Petit Le Mans: Mazda vs AXR battle rages with two hours left
The #5 Action Express Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R was leading the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship finale, the Motul Petit Le Mans, after eight of the 10 hours, until making a pitstop handing the lead back to Mazda, while Risi Competizione has wrested the GTLM lead away from Ford.
Just after 7h20m elapsed, Mike Conway’s Cadillac passed Tristan Nunez’s RT24-P with a neat and brave outbraking maneuver down into Turn 10 and currently leads Nunez’s co-driver Timo Bernhard by three seconds.
However, the two cars were running slightly different strategies, so by the eight-hour mark the #5 Cadillac had ducked into the pits and was second, 56sec behind the Mazda.
In third but needing a stop is the Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac of Matthieu Vaxiviere, ahead of Ricky Taylor’s #7 Acura Team Penske entry.
Felipe Nasr’s #31 AXR Cadillac has lost pace over the last hour and its most recent stop has dropped it to fifth, ahead of the conservatively-driving championship favorite Dane Cameron in the #6 Acura.
Alessandro Pier Guidi passed Richard Westbrook’s Ford GT to put the Risi Ferrari 488 GTE into the lead of GT Le Mans, about 20mins before the 8hr mark as the pair of them held a 10sec margin over Connor De Phillippi’s BMW M8 which has come alive as the temperatures have dropped.
Some 14 and 26sec behind respectively are the #912 and #911 Porsche 911 RSRs, with the #3 Corvette C7.R a further 10sec down.
Christopher Mies leads GT Daytona in the Montaplast by Land Motorsport Audi R8 LMS, with Zacharie Robichon right up his exhausts in the Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R.
Ten seconds back is Katherine Legge’s Acura NSX GT3 while Bill Auberlen and Felipe Fraga survived a mild coming together to continue fourth and fifth in the Turner Motorsport BMW M6 GT3 and Riley Motorsports Mercedes AMG-GT3 respectively.
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About this article
| Series | IMSA |
| Event | Road Atlanta |
| Author | David Malsher-Lopez |
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