Motul Petit Le Mans Wrap: Meyer Shank Closes Out IMSA DPi Era with Win, Championship

All the champions, all the winners, all the numbers that mattered at Road Atlanta.

GTD Pro
Post-Race Nuggets
GTD PRO
Championship Nuggets
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IMSA

It was a dramatic day at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta for overall winners Meyer Shank Racing. Here’s a wrap-up of the 10-hour Motul Petit Le Mans from Road Atlanta and what happened in the five classes at the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship wrapped up another season:

DPi

In yet another surprise, if not bizarre ending at the Petit Le Mans, the Meyer Shank Racing team won the race and the WeatherTech Championship, beating their Acura DPi rivals at Wayne Taylor Racing.

The race victory and title were decided with 14 minutes remaining when the Acura of Felipe Albuquerque made contact with a slow-moving GTD car at the exit of Turn 1. A broken suspension hobbled Albuquerque’s ARX-05, securing the victory and the title for Blomquist and Oliver Jarvis, partnered in this race by Helio Castroneves.

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Moments before the decisive incident, Blomqvist held off Albuquerque on the front straight in a side-by-side encounter with little margin for error. “There was something happening inside me in the last two hours,” said Blomqvist. “I was so motivated. The car was so good and came to me. I made moves I don’t normally make. I was in a zone.”

The Taylor team’s championship began to come undone with 51 minutes remaining in the ten-hour race at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta by a bizarre development. The two Cadillacs of the Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillacs crashed at Turn 1 while running third and fourth, the only other DPi entries on the lead lap. Blomqvist took the lead during the subsequent pit stop under yellow and held it to the finish, despite the challenge from Albuquerque.

Blomqvist said he was both saving fuel and closing in on the Taylor Acura and would have won on pace after it’s strategy of setting up for the night began to pay dividends. “We were closing in slowly and I believe we would have caught them,” he said. “But that yellow changed a lot.”

The handling in the always ferocious traffic on a sunny day gave the winning Acura “terrible” oversteer, said Jarvis, while chasing the Taylor Acura in the winner take all showdown for the championship and the final race for the DPi class.

Helio Castroneves, center. leads the celebration for the winners on Saturday night.

IMSA

“I had a lot of hairy moments out there,” said Castroneves, who co-drove in the team’s season-opening victory in the Rolex 24 at Daytona. “It’s all about everybody working together and not making mistakes,” said Castroneves. “Then they did that last pit stop at the end of the race.” The Meyer Shank stop was shorter due to needing to take on less fuel.

In an exasperating night for the Ganassi, his two DPi prototypes were the only other cars on the lead lap entering the last hour when they made contact and crashed into the barrier at Turn 1. Ranger van der Zande and Earl Bamber finished the race in fourth and eighth place, respectively, then had the unwelcome responsibility of making explanations to their team owner.

LMP2

In LMP2, John Farano won the race and class championship with the Tower Motorsport team, supported by co-drivers Louis Deletraz and Rui Pinto de Andrade. Running a selected schedule, the DragonSpeed USA team were the runners-up with drivers much decorated Juan Pablo Montoya, who challenged Farano for the lead in the closing hours, his son Sebastian and Henrik Hedman.

LMP3

Andretti Autosport’s LMP3 drivers Gabby Chaves, Josh Burdon and Jarett Andretti, son of the late IMSA and IndyCar star John Andretti, scored their first win in the WeatherTech series. The LMP3 championship went to Core Autosport, its eighth.

GTD Pro

The Vasser Sullivan Racing team scored its second victory of the season in the GTD Pro category with drivers Jack Hawksworth, Ben Barnicoat and Kyle Kirkwood. In this case, the surprise came after the checkered flag.

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The Risi Competizione Ferrari took the lead exiting Turn 7 after the final re-start with 32 minutes, driven to the front by Daniel Serra in a three-way duel with the Vasser Sullivan Lexus and the Pfaff Motorsports’ Porsche. But the Risi team was disqualified because Serra drove more than four hours during a six-hour span.

“The whole race was just wild,” said Hawksworth, adding, “I had more contact in the last thirty minutes than during the entire season.” Serendipitous or not, Barnicoat said Lexus has put a lot of resources into achieving success in the major endurance races. The team led the majority of laps. “I’m very happy about winning this one,” said Barnicoat.

The Pfaff team and drivers Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet won the GTD Pro championship by starting the race and ended up third. “I think it was the best winning percentage for a championship in IMSA,” he said of the team’s five victories in 10 races. “It was 50 percent and we would have loved to add another one.”

Due to IMSA’s re-start procedure when the safety car is deployed, five GTD class cars finished ahead of the GTD Pro entries, where all drivers can be gold or platinum rated.

GTD

It was a championship up for grabs that nobody seemed to get a handle on for most of the Petit’s 10 hours.

“There were lots of lows today,” said Roman De Angelis, who led the points coming into the race with the Heart of Racing Team. “We went through a couple of steering wheels on pit stops and had lots of issues.” That included a drive through penalty after a tire removed during a pit stop was hit as the team’s Aston Martin Vantage GT3 exited its pit stall. “The team did a great job to stay motivated and keep fighting.”

Roman De Angelis finished off a championship season for GTD champs Heart of Racing Team.

IMSA

By staying mired in mid-pack much of the race, the door was left the door ajar for the Wright Motorsports Porsche duo of Ryan Hardwick and Jan Heylan. “It wasn’t going our way the whole race,” said De Angelis. “Then in the last few minutes we were taken off by the car we were fighting for the championship.”

Despite getting pushed into the grass at Turn 6 just prior to the final safety car period that concluded the race, a seventh-place finish by De Angelis, Maxime Martin and Ian James was good enough for the Canadian to clinch the title. Wright Motorsports, where Zacharie Robichon was the third driver, finished fourth, one position shy of the championship.

Nobody had a tougher road than the class winners at Gradient Racing, which scored its first WeatherTech series victory after starting from the pit road. “We had this issue, a misfire in qualifying,” said Mario Farnbacher, who drove the final two stints to win ten years after his first win at the Petit. “The team took the car apart, the wiring harness, everything.”

Kyffin Simpson and team owner Till Bechtolsheimer shared the driving duties. “We started last but ended up first,” said Simpson. “We didn’t expect to be here. The team did a great job and didn’t put a foot wrong.”

Post-Race Nuggets

Stats Courtesy of IMSA

DPi

The No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing W/Curb-Agajanian, Acura DPi (Oliver Jarvis, Tom Blomqvist, Helio Castroneves)

IMSA

No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing

15th career win
Second win of 2022
Won the first and last race of the season
Third Petit Le Mans win

Tom Blomqvist

Second career win
Second win of 2022
First Petit Le Mans win

Oliver Jarvis

Seventh career win
Second win of 2022
Second Petit Le Mans win, won the last two

Helio Castroneves

Ninth career win
Second win of 2022
Second Petit Le Mans win
Third win at Road Atlanta

GTD PRO

Note: No. 62 Risi Competizione crossed the line first but was moved to rear of class due to a drive time violation.

The No. 14 VasserSullivan, Lexus RC F, GT3, GTD PRO (Ben Barnicoat, Jack Hawksworth, Kyle Kirkwood)

IMSA

No. 14 Vasser Sullivan

10th career win
Second GTD PRO win of 2022
First win at Petit Le Man

Jack Hawksworth

Ninth career win
Second win of 2022
First Petit Le Mans win

Kyle Kirkwood

Second career win, first GTD PRO win
Second win of 2022
First Petit Le Mans win

Ben Barnicoat

Second career win
Second win of 2022
First Petit Le Mans win

LMP2

The No. 8 Tower Motorsport, ORECA LMP2 07, LMP2 (John Farano, Louis Deletraz, Rui Pinto de Andrade)

IMSA

No. 8 Tower Motorsport

19th career win
Second win of 2022
Third straight Petit Le Mans win

John Farano

Fourth career win
Second win of 2022
Third straight Petit Le Mans win

Louis Deletraz

Second career win
Second win of 2022
First Petit Le Mans win

Rui Pinto de Andrade

First Career win

GTD

The No. 66 Gradient Racing, Acura NSX GT3, GTD (Kyffin Simpson, Till Bechtolsheimer, Mario Farnbacher)

IMSA

No. 66 Gradient Racing

First career win

Mario Farnbacher

10th career win
First win of 2022
Second Petit Le Mans win
Third win at Road Atlanta win

Till Bechtolsheimer

First career win

Kyffin Simpson

First career win

LMP3

The No. 36 Andretti Autosport, Ligier JS P320, LMP3 (Jarett Andretti, Josh Burdon, Gabby Chaves)

IMSA

No. 36 Andretti Autosport

Fourth career win
First win of 2022
First Petit Le Mans win

Gabby Chaves

First career win

Jarett Andretti

First career win

Josh Burdon

First career win

Championship Nuggets