Jordan Pepper claimed victory for the #19 Iron Lynx team at the IMSA SportsCar Championship’s 27th running of Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta.
A dramatic, action-packed season finale concluded the 2024 season in entertaining fashion in the GTD and GTD Pro classes.
For GTD Pro, ‘Rexy’ narrowly grasped AO Racing’s first GTD Pro championship title having made the move from GTD for this year.
At the race start, Laurin Heinrich of the #77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3.R – also known as ‘Rexy’ – retained their pole position spot.
Tommy Milner was briefly side-by-side in his #4 Corvette Z06 GT3.R, before residing behind Rexy.
His teammate Antonio Garcia was behind in the #3 Corvette in promising formation, though Heinrich quickly established a gap up to five seconds.
The first caution, declared due to a stranded GTD car in the gravel, enabled some teams to opt for driver changes after just 20-minutes since lights out.
Back to green and the tension continued, especially between Oliver Jarvis’ #9 Pfaff Motorsports McLaren 720S and Madison Snow’s #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4.
The pair made contact at the bottom of the hill, causing Snow to skitter across the gravel trap in front of them.
During the caution period, only the #65 Ford Multimatic Mustang and the #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 296 did not pit – which put them at the front.
More relevantly, Garcia got the better of Heinrich during the pit stop sequence, as Heinrich soon returned the favour for the net-lead.
Even though the front two did not pit, Heinrich caught them with his strong turn of race pace for Rexy.
Corvette suffers unlucky hit for the #4
Into the second racing hour, Julien Andlauer took over from Heinrich behind the wheel of the #77 Porsche.
Andlauer previously drove the #77 when Seb Priaulx departed earlier this season.
At 1-hour and 10-minutes into the race, misfortune struck for the #4 Corvette after Milner was hit into the wall at Turn 5 by Ben Keating, who momentarily recovered contact with another LMP2 rival.
The #4 suffered front- and rear-right suspension damage after hitting the wall.
It was not fully out of the running as it was transported back to the garage to repairs, but it was no longer in a competitive position.
After a second caution period, with less than 8-hours and 40-minutes remaining, disaster struck for the authoritative Rexy machine.
Andlauer nursed gear selection problems for several laps, with the swap to a new steering wheel not solving the issue.
He stopped at Turn 7 before he continued again, and so fell down the GT order as championship protagonists.
The #66 Gradient Racing Acura of Sheena Monk tapped with Jarvis’ #9 at T4, prompting a third caution.
She continued on her way seconds before the caution was declared, proving a timely chance for the #3 of Garcia to pit due to low brake pressure.
Whilst Corvette swapped out left-front brake calliper on the #3, the #77 was able to stay on the GTD Pro lead lap.
Further pain for Rexy amidst electronic issues
Into the third racing hour, however, Rexy’s issues re-emerged.
It became apparent that Andlauer was dealing with a steering connector issue.
He pitted again as AO Racing’s mechanics replaced the wheel connecting cable.
The #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F of Ben Barnicoat took on the next spell of misfortune after a radiator issue.
Barnicoat parked at T7, was pulled behind the wall and the #14 retired.
Iron Lynx found their way into the lead fight with their #19 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2.
Various fuel strategies were at play with different cars having pitted at different times.
In the fight for third position, Ross Gunn and his #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage chased down Alexander Sims’ #3 Corvette.
This was at least before Sims dived into the pits.
Even still, the fight for P4 was hot as Bryan Sellers (#1 BMW) fended off Frederic Vervisch’s #65 Ford.
This running of Petit Le Mans would mark Sellers’ final race with his well-affiliated Paul Miller Racing outfit.
Risi Competizione back at the top over halfway point
Two titans – Lamborghini and Ferrari – were at the sharp end of GTD Pro competition.
Risi Competizione (#62 Ferrari) were fuelled by motivation to add to their maiden Daytona 24 Hours win in January.
Alessandro Pier Guidi (#62 Ferrari) commenced a good getaway after the fourth caution period.
Behind him was the #23 Aston Martin driven by Romain De Angelis.
Due to the #77’s woes, they would be unlikely to climb further up the field.
At this point, the championship odds were on the #23 Aston Martin in second position.
Specifically, second place and above was the key threshold for the #23 taking the title, otherwise it was in the #77’s favour.
Darkness falls upon Road Atlanta
Nicky Catsburg (#4 Corvette) made contact with Mario Farnbacher’s #027 Aston Martin which endured a 360-degree spin.
The #4 was given a drive-though for incident responsibility.
A surprisingly long run of green flag racing – with reference to last year’s 12 cautions – allowed competitors to settle.
All the while, the #77 still resided 11th in-class into the final two hours.
The odds were still in their favour to win the GTD Pro championship, with the Drivers’ Title going to Heinrich, by four points.
Ross Gunn (#23 Aston Martin) was 42 seconds behind Daniel Serra’s #62 Ferrari which held second place.
It was a tall order for Heart of Racing, but not impossible.
During the final hour, the tension resumed after Corey Lewis dramatically crashed in the #55 Proton GTD-entered Ford Mustang.
Fortunately, he was attentive after his impact; the same could not be said for his Mustang.
Maiden GTD Pro victory for Iron Lynx, Rexy reigns title glory
By the end of 413 laps, Jordan Pepper won the race in the GTD Pro category for Iron Lynx, with Mirko Bortolotti and Franck Perrera.
Second place was 2.3 seconds back in the form of Risi Competizione.
Their #62 Ferrari crew consisted of Daniel Serra and his co-drivers Alessandro Pier Guidi and Davide Rigon.
Unfortunately for Heart of Racing, they lost out on title glory by 1.8 seconds and 4 points.
Heinrich became the drivers’ champion whilst AO Racing won the effort as a team.
In spite of that, Ross Gunn and his co-drivers Romain De Angelis and Alex Riberas earned the final podium spot.
Their sibling #027 entrant finished fourth with Marco Sorensen at the wheel.
Fifth was claimed by Alexander Sims and his #3 Corvette team.
In GTD, Albert Costa Balboa muscled his way with a late move into the lead for Conquest Racing.
He kept himself ahead of the #78 Forte Racing Lamborghini (Loris Spinelli) to win in GTD.
Vasser Sullivan took third in the hands of Aaron Telitz.
Down in ninth place, Winward Racing concluded their dominant 2024 campaign en route to their GTD championship title.
Stay tuned for an in-depth GTD category race report on Sunday, on Motorsport Week
