Porsche’s big sports car news this week had IMSA fans turn out in a major way.
After a slow start with a huge traffic snarl among fans trying to get into the Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta and a six-car pileup on the first lap, this year’s 28th Petit Le Mans came up big.
Cadillac may have won a second-straight race, but it was Porsche Penske Motorsport that clinched a sweep of the championships in the GTP class of the IMSA WeatherTech Championship for the second straight year. That includes the drivers’ title won by Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet after finishing third in their Porsche 963 with the last-minute co-driving addition of reigning World Endurance Champion Laurens Vanthoor, the Belgian affectionately dubbed “Larry” by his American team.
Porsche, which now has 63 IMSA titles, also contributed to a landmark day at the Georgia track thanks to providing a windfall of pre-race publicity. Four days prior to the race, Porsche AG announced the withdrawal of its official factory team from the WEC and Le Mans 24-hour in 2026, stating it will concentrate on North American and IMSA in the future.
Enough fans popped up to buy tickets on race day that the track stopped selling them after Highway 53, the two-lane road leading to the front gates, backed up for almost a mile in both directions. Fans were still trying to get in two hours after the green flag to join what veteran observers called the largest crowd in Road Atlanta’s 56-year history.
“The day didn’t start as good as we wished,” said Jaminet. “It took us one hour, 40 minutes to get to the track, which is good news because there is a lot of fans out there. This is positive, but we nearly missed the reconnaissance laps.” After parking on the side of the road and walking, it was learned their scheduled co-driver Julian Andlauer was too sick to race. “Larry,” he said, “saved our ass.”
Vanthoor began the day co-driving the No. 7 Porsche Penske entry of Felipe Nasr and Nick Tandy. Nasr and Tandy won the season’s first three signature races at Daytona, Sebring and Long Beach, but did not clinch a championship. The No. 7 finished 10th, a lap down, a surprise ending of sorts, as Nasr and Tandy fell to third in the points behind Jack Aitken of Cadillac’s winning Action Express Racing team.
There may have been no classic surprise ending, but the shrieking Aston Martin Valkyrie and its V12 engine were a pleasant new development, finishing in second by 5.182 seconds and scoring Heart of Racing’s first GTP podium of the season. An upset-in-the-making ended when the Lamborghini SC63 driven by Romain Grosjean stopped for fuel with five minutes remaining after the Frenchman came within 1.4 seconds of the Action Express Cadillac with Earl Bamber at the wheel.
The victorious V-Series.R encountered only two problems—a side mirror dropped into the racing groove and soon after a tire puncture on a pace lap at the three-hour mark. Otherwise, Bamber, Aitkin, and Frederik Vesti pressed the pace at the front of the field during the day and pulled away to a comfortable margin as the sun set on the rest of the field’s hopes.
Lacking pace, the Meyer Shank Racing team’s Acura ARX-06s could not mount a challenge to Porsche for the manufacturer’s championship—a day after narrowing the margin to two points when Tom Blomqvist set a track record to win the pole with a stunning lap of 1:09.326 (131.326 mph). Blomqvist, who rode a knife’s edge in Turn 1 to win the pole, was half a lap behind Jaminet’s Porsche at the finish in fifth place. The team dropped two positions with a slow pit stop at sunset and struggled to make up the lost ground.
Following the six-car crash that eliminated four GTD contestants 35 seconds into the race, drivers behaved themselves compared to the three previous races when errant blocking and tackling occasioned a rash of penalties. On this sun-smacked day and clear night, ten penalties for incident responsibility were called over the course of the ten-hours. None of the incidents brought out anh of the six cautions as the pushing, shoving and blocking remained relatively dainty.
The result was a race and show that was fast and furious rather than wild and crazy. Rough driving had led to far too many laps under safety cars in the preceding three events starting at Road America, but the Petit ran caution free for four and a half hours at the finish. That also helped prevent some late lap mayhem by not bunching the field, another plus for IMSA’s premier series, which too often has raced from yellow to yellow here in the nighttime hours.
Nonstop Action
Given the absence of the safety car in the critical late hours, action in all the classes was nonstop.
The GTD Pro championship chase between Corvette Racing’s Antonio Garcia and Alexander Sims and Albert Costa of DragonSpeed slowly evaporated when the Ferrari team was penalized for losing control of a tire on the pit road as Costa was getting into his 296 GT3 at sunset. Costa was later assessed the day’s final penalty for avoidable contact, but by then the Ferrari was already a lap down. On a busy evening for the Spaniard, he also got off course at Turn 10 following contact with the eventual GTD-winning Ferrari of Af Corse with Alessandro Pier Guidi at the wheel. Chevrolet also clinched the manufacturers’ title.
Comfortable Margins
In LMP2, the AO Racing team sustained its championship momentum despite an off-track excursion by PJ Hyett early and a bungled driver exchange late. In the end, team owner Hyett and co-driver Dane Cameron won the title with a comfortable margin, finishing sixth.
A broken front suspension forced the United Autosports USA entry and title contender Daniel Goldburg out of the class lead with just less than three hours remaining. A five-time champion, Cameron completed a remarkable grand slam, having earned a title in each of IMSA’s four classes.
For the second straight race, TDS Racing took home the class’s race trophy by a comfortable margin in the final WeatherTech Championship race for team owner Steven Thomas, who was joined by Mikkel Jensen and Hunter McElrea. Attorney Thomas pleaded his case, saying he could no longer afford to race against dotcom millionaires. His summation? “IMSA is expensive.”
Pileup
There was a scary reminder of the challenges of this 2.5-mile track on the first lap. A six-car pileup in the Esses eliminated four GTD entrants. Brendan Iribe ill-advisedly accelerated through an incident started when Manny Franco hit the curb and spun. Iribe passed several cars that had slowed to avoid the problem before he rammed the nose of Franco’s stationary Ferrari, creating havoc. Franco was taken to a local hospital for precautionary evaluation. A team rep reported the driver was in “good spirits.”
Mercedes AMG-GT3 drivers Philip Ellis and Russell Ward, who arrived on the grid with a 225-point lead, clinched the GTD drivers’ championship after just one lap since four cars were forced to retire, which gave them the minimum points needed. Merecedes AMG won the manufacturer title.
Af Corse Ferrari drivers Alessandro Pier Guidi, Simon Mann and Lilou Wadoux Ducellier spent most of the race leading GTD, winning from the Ferrari 296 GT3 of Triarsi Competizione by four seconds. Mann clinched his first WeatherTech victory and Ducellier scored her first in GTD.
Category: General Sports
