Lights Out, Victory Secured: Ganassi Triumphs at Petit Le Mans
It was a lights out victory for Chip Ganassi Racing at the Petit Le Mans. Despite losing his headlights in the final minutes, Renger van der Zande's Cadillac V-Series.R finished three seconds ahead of the Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 of Nick Tandy to win.
Given how influential his team has been over the last 20 years of American sports car racing, it’s hard to believe the triumph of the No. 01 Cadillac is Chip Ganassi’s first in the annual day-night thriller.
Then again, a lot about the finishes at the Petit Le Mans are hard to believe. Known for surprise endings in the O. Henry mode, this one was more like Edgar Allen Poe given the role darkness played in the final hour, including the decisive final stint by van der Zande, who drove through the dark backside of Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta without headlights—twice—in the closing laps of the IMSA WeatherTech Championship season finale.
Once a mandatory single headlight came back on and the race victory was claimed, Chip Ganassi was like a beacon of light, a rare thing for the curmudgeonly team owner who brought a single-seater, hard-ass attitude to the friendly confines of sports car endurance racing when he first arrived in the Grand-Am Series in 2004.
“To win the Petit Le Mans is a huge thing for our team,” said Ganassi. “It’s one of those wins that’s escaped us over the years. We’ve been here many times and this is the last big one we’ve been missing in our trophy case. It’s the end of the season, it’s a good way to go into the winter with the win.”
Ganassi even admitted he’s going to miss IMSA and sports car racing after announcing his split with Cadillac earlier this year following four seasons, which included the launch of the V-Series.R in the new era of GTP hybrid. “We don’t have anything with sportscars for next year,” said Ganassi, “so you can give out my phone number if anyone needs a team.”
The surprise comeback victory by van der Zande after the No. 01 Caddy had been two laps down earlier in the day resulted from two collisions in the dark. With 35 minutes to go, Ricky Taylor was about to take the lead at Turn 6 when he side-swiped a stationary GTD car whose headlights had been ripped off by a crash. That sidelined the WTR/Andretti Acura ARX-06.
The ensuing full-course safety car gave van der Zande his shot to “undertake” leader Tandy’s Porsche 963 on the low side under braking at Turn 1. When Philipp Eng then put a wheel of his BMW M Hybrid V8 into the side of Tandy’s Porsche, the Dutchman got a cushion of five seconds, much needed once his lights began flickering.
“I am just so overjoyed,” said van der Zande, joined on the podium by Sebastien Bourdais and Scott Dixon. “This is so awesome. This race is my race. If I tell people about racing in America, this is how we race in America. I love IMSA. I want to be here the rest of my racing life. And being with Chip, you know, Chip has just been awesome to me.”
Ganassi has been awesome for sports car racing as well. His team won five Grand-Am championships between 2004 and 2012, helping to support that series during endurance racing’s Great Schism resulting from the creation of the American Le Mans Series and its signature Petit Le Mans. After partnerships with Lexus, BMW and Ford in prototypes, Ganassi’s Ford GT program won Le Mans in 2016 on the 50th anniversary of the Ford’s inaugural win in France. Including victories at Daytona, Sebring and Watkins Glen, the Ganassi team goes into its current sports car hiatus with 67 career victories in the Grand-Am plus the wins after the reunification with IMSA that started in 2014.
Porsche Penske Claims GTP Title
The Petit Le Mans lived up to its reputation for a big influence on WeatherTech Championship chases, because the race proved once again that just finishing then ten hours without incident is not a given.
Claiming the GTP championship, Felipe Nazr and Dane Cameron had a relatively uneventful run to third place in the Porsche Penske Motorsport 963, where Matt Campbell was the third shoe.
But the saga of GTD Pro points leader Lauren Heinrich and “Rexy” almost ended with disappointment after the AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R entry suffered a gearbox issue that required a long stop on the pit road to rewire the paddle activation. That left the door open for Ross Gunn in the Heart of Racing Aston Martin GT3 Evo. But Gunn, who drove the final stint, finished one position shy of the title in third place.
“I think the race today took at least 10 years off my life,” said AO’s team manager Gunnar Jeannette, whose car co-driven by Michael Christensen and Julien Andlauer finished 11th out of 13 entries. “We’ve had incredible reliability all year. And, of course, when it mattered, we had a simple issue that put us six or seven laps down. But we managed it, which is how we’ve been managing races all year. We made smart decisions and minimized the loss.”
The class race winners at Iron Lynx brought the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 its first victory in GTD Pro. Jordan Pepper, Frank Perera and Mirko Bortolotti finished 2.361 seconds ahead of the Risi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3 of Daniel Serra, Davide Rigon and Alessandro Pier Guidi.
In LMP2, the class requiring a bronze-rated driver, the title hopes of Nick Boulle and Tom Dillmann took a hit when co-driver Jakub Smiechowski got hit in rear wing and lost a lap. Gar Robinson and Riley Motorsports came back in play for the title and the Jim Trueman Award given to the top bronze-rated driver in the class. But as at Mosport earlier this year, where Dillman scored a victory in the closing stint, the Gold-rated Frenchman was superb in moving up to fourth place in his final stint, securing the LMP2 title and the Trueman award for Boulle.
TDS Racing, where Platinum-rated Mikel Jensen had some stellar stints, won the LMP2 race trophy. Jensen co-drove with Steven Thomas and Hunter McElrea.
In GTD, as expected Russell Ward and Philip Ellis of Windward Racing clinched the championship despite a nearly disastrous tire blowout on their Mercedes-AMG GT3 in the late afternoon. Following a superfast and aggressive closing stint by Albert Costa Balboa, Conquest Racing’s Ferrari 296 GT3 emerged as the race winner following a five-car battle at the finish. Manny Franco and Cedric Sbirrazzuoli co-drove with the Spaniard, who eluded the Lamborghini of Loris Spinelli and Forte Racing in the closing minutes.
IMSA Stars Face Uncertain Futures
This year’s Petit Le Mans was more of a watershed than most. In some cases, it left more questions than answers.
Will this be the last year American fans see Sebastien Bourdais regularly on U.S. circuits? The Frenchman, who has been driving for Ganassi off and on for the last 10 years, has not announced any plans for next year. “I can’t be thankful enough for the opportunity to have driven the (Ganassi Cadillac) for three years,” he said. “It’s a bittersweet end but there is no better send off. I’m so grateful, it’s just amazing.”
The rumor mill has Bourdais, 45, returning to Europe and taking up the cudgel in one of the many road racing series based there. His teammate at Ganassi, Renger van der Zande, has not made any comments about his future. The Dutchman’s winning final stint will help keep a lot of doors open.
One ending was definitive and made the season’s final race emotional for Richard Westbrook, who announced his retirement the day before the event. When his JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche 963 went behind the wall with power steering issues, the Englishman, who co-drove to victory at the Rolex 24 in 2018 in the Ford GT of Chip Ganassi Racing, struggled to maintain his composure.
“I’m proud of being part of this IMSA family,” he said, adding. “I’m going to miss it so much.”
We all know where to find Westbrook in the future—hovering over brewing kettles. Westbrooks Brewing, whose beers are made in Suffolk, England, has proven to be a success. The craft beer lover currently contract brews his beers at Artefact Brewing and intends to open a brewery of his own. His low carb creations include Laguna, Dingle Dell, Karusselle, Peraltada and Lime Rock.
Bryan Sellers, who last year co-drove a BMW M4 GT3 with Madison Snow to the GTD championship at Paul Miller Racing, is moving on to a team management job at DXDT Racing, which will enter the WeatherTech Championship next year with a Corvette Z06 GT3.R. Sellers, who scored two championships and 13 class victories with the Miller team, is expected to carry his helmet bag with him and occasionally get behind the wheel. In the ALMS, Sellers scored six class GT victories in a Porsche for the Falken Tire factory team.
Porsche Penske Motorsport has acknowledged it will once again make some adjustment to its driving line-up for 2025. For the 2024 season, the team called its only American driver Dane Cameron back from his World Endurance Championship assignment and instead partnered him with Felipe Nazr in the WeatherTech Championship. This time around, Cameron may be without a ride when the music stops, according to the rumor mill. In light of the American partnering Nazr in route to the GTP championship this year, the team has been mum on specifics.