In a storybook ending for Chip Ganassi Racing, the No. 01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R of Sebastien Bourdais, Renger van der Zande and Scott Dixon came back from a miserable early race to win Petit Le Mans. With a dramatic dive to the inside of Nick Tandy in the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 in Turn 1 with 15m left in the 10-hour race, van der Zande turned around what had looked like a hopeless day to win the last race before CGR exits the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship for the time being.
“I don’t know what to say. It’s just, it’s unbelievable,” said an emotional Bourdais after the victory. “You think you got it, you think you lost it, it comes back around. You never know what’s going on. Five minutes to the end, we think we won it, and then both lights go out. I don’t know … I’m speechless. I can’t be thankful enough for the opportunity to have driven that No. 01 for three years. It’s a bittersweet end, but there’s no better send off, and I’m so grateful.”
To add a bit of last-second drama, the Cadillac, which had run much of the evening with only one headlight, lost it’s headlights completely with under five minutes to go, which would have surely earned a mechanical black flag, but came back on shortly thereafter. They continued to go off intermittently, but were on enough to finish the race.
“There was a bit of disco going on, but I like discos,” laughed van der Zande. “This manual we get from Cadillac is a lot of buttons and a lot of options, so I started to press all kinds of buttons this way, and it was still not good enough. Then it stuck more and more and more, then they told me press the white button. So I pressed the white button, and it worked, so we got the lights back.”
Porsche Penske Motorsports finished second and third, the No. 6 963 finishing ahead of the No. 7. The third-place finish earned the No. 7 squad of Dane Cameron and Felipe Nasr, aided by Matt Campbell in the long endurance races, the GTP championship and the Michelin Endurance Cup. Cadillac Racing closed the gap to the No. 6 team, but in the end fell short of breaking up the PPM one-two in the championship.
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“Big hats off to the team. I mean, it’s really as near to perfect, I think, as you can be,” said Cameron. “Really proud to have all the championships, one-two for both cars. Obviously disappointed for the No. 6 to miss out there, but absolutely so, so pleased to have number four for myself, and obviously outstanding for the group.”
What had been shaping up to be a fantastic race between the No. 6 Porsche and the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 – with the added intrigue of fuel strategy that could have brought the No. 7 PPM Porsche into the equation – was shattered, along with an astounding 4.5h of green flag running, with a three-car incident with just under an hour to go. A collision between the No. 120 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R driven by Jan Heylen and the No. 55 Proton Competition Mustang GT3 of Corey Lewis in Turn 5 left the Mustang sitting on the track facing the wrong direction, with no lights, over the crest of a brow.
Several cars avoided the wrecked Mustang, but Ricky Taylor did not. Grazing the Mustang, Taylor removed a big chunk of the left side of the Acura, ending the team’s chance to win Petit Le Mans yet again. Taylor had taken the lead out of the previous pit stop, but slid off track on cold tires, handing the lead back to Tandy.
That set up a potential four-way fight to the finish between the No. 6 Porsche, the No. 01 Cadillac, the No. 24 BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8 and the No. 7 Porsche, but it proved to be Tandy vs. van der Zande fighting to the checker. The BMW in Philip Eng’s hands looked like it might have something to challenge for a podium, but contact with the No. 7 Porsche not only damaged and slowed the M Hybrid V8, but earned a drive-through penalty as well.
CGR’s Cadillac was looking to be out of the fight due to a sensor issue that caused a mechanical black flag. The team solved the problem, but the fix affected the power processing unit and left the No. 01 down on power and also left the car a lap down. The lap was retrieved, but the 4.5h period of green flag running kept them from making any progress. Only the final yellow, which the team expected, brought them back into the fight.
WHAT. A. PASS!@CadillacVSeries | @Rengervdz pic.twitter.com/cLKr6QytlI
— IMSA (@IMSA) October 13, 2024
Stalking Tandy, van der Zande finally found an opening. He had a better run out of Turn 12, and as Tandy shifted back to the left after passing a GT car, van der Zande dived to the inside heading into Turn 1. Tandy lost his run to the apex and the position.
“It was the only move I could make. I was behind Tandy for a while, and he was so fast on the straights. Every time they pulled a gap of like, I don’t know, six, seven car lengths, but in the corners we were very fast. We set up the car a lot for Turn 1 and Turn 3. That’s where I could really make up a lot of ground. The car was awesome there,” said van der Zande before praising Tandy.
“When I made the move on Nick, it’s always a two-way street. I think with professionals like him, you can do these kind of moves. At the same time, it’s risky. I think Scott told me I was locking wheels going in.”
The No. 01 crossed the line with van der Zande flashing the lights, 2.948s ahead of the No. 6. While all three drivers have won Petit Le Mans before, it was the first victory at Road Atlanta for Chip Ganassi Racing as it signs off in its run with Cadillac.
TDS Racing with Steven Thomas, Mikkel Jensen and Hunter McElrea took the victory in LMP2 in dominating fashion to also claim the Endurance Cup. While polesitter Ben Keating led the early portion of the race, his run ended early. Keating, leading at the time, was passing the No. 20 High Class Racing ORECA LMP2 at Turn 6 and spun, possibly after contact. Tommy Milner in the No. 4 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Z06 GT3.R was next on the scene and hit Keating’s No. 2 United Autosports ORECA. Both Keating’s car and the Corvette sustained heavy damage and were taken straight to the paddock. Keating would re-emerge later in the race, but a second crash took the No. 2 out of the race for good.
With McElrea and Jensen closing out the race, the No. 11 was unstoppable, putting gaps on the field at every turn. The final full-course caution brought Riley Motorsports into contact for the LMP2 lead and potentially the championship, but Jensen put the strength that the TDS ORECA had shown all day on full display as he fended off an attack by Felipe Fraga in the No. 74 right after the restart then ran away to a 17.097s victory over Fraga, Gar Robinson and Josh Burdon.
“This one was big because we also won the Endurance Cup, which is my first IMSA season championship,” said Thomas. “I was born in Atlanta, so coming home to Atlanta and winning Road Atlanta means a lot to me. I think that the traffic here for a Bronze is brutal, and it’s like a big puzzle. To me, it’s the most fun race of the year because of the traffic.”
Jensen running away removed any hope of the Riley team of Fraga and Robinson to claim the championship in their rookie year in LMP2. That instead fell to Nick Boulle and Tom Dillman for Inter Europol by PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports. It also gave Boulle the Jim Trueman Award.
After being two laps down, Era Motorsports hauled its way back into the fight as it often does for a third-place finish for the No. 18 and drivers Dwight Merriman, Ryan Dalziel and Connor Zilisch.