The No. 24 BMW Team RLL BMW Z4 followed the No. 911 home, and Action Express Racing’s No. 5 Corvette DP entry, the top Prototype finisher on Saturday, claimed third.
Mechanical grip and the advanced rubber used in the GTLM class allowed the Michelin-shod cars to match or exceed the pace by the Prototype front-runners, and with Porsche’s Nick Tandy in the car for what turned out to be the final stint, he was able to chase down Action Express Racing’s Eric Curran in the No. 31 Corvette DP and pass for the lead on lap 187 of the 199-lap race. A yellow flag nine minutes later cemented Tandy’s position and the historic overall victory by a GT car at Petit Le Mans. Tandy also took the overall win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June.
“What an amazing day,” said Tandy’s teammate Patrick Pilet, who captured the 2015 GTLM title. “Thank you to Porsche and the entire team. It was such a difficult race. It’s amazing.” Adding to their incredible story, the No. 911 was forced to start at the back of the 36-car field after a post-qualifying technical infraction.
In Prototype, AXR’s Joao Barbosa and Christian Fittipaldi also won their class and won their second consecutive championship. The title was made possible by an unfortunate, ill-timed pit stop by their teammates in the No. 31.
Although they could not have known it at the time, the team called Eric Curran in from the Prototype lead for a driver change just as the final yellow flew. With the No. 31 in contention for the championship, pitting allowed the sister No. 5 AXR to leapfrog to the class lead and earn the extra points needed to hold onto their Prototype crown.
“It was going to be a stroke of luck at the end of the race,” said Fittipaldi. “But, that’s racing. We were a little bit lucky today and it worked in our favor. I’m lost for words.”
The race was less favorable for the Prototype championship leaders. The VisitFlorida.com Racing Corvette DP was pitched into multple spins by Michael Valiante and Mike Rockenfeller, and they paid for the errors by losing two laps, finishing well down the order, and watching their rivals take the championship lead from them at the final round.
The PC title was decided early in the race, leaving the Petit Le Mans class victory a point of pride for whoever triumphed. The PR1/Mathiasen team closed the season in the manner it started it by winning in the No. 52 ORECA FLM09-Chevy. The familiar trio of Tom Kimber-Smith, Mike Guasch, and Andrew Palmer added to their big wins at the Rolex 24 at Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring by tacking Petit Le Mans onto their amazing calendar of achievement.
Said Kimber-Smith about his stint in the open-cockpit car, “I don’t think I’ve ever been that wet in my life, even in the shower.”
CORE autosport earned its fifth consecutive PC Teams’ championship dating back to the ALMS, and second straight Drivers’ championship. Despite its season-long achievement, the team did not enjoy a care-free run as Anthony Lazzaro spun and wrecked the No. 54 PC on lap 168. Nearly 20 laps went by as the team repaired the car, but Lazzaro’s teammates Colin Braun and CORE owner/driver Jon Bennett were able to see their car cross the finish line and celebrate in style.
“It means so much and Jon’s worked so hard,” said Braun. “Every year we win these championships, it drives people to work harder to beat us, and then we keep pushing forward.”
Along with the PC title, CORE autosport, which runs the Porsche North America GTLM program, scored two of the four class titles up for grabs in Road Atlanta.
IMSA’s heavily hyped GT Daytona championship contest was settled in favor of Scuderia Corsa’s Townsend Bell and Bill Sweedler.
The one-point championship lead TRG-AMR’s Christina Nielsen held coming into Petit Le Mans was under jeopardy from the moment the race began, and with her team—and the second-place Paul Miller Racing Audi R8 team—struggling on Saturday, the smart, clean run by Bell, Sweedler, and endurance co-driver Jeff Segal (RIGHT) saw the No. 63 Ferrari F458 score the title they narrowly missed in 2014.
“I’m a little bit in shock we pulled it off,” said Bell. “It was a clean run. I’m really happy for Bill; he was the backbone of our championship run and I’m so happy we were able to cap things off this way.”
GTD race win honors went to Park Place Motorsports as team owner/driver Patrick Lindsey, Madison Snow, and Spencer Pumpelly raced their way to Victory Lane. Pumpelly, on his usual charge, pushed the team’s No. 73 Porsche 911 GT America past his friend Andy Lally in the Magnus Racing Porsche and motored into the distance for their second win of 2015.
“This is one of the places I love to win, with two great teammates behind me, you can’t beat this,” Pumpelly said. “I’m super proud to be part of the effort they put in today.”
One of the feel-good stories of the event turned sour at the 3.5-hour mark when Michael Shank Racing’s John Pew experienced his second hard crash of the event. Following the chassis damage caused during Pew’s crash Thursday night practice, and the ensuing fightback to repair the tub and made the grid, seeing Pew in the wall again and the P2 car thoroughly broken was an unfair end to the crew’s valiant efforts.
Bad weather blanketed the event, and only intensified on race day. Numerous crashes bllighted the race and triggered multiple caution periods, and when cars weren’t making contact or spinning, IMSA was pausing the action to assess the various rivers and standing water that compromised the racing surface. As the ground surrounding the course began to reach its saturation limits, IMSA called for a red flag at 4:31 p.m. ET (5h21m).
After workers dug channels in the grass lining the circuit to aid water runoff, the green flag flew again at 5:47 p.m. (6h37m), but the hardest rains of the day were on the way. The race was well past the minimum distance and could have been ended earlier, but Barfield kept the action going for the surprisingly large contingent of fans who turned out and stayed through semi-miserable conditions.
The decision wasn’t necessarily a popular one among some of the drivers who spoke out against racing after the red flag, and the choice to end the race as the eighth hour drew near caught most people by surprise. As the rain further intensified during podium celebrations, there were few who complained about failing to reach the 10-hour standard, and with the shocking overall winner in mind, Petit Le Mans 2015 was nothing short of wild.