Awarding Game Balls, the GTD PRO Show and Time Management Expertise
By David Phillips
BRASELTON, Ga. – What more is there to be said after 10 hours of racing that saw more than two dozen IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup driver, team and manufacturer titles decided at the 2022 Motul Petit Le Mans? Plenty. In fact, much more than this space or the attention span of the most rabid sports car racing fan allows.
Understanding that any effort to encapsulate or highlight all that was achieved between 12:10 p.m. ET and 10:10 p.m. Saturday at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta would be presumptuous, not to say tedious, permit me to focus on several noteworthy aspects of the event.
Motul Petit Le Mans Game Ball
There were many stellar performances over the weekend, but one would be hard-pressed to find a more worthy recipient of a “Motul Petit Le Mans Game Ball” than Tom Blomqvist. He began by turning a scintillating qualifying lap in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Acura-ARX to claim the Motul Pole Award and clinch the 2022 Daytona Prototype international (DPi) manufacturer championship for Acura on Friday.
But that was merely Job 1. Next up were the DPi team and driver titles in what amounted to a highest-finisher-take-all contest between Meyer Shank and the points-leading No. 10 Konica Minolta Acura on Saturday.
After nine-plus hours of flat-out racing in concert with co-drivers Oliver Jarvis and Helio Castroneves, Blomqvist benefitted from Meyer Shank’s exemplary pit work to beat the No. 10 Acura of Filipe Albuquerque onto the track after their final pit stops. Blomqvist proceeded to repay his pit crew’s stellar work by gapping the second-place Acura to the point that Albuquerque was forced to make an “iffy” pass of the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 in Turn 2 to keep Blomqvist in sight.
Contact ensued, damaging the No. 10 and ensuring Meyer Shank’s second overall Motul Petit Le Mans win, along with the 2022 DPi team and driver championships for Blomqvist and Jarvis.
Never a Dull Moment
With the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R, along with drivers Mathieu Jaminet and Matt Campbell, clinching the GTD PRO team, manufacturer and driver season crowns just by taking the green flag, one might have thought the drama had largely been eliminated from that class in the Motul Petit Le Mans. Hardly.
With less than a half-hour remaining in the 10-hour contest Jaminet, Jack Hawksworth (No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3), Daniel Serra (No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GT3) and Connor De Phillippi (No. 25 BMW M Team RLL M4 GT3) engaged in a thrilling four-way battle for the lead that saw them go two, three and at times four wide along the back straightaway. Although Jaminet applied a dab of the proverbial chrome horn to the leading Lexus in Turn 10, Hawksworth managed to retain the top spot. Serra, however, got around the Pfaff Porsche in the resulting confusion and set off after Hawksworth, duly grabbing first place on the following lap and setting sail for the checkered flag. Any chance Hawksworth had of getting back around Serra was dashed when a full-course caution was declared just moments before the 10:10 p.m. finish … or so it seemed.
On a day and night when a bevy of competitors were penalized for everything from avoidable contact to improperly inflated tires, Risi Competizione saw the GTD PRO win slip away when officials determined Serra had exceeded the maximum time permitted (four hours) for any driver to be behind the wheel during a six-hour period. Thus did Hawksworth, Ben Barnicoat and Kyle Kirkwood, Lexus and Vasser Sullivan not only win the Motul Petit Le Mans, but they clinched second spot in the GTD PRO manufacturer, team and driver standings.
Not bad for a class race that thought to have little or no drama.
Time Sensitive
It’s been said of many an NFL Hall of Fame quarterback that they were seldom beaten in a game; rather, they just ran out of time. Much the same could be said for a host of GT Daytona (GTD) drivers, teams and manufacturers when it comes to the 2022 championships.
For, while the GTD PRO titles were a foregone conclusion once the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R took the green flag, the GTD titles could easily have gone to as many as four teams and three manufacturers and their drivers. That should have come as no surprise in a season that saw seven teams and seven manufacturers visit victory lane prior to Saturday.
Given that, it should also come as no surprise that an eighth team and a seventh manufacturer, namely Gradient Racing and Acura, should etch their names in the roll call of 2022 GTD winners on Saturday, despite starting from the back of the field after a mechanical issue prevented them from posting a qualifying time.
As was typically the case this season, there was no shortage of teams that could have taken home the Motul Petit Le Mans winner’s hardware. Led by the No. 21 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GT3, no fewer than 10 cars were on the lead (GTD) lap at the four-hour mark with seven cars, headed by the No. 70 inception racing McLaren 720S GT3, on the lead lap four hours later. However, the inception McLaren got stuck behind a slower car leaving pit lane late in the race, yielding a lead that the No. 66 Gradient Acura NSX GT3 would maintain to the finish.
As for the championship contenders, the No 16 Wright Porsche came home fourth, Team Korthoff’s No. 32 Mercedes was sixth and Winward Racing’s No. 57 Mercedes-AMG took 11th spot, while Roman De Angelis, Maxime Martin and Ian James brought the No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin home seventh to clinch the title. In the end, Wright Motorsports, Team Korthoff and the No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW all finished within 103 points of the Heart of Racing Team. With all due respect to the GTD champions, that order might well have been reshuffled had time not run out on the others and the 2022 WeatherTech Championship at 10:10 p.m. Saturday.