Oh boy!
No dice. Too much wheel spin for the Porsche. 100% full energy fill on both cars. Yikes! Double yikes! Taylor goes skittering across the road and almost off into the grass! He locks up on cold tires! New right-side Michelin's with asymmetric balance on the car! Treacherous stuff! I wonder if the #6 Porsche took tires. We saw a dramatic lockup from one of the Porsche's after the last round of pit stops. These GTP prototype spaceships are diabolically hard to drive on stone cold tires. If you bolt on new boots, you could pay a price for it early doors in the stint. Straighten your hands and go through the motorcycle chicane. It is like driving on ice at night in the wintertime.
He had cold tires with junk on them and had to leave a wide berth for an LMP2 car which is another part of why he went off the road. He had to stay wide and couldn't release the brake. So, the #01 Ganassi Racing Cadillac is in for service and the report is that the Penske Porsche #6 car took four scrubbed Michelin tires. Go easy on cold tires. The track temperature was was 105 degrees when this race began and is now 68 degrees. So, it is a significant temperature drop throughout the day, a difference of 37 degrees on the Fahrenheit scale.
CGR #01 is in, the pink Cadillac. It started out as a show car for a weekend race of some kind at Circuit of the Americas. I think they might have actually been showcasing it during the FIA WEC race there that happened in September, a race you will be hearing about on the blog, soon, once I can get caught up. Renger van der Zande tweeted a picture of the car, the fans went bonkers and loved it. Cadillac gave them permission to run the pinkish purple scheme on the car and they said yes. van der Zande short shifting, being very gentle, almost running off the road.
You can barely turn the steering wheel. If van der Zande cranks the wheel too far, he will provoke the rear of the car to loosen up and go for an unwanted turn on the whirligig. Oh! He got chopped by a GT car there! Two GT Daytona cars, the Acura NSX GT3 in its last race in IMSA before the homologation runs out, the #66 Gradient Racing car, and another pink car, the #83 Iron Dames Lamborghini. He has GT traffic around his ears. Again, you don't want to be in low gear. A taller gear will help/. He is rushing a downshift to drag the engine and turn the car from the rear like a rudder on a boat.
Keep it together. Get into a rhythm. Rely on the pit crew who are watching everything on the NBC Sports TV feed and relying on spotters. Moments ago, a spin in turn seven for the #12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus! Oh dear! OK. I stand corrected. He didn't spin. He stopped. Now he might have fire in the hole, but it is hard to say. Aaron Telitz had clawed his way through the field. He was within 20 seconds of the Lamborghini of Loris Spinelli. Now he is falling behind. He was on half tanks as far as fuel as well. This puts him out of range, 34 seconds down on Spinelli after doing a reset.
Better to do the reset on the slowest turn on the track at turn seven than on the straightaway with everyone else screaming past you at full speed. Right now, we are setting up for a mano e mano battle for victory between Porsche #6 and Acura #10. Felipe Nasr in the sister #7 Porsche is eight or so seconds in-arrears. He is going to need a king size fuel load for his final stop. Nick Tandy and Ricky Taylor will need less. A late Full Course Yellow is going to toss all this strategy out the window. Tandy pushing for a win. He wants it.
Alright. In LMP2, Felipe Fraga leads the motor race doing what he needs to do for Riley to claim the class title. Fraga needs to motor to the front and cause the #52 car to lose a spot if they want to win the title. Right now, the #52 is not in the top five in LMP2 and Fraga is second behind the class leader, Mikkel Jensen, in the #11 TDS Oreca. Now, we saw the #12 Lexus in strife a wee while ago and they made a pit stop. Now, there's flames in the brake rotors. That's grass being burned on the hot brakes and not a problem. It's obvious sports cars are not herbivorous creatures!
The trouble was that the mechanic wanted to blow the radiator out but the air supply for the compressed air line to clean it, wasn't turned on. Step one. Rotate wheel on air tank. Step two, press trigger to blow out radiators. I don't think they noticed that. Then, a crewman notices and yells to his fellow mechanics, "Bring the air hose! There's fire in the wheel!" That was a 42 second pit stop. They were on pace to battle the Lambo, the #78 of Loris Spinelli. The brake fire was grass which ignited and it goes out when he accelerates from the lane. How much extra grass is in the brake ducts? We've seen that on the Porsche 963's, too, where their front brakes will catch fire on occasion. Once again, we've got points tallying to do and soon we're going to have less than an hour to go in the race and the season alike. Here's the LMP2 points table as they run with 64 minutes left on the board.
1. #52 Dillmann/Boulle Inter Europol by PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca 07 2,197 points
2. #74 Robinson/Fraga Riley Oreca 07 2,166 points -31
3. #11 Steven Thomas TDS Racing Oreca 07 2,104 points -93
After Telitz's troubles in the lane he has dropped to tenth in class in GT Daytona, a lap down. Seven of the top ten GTD cars are on the lead lap. Again, the grass ignites but will go out when the car accelerates but it isn't ideal for the brakes to be on fire in the pit lane. It is pure kindling. Thankfully they were able to put it out. They need a yellow to get home. In another lap or two the GT Daytona leaders should be in the lane. Now, we have not seen any changes in the GT Daytona Pro points. They are still as they were before.
1. #77 Laurin Heinrich AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3R (992) 3,122 points
2. #23 Ross Gunn Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3
Evo 3,118 points -4
3. #1 Snow/Sellers Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 2,929 points -193
Telitz needs to do full fuel save to get to the end but this will reduce his pace. Ross Gunn remains third, 40 seconds behind. They will need magical pace to leapfrog the Porsche #77. "Rexy" in the pound seats. Aston Martin needs a yellow to stay in the game. Four points in the lead is Laurin Heinrich, only in the final race. The tear offs get incredibly grimy. They stack nine or ten of these plastic sheets onto the windscreen and rip them off when they're used up. It is incredibly grimy covered in dirt, bugs, sand, you name it. Same with tear offs on the helmet. When it's used up, simple. Tear it off the screen and chuck it in the trash.
It is a breath of fresh air to get a fresh windscreen. Qualifying points are so important. Heinrich gapped the #23 Aston by five points in qualifying yesterday which is what makes this qualifying format great and qualifying matters as much as the race does in IMSA as Ross Gunn sends it, and the Aston Martin scoots around the #64 Ford Mustang GT3 factory car of Harry Tincknell. Tincknell is two laps down to the rest of the GTD Pro field at the present time. OK. The final hour of the race is upon us. Don't touch that dial. Don't go anywhere. If you run to the fridge, you'll miss something. I hope you've grabbed a snack and one more cold beverage for the end here. This is going to be wild!
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