[IMSA] 2023 Petit Le Mans

[Everso Biggyballies]

Bottom post of the previous page:

Braun in the #60 Accura takes the lead at the restart and bolts. Did he take on new tyres?

25 minutes to go with this the class battles.

[Everso Biggyballies]

15 to go and the orders are the same except for LMP3
Fraga and Grist got together, with Fraga getting puncture and now runs 3rd.

Oh wait now we have Rasmussen who was running 2nd in LMP2 now in the wall and I daresay out. We have a FCY, so we are going to end up with a sprint of something close to 5+ minutes to decide the race.

[Everso Biggyballies]

I can only see more tears if we get a compressed field restart with say 5 minutes to go. I can see another FCY coming in those final couple of minutes and an SC led finish. Im calling it now!

[Everso Biggyballies]

just a few seconds over 5 minutes and we have a green flag. 3 maybe 4 laps if we are lucky.

Braun holds off the Caddy at the restart

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We have a GTD Porche on fire and another yellow. Looks like he got hit by Spinelli who also has a puncture. Cant even tell from replays what actually happened other than several cars were involved.

As I picked this will be a FCY finish as e are now into the last minute

[Everso Biggyballies]

Braun will win outright for Accura from Van Der Zande and Tincknell.

Spinelli still showing as leading GTD, but I thought he was stopped.

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The fireworks go off.

Here are the class podiums.

[Everso Biggyballies]

MSR Wins Petit Le Mans; Action Express Claims GTP Title

Action Express Racing’s Pipo Derani and Alexander Sims have claimed the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTP title following a wild season-ending Motul Petit Le Mans that saw Meyer Shank Racing win in its final race with Acura.

Braun took the No. 60 Acura ARX-06 to the checkered flag while under yellow following a fire for the No. 16 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R of Jan Heylen shortly after a restart with five minutes to go.

The action-packed conclusion saw No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-Series.R of Renger van der Zande finish second, giving Cadillac the manufacturers’ championship, despite going more than 90 minutes on a single stint of energy.

Braun shared top honors with Tom Blomqvist and Helio Castroneves in the MSR Acura.

Derani, meanwhile, crossed the line in sixth in the championship-winning Whelen Engineering-sponsored Cadillac.

It came after an incident between Derani and the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport Acura of Filipe Albuquerque with 1 hour and 2 minutes to go that resulted in the Portuguese driver in Turn 1 barriers.

Albuquerque was transported to a hospital for further evaluation while IMSA declared no further action.

PR1/Mathiasen, Riley Claim LMP2, LMP3 Titles

The No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca 07 Gibson of Ben Keating and Paul-Loup Chatin have been crowned LMP2 class champions with a third place class finish alongside Alex Quinn.

CrowdStrike by APR’s Ben Hanley, Nolan Siegel and George Kurtz, meanwhile, took the category win.

Keating and Chatin’s closest championship rivals, the No. 11 TDS Racing Oreca pairing of Mikkel Jensen and Steven Thomas, crashed out with three hours and 20 minutes to go in the hands of the Dane.

LMP3 race honors went to the No. 30 Jr III Racing Ligier of Garett Grist, Dakota Dickerson and Bijoy Garg.

It came after a late-race incident between Grist and the class championship-winning No. 74 Riley Ligier of Felipe Fraga, which forced the Brazilian into the pits with 20 minutes to go.

While dropping the Riley entry to third in class, driver Gar Robinson clinched the class title by the car just starting today’s race.

https://sportscar365.com/imsa/iwsc/msr- ... gtp-title/

[Cheeveer]

I thought that Bathurst was quite underwhelming, but this one was that but on the complete opposite on the spectrum. Just way too many bad drivers around.

[Everso Biggyballies]

. Just way too many bad drivers around.

And it wasnt just the Am drivers being amateurs.... a lot of the Pros seemed to be driving like Ams. I know its a tight circuit and with 50+ cars on track from GTPs to GTD... with LMP2 and some very average LMP3's in the mix you have to expect trouble. And we got it.

That an amateur clash of (Pro) cars ultimately decided the championship was fairly fitting.