The 26th annual Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta has reached half-distance. Of the 52 starters, there are only three retirements so far, though there have been six Safety Car interventions including four in the last four hours.
Leading the way is the #01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R of Sebastien Bourdais, Renger van der Zande, and Scott Dixon, followed by the #25 BMW Team RLL M Hybrid V8 (Connor de Phillippi/Nick Yelloly/Sheldon van der Linde) which has overcome a 60-second penalty stop to run second at this point.
The #59 Proton Competition Porsche (Harry Tincknell/Gianmaria Bruni/Neel Jani) and #7 Porsche Penske Motorsports 963 (Felipe Nasr/Matt Campbell/Josef Newgarden) run third and fourth, the#24 BMW M Hybrid V8 (Philipp Eng/Augusto Farfus/Marco Wittmann) rounding out the top five.
Important to note that the #10 WTRAndretti/Konica Minolta Acura ARX-06 (Ricky Taylor/Filipe Albuquerque/Louis Deletraz) in sixth is on a different pit strategy from the field. It’s way too soon to declare a GTP champion just yet!
In LMP2 the #11 TDS Racing Oreca 07 (Steven Thomas/Mikkel Jensen/Scott Huffaker) is in control, Jensen building a lead over the #04 CrowdStrike by APR Oreca (George Kurtz/Ben Hanley/Nolan Siegel) with the #52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca (Ben Hanley/Paul-Loup Chatin/Alex Quinn) third.
Thomas and Kurtz cleared their two hours and 30 minutes of minimum drive time early on while PR1 Mathiasen opted to give Quinn and “PLC” some early stint time and break up Keating’s time at the wheel.
The #13 AWA Duquiene D08 (Orey Fidani/Matthew Bell/Lars Kern) leads LMP3 just ahead of the #30 Jr III Racing Ligier JS P320 (Garett Grist/Bijoy Garg/Dakota Dickerson) with the #74 Riley Ligier (Gar Robinson/Felipe Fraga/Josh Burdon) third after wrapping up the championship.
Corvette Racing is moving towards a significant final victory for the Chevrolet Corvette C8.R GTD in IMSA. The #3 of Antonio Garcia, Jordan Taylor, and Tommy Milner leads the GTD Pro class ahead of the #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3 (Alessandro Pier Guidi/Daniel Serra/Davide Rigon) and the #79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Daniel Juncadella/Jules Gounon/Maro Engel).
Garcia took the GTD Pro lead back in the second hour of the race and he and his team-mates have led most of the way ever since.
And in GTD, the #57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Russell Ward/Philip Ellis/Indy Dontje) is up front, followed by the #32 Korthoff Preston Motorsports Mercedes (Mike Skeen/Mikael Grenier/Kenton Koch), and the #96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 (Patrick Gallagher/Robby Foley/Michael Dinan).
The first major flashpoint of the race knocked the #6 Porsche 963 of Mathieu Jaminet, Nick Tandy, and Laurens Vanthoor out of contention for the race and the championship in GTP.
In the second hour of the race, the #20 High Class Racing Oreca LMP2 07 of Dennis Andersen touched the #023 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3 of Charlie Scardina rounding turn nine into turn ten.
Scardina’s car then spun over to the left and collected both the #6 Porsche of Tandy and the #70 Inception Racing McLaren 720S GT3 of Brendon Iribe, sending all three into the barrier and gravel at the chicane.
The impact against the concrete barrier tripped the medical warning light inside the #6 Porsche, and IMSA’s medical response team had no choice but to ask Tandy to get out of his car – despite Tandy’s animated insistence that he could drive his damaged car back to the pits.
The #6 Porsche has returned to the race after nearly two hours worth of repair work and is now 70 laps off the lead.
The Inception McLaren was too damaged to continue and was hauled back to its garage on a flatbed. Andersen and the #20 Oreca received a whopping 120-second penalty stop for incident responsibility – and likely, incident severity.
More championship drama unfolded near the start of the third hour. The #60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura and #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 collided at turn 10, after Tom Blomqvist checked up behind the aforementioned #20 High Class Racing Oreca of Andersen. Corey Lewis hit the left-rear of Blomqvist’s #60 Acura and the #1 BMW went into the tyre barriers.
Blomqvist only lost a lap in repairs while the damage to the GTD championship-winning Paul Miller BMW was more extensive, requiring nearly an hour of service behind the pit wall.
In the ensuing round of yellow flag pit stops, both the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac of Alexander Sims and the #25 BMW Team RLL car of Sheldon van der Linde ran the red light at pit exit. Sims stopped after the exit line and Van der Linde ran into the back of the red Cadillac. Both cars received a 60-second penalty stop for running the red light, and Van der Linde got an additional drive-through penalty for incident responsibility.
Jarett Andretti brought out the fifth full-course yellow when his #36 Andretti Autosport Ligier JS P320 slid off into the gravel at turn five, ending the defending LMP3 class winners’ days after a long stay behind the pit wall a short time before. During that Safety Car period, the #17 AWA Duquiene D08 of Wayne Boyd shut off out of turn seven.
The sixth and most recent full-course yellow came out when Ben Barnicoat skipped through the grass at the top of the hill at turn four, where the splitter of the #14 Lexus RC F GT3 dug into the grass and soil and ripped the front end bodywork off the car.
The #14 Lexus, #36 Ligier, and #70 McLaren are all retired from the race and the #17 Duquiene has just gone back behind the wall.
Feature Image © Michael L. Levitt / IMSA
