Chip Ganassi Racing and Cadillac couldn’t have ended their four-year association in IMSA with a more epic sendoff than the one they got at Petit Le Mans this past weekend.
Rolling out of the team hauler with a special one-off livery, overcoming two penalties in the first two and a half hours, seemingly winning it at the end with a brave pass in the closing minutes, and then seemingly losing it in the cruellest when the headlights flickered off – just to come back on in time to win the final race of the 2024 IMSA season and the Ganassi/Cadillac partnership in North America.
What did it mean to the legendary Sebastien Bourdais, who prior to Saturday night, hadn’t stood on the top step of the podium at Petit Le Mans?
“This race…I don’t know what to say,” said the Frenchman, seconds after the chequered flag fell. “You think you’ve got it, you think you’ve lost it, it comes back around…you never know what’s going on! Five minutes to the end, and we think we’ve won it, and then both lights go out!
“I’m speechless…I can’t be thankful enough for the opportunity to have driven that #01 for three years. It’s a bittersweet end. But there’s no better send-off. And I’m so grateful…it’s amazing.”
Even though the #01 Cadillac was wearing a pink livery instead of its traditional golden yellow colours, this win for Bourdais, Renger van der Zande, and Scott Dixon was ‘Peak #01 Cadillac’ in so many ways.
For much of the last two seasons, Bourdais and van der Zande were quick enough to win most weekends in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. But all too often those races would end in disappointment or total disaster. And it was certainly the case at many of the big races like Daytona and Sebring.
Last year’s Petit Le Mans was a prime example. There was no crash or mechanical failure, but the #01 Cadillac lost the race in the last hour after the #60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura (in its final race before a one-year hiatus for the team) drove past van der Zande to take the win, something that was on the mind of the Ganassi/Cadillac team and its drivers.
“I think the best way to say is last year we won the race except the last half hour. This year we lost it all race long, and then we won it for the last 30 minutes,” Bourdais said. “We covered just about everybody but the 60, and then they kind of stole it from us. So this time we may have stolen the race from the #6 (Penske Porsche), but that’s only fair, I think. We’ll definitely take it.”
They fought back from a lap down after the IMSA-mandated torque sensor inside the car had failed, resulting in a mechanical black flag. And it wasn’t the first time that had happened during the weekend – the same problem crept up in Qualifying the day before.
They went down again after Bourdais tripped over an LMP2 car at the tricky Turn 10 complex, resulting in a drive-through penalty that had to be served by van der Zande. The race ran clean and green for several hours and prevented the team from getting back on the lead lap until the last hour.
“Within the first five laps, I wasn’t sure that we were going to be able to continue on with the issue that we had,” recalled Dixon, Ganassi’s longest-tenured driver, and a winner in his 50th IMSA start – on the 25th anniversary of his major sports car racing debut.
“We had so many other issues throughout the race, but to get back to the lead lap obviously with the late caution, you know, that helped some things.
“I think that kind of sums up Chip Ganassi Racing. It’s that never-give-up situation. And I know even on the IndyCar side, we’ve won a lot of races like that, and the same on the IMSA side throughout many years.”
Van der Zande, Dixon, and Bourdais took turns running consistent laps, trying to get the #01 Cadillac back into the fight with the two Porsche Penske Motorsport cars and the #10 WTRAndretti Acura.
Their break finally came at the expense of the #10 Acura, which was taken out of contention after clipping the stationary #55 Proton Competition Ford Mustang in turn five, part of a multi-car accident.
The subsequent Full Course Yellow and wave-by gave the #01 Cadillac a lifeline, and van der Zande, in his final race after seven seasons as a Cadillac/GM works driver, didn’t waste the opportunity.
He kept the pressure on race leader Nick Tandy when the race restarted with 35 minutes left, and with 15 to go, the Dutchman had to be inch-perfect to stick the landing on a brave overtake into Turn 1 – the move that would take him into the lead.
“It was the only move I could make,” remarked van der Zande. “I was behind Tandy for a while, and he was so fast on the straights. Every time they pulled a gap of, I don’t know, six or seven car lengths. But in the corners, we were very fast. We set up the car a lot for turn one and turn three. That’s where I could really make up a lot of ground.
“When I made the move on Nick, it’s always a two-way street. I think with high professionals like him, you can do these kinds of moves. At the same time, it’s risky. I think Scott told me I was locking wheels going in.
“But, hey, you have to go for it. P2 – it doesn’t matter here. We’re here to win. The only thing I thought is, ‘That’s not bad for an insurance salesman!'”
Dixon recalls: “I was up in my bus chilling out, having some food. I started yelling when I saw that! It was very special.”
But for all the gut-wrenching misfortunes that the #01 team had suffered over the final two seasons of Ganassi and Cadillac’s four-year partnership, having the headlamps go out with five minutes left and the win seemingly assured was perhaps the most shocking.
Van der Zande joked, “It was a bit of a disco going on – But I like discos!”
To keep the car from getting a mechanical black flag and surrendering the victory that the team had fought so hard for, van der Zande had to scramble to turn on the rain lights.
“This manual we get from Cadillac has 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. So I pressed the white button, and it worked! So we got the lights back.
“I don’t know how it was, but we got the lights back, and it was more a question of getting a call from inside to come to the pits and change the lights. That was the biggest worry.”
Even then, the right-side headlamp would continue to flicker on and off as it had done earlier, but van der Zande insisted that he had enough vision to negotiate the final five minutes of the race safely.
“I raced LMPC for a while where the lights are less than with this car with the lights off. But when I was driving on my own, it was kind of hard, because you couldn’t see the kerb stones sometimes with the lights off. When I had cars around me, they kind of lit up the kerbs, and I could see it. But we got lucky there. I think, in the end, it was okay.”
And the lights stayed on long enough to get the pink #01 Cadillac to the chequered flag first and end this era with a feel-good result.
The short-term future of this race’s heroes will be known in time, but this group of Bourdais, van der Zande, Dixon, plus Le Mans-winning Race Engineer Justin Taylor has now been disbanded.
Cadillac and Chip Ganassi Racing will run one more race together – the WEC 8 Hours of Bahrain – before the partnership officially comes to an end. After that, we know Cadillac has already tasked Wayne Taylor Racing and Hertz Team JOTA to step up in Ganassi’s places in IMSA and WEC respectively. We don’t know what Ganassi’s next sports car racing endeavour will be.
At Road Atlanta, this Cadillac Racing team and these three drivers reminded IMSA fans of their very best qualities – not just their speed, but also their resilience.
It wasn’t a smooth or easy path to win Petit Le Mans, but on reflection, it certainly was a memorable one.
“It’s nice to finish this one off with a bang,” van der Zande reflected. “This win was really good. If you look at the race, man, I don’t know, what can I say? We won.”
Images © Jack Webster / Dailysportscar.com
