Petit Le Mans, the annual ten-hour endurance classic at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta, concluded the SportsCar Championship season once again on Saturday. Starting at noon, the grid, including ten GTP class entries, faced the 2.54-mile, 12-turn circuit, known for demanding mental and physical endurance from drivers.
The #3 Mayer Simspeed Performance Porsche 963 GTP earned victory honors, driven by Niclas Pedersen, Kyle Birnie, and Jason Birnie, rising from an eighth-place start to take the checkered flag. Despite the #51 World of SimRacing Team Cadillac leading the most laps, the #3 Porsche triumphed with a two-lap advantage following a post-race penalty issued to the #51 car.
Intense Mid-Race Incidents Shape Outcome
Throughout the race, GTP teams had to navigate multi-class traffic and deal with changing track conditions as the afternoon turned to night, putting both car and driver to the test.
A low incident limit of 39 imposed by race control created an additional challenge, with several GTP entries facing related drive-through and disqualification penalties.
A total of four full-course yellows interrupted the action, with the first just over an hour in. This trend of caution periods emphasized the race's unpredictable nature.
Critical Penalties Impact Key Players
The competition's intensity ramped up during the final stages. A key incident occurred under the fourth and final full-course yellow when the #51 World Of SimRacing Team Cadillac approached pit road, suddenly slowed in an effort to avoid passing the pace car, which resulted in a stackup and multi-car pileup behind. Amongst others, the incident also involved the #830 Team Heartcore Cadillac.For this incident, the #51 Cadillac was assigned a two-lap and 30 seconds post-race penalty, that ultimately wound up being the difference maker in the outcome of this race and leaving World of SimRacing Team second on the podium, despite leading 376 laps.
Meanwhile, the #830 Team Heartcore Cadillac, despite an impressive performance and season-best third-place finish, faced significant delays due to repairs needed after the pileup. Team Heartcore's drivers Stefan Rossmann, Jan-Philipp Wied, and Jakob Lehmann demonstrated resilience, finishing eleven laps down in third place.
No. 3 Porsche clinches SportsCar Championship title
Staying out of trouble, the #3 Mayer Simspeed Performance took victory, also sealing the 2024 VSCA SportsCar Championship in GTP class with 4,261 points. The #51 World of SimRacing Team Cadillac finished second, 275 points adrift, while the #88 DS Racing eSports Team Cadillac placed third.
World Of SimRacing Team finds solace in winning Endurance Cup
Second place at Road Atlanta was good enough for the #51 Cadillac of World Of SimRacing Team to clinch the VSCA Endurance Cup with 50 points, followed by the #3 Porsche, just seven points behind.
Álvaro Martinez, driver of the #51 Cadillac after the race and after finding out that his team was hit with a post-race penalty for the pile-up on pit entry under full-course yellow: "What!? We didn't win!? Argh! Another one that got away from us. Well, it's a victory for us anyway. We fought hard on the track and crossed the finish line first, we did an excellent job."
"We achieved the main objective for today, the Endurance Cup and everything revolved around that. Being in the lead at hour 4 and 8 was the objective and the strategy was only focused on that. Obviously also at hour 10, but you just informed me that we didn't achieve it. But we are still very satisfied with what we achieved. For the team it is very important to take this Endurance Cup title and we are going to celebrate it right now."
Mixed feelings amongst Top-Ten Finishers
The #50 Bravo Snow Schatten Acura ARX-06 achieved a respectable fourth-place finish, while the #42 DS Racing eSports Team Cadillac, initially third, was dropped to fifth due to a post-race penalty related to the team being in violation of driver rating requirements of GTP class comptition.
Putting a disappointing end to a championship defense season, and carrying car number #1 for the final time, the #1 Grizzly Motorsports Porsche was disqualified for exceeding the incident limit with just five laps to go. The team was listed as P6 in official results.
Likewise disqualified were the #10 NGC Esports Team Acura (P7) and the #4 Fischer Motorsport Porsche (P8). Pole-sitter #88 DS Racing eSports Team Cadillac (P9) retired on lap 318 and missed the 70% minimum lap completion requirement to score points but still ended up listed in ninth place officially.
HAC Racing and its #111 Cadillac entry completed the top ten despite retiring on lap 77 due to a crash in turn five, when Matthew H Routon lost control and hit the concrete wall. Team-mate and fellow HAC Racing driver Christophe Demay announced his immediate and permanent retirement from VSCA SportsCar Championship competition following the race.
Mayer Simspeed Performance celebrates in Victory Lane
Celebrating their SportsCar Championship title in victory lane, the #3 Mayer Simspeed Performance Porsche team put a story-book ending on their successful 2024 season.
Kyle Birnie: "It's an amazing accomplishment and something we have been pushing for the past three seasons. We are definitely on a high and we feel that this season truly showed our potential we knew we had and kept building on since 2022."
Birnie's team-mate Niclas Pedersen agreed: "It's amazing. We've been so close last season - to finally put it together and claim the championship is awesome! And to do it with a win at Petit Le Mans is even better. So, a big shoutout to the whole team and the hard work everybody put in this year. It's been awesome."
"We all agreed that having a very boring race would be nice, so we did our best to lean more towards the patience side when handling traffic. Our goal was just to get to the 70% mark since we knew if we made that mark, we would clinch the championship, so long as we didn't get disqualified for any reason. So we took a more passive approach during the race."
Pedersen: "Yeah, like Kyle said, I think our pace was good all race, we just tried to keep in position for the championship, and then in the end when the late caution came, it was game on.
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