A rainy day in Georgia played into the hands of the GT Le Mans teams as their cars and tires gave them an advantage — and an upset victory — over the faster Prototypes in a rain-shortened Petit Le Mans on a wet, slick Road Atlanta track.
When the checkered flag was dropped for rain after seven hours and fifty minutes of the scheduled 10-hours, the No. 911 Porsche driven by Nick Tandy had defeated the powerful Prototype cars.
Tandy, who had Patrick Pilet and Richard Lietz as his co-drivers in the Petit, also was the overall winner in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June, although that victory came aboard a Porsche Prototype.
His win at Road Atlanta was the first overall victory for a GT car in the history of Petit and the first in a major endurance race since the 2003 Rolex 24 at Daytona, when car owner Kevin Buckler and his co-drivers Michael Schrom, Timo Bernhard and Jorg Bergmeister defeated the Prototypes.
The runner-up in the 18th running of the Petit Le Mans also went to a GT car as the No. 24 BMW of Jens Klingmann also finished ahead of the top Prototype, the No. 5 Corvette driven by Joao Barbosa, Christian Fittipaldi and Sebastien Bourdais.
The No. 73 Porsche driven by Patrick Lindsey, Madison Snow and Atlanta’s Spencer Pumpelly, won in GT Daytona, while the No. 62 Oreca Chevrolet driven by Tom Kimber-Smith, Mike Guasch and Andrew Palmer won in Prototype Challenge.
Slick conditions throughout the day and into the night led to several crashes that scrambled the points standings during the final race of the 2015 season for the four classes of cars that make up the Tudor United SportsCar Championship. Rain also caused a red-flag period of an hour and five minutes, but the race continued on until darkness fell, and that brought about a new set of issues, according to IMSA’s Race Director Beau Barfield.
He cited the visibility issues brought about by a combination of darkness and the spray coming off the cars at speed, on top of the issue of poor grip on a race track, for his decision to end the race early.
“There was no comfort level to go back green after the last yellow flag,” Barfield said. “I felt like I would be putting drivers completely blinded out there.”
With his third-place finish overall — and first in class — Barbosa and Fittipaldi took the Prototype season title, while the GT Le Mans crown went to Pilet. The GT Daytona season title went to Townsend Bell and Bill Sweedler, while Jon Bennett and Colin Braun won the Prototype Challenge season championship.
Even though it’s a couple of years away, the confirmation of a new set of rules for Prototype cars, beginning with the 2017 season, had drivers and fans buzzing at Road Atlanta.
The new rules for the class to be known as Daytona Prototype International are designed to attract more auto manufacturers to the sport and bring back some of drama that once was a part of Petit, such as the head-to-head competition between Audi and Peugeot drivers that dominated the top class from 2009-11.
“It is a modern, international prototype that will provide participating manufacturers, teams, drivers — and especially our fans — with a wide variety of great cars and outstanding competition,” IMSA President Scott Atherton said in making the announcement.
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