Cadillac’s Sebastien Bourdais leads the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship’s Petit Le Mans with 2 hours to go, with a close battle between all four GTP manufacturers.
Bourdais, in the #01 Cadillac V-Series.R, took over from his teammate, Indycar legend Scott Dixon. The Kiwi led the race for the large part of an hour, before losing it to Louis Deletraz in the pit stop cycle, with the Swiss driver behind the wheel of the #10 Wayne Taylor Acura ARX-06.
The two dueled for the lead amongst high levels of traffic, but Deletraz used the slower cars to his advantage to grow a lead of a couple of seconds. A full course yellow and subsequent safety car, for Laurens Vanthoor crashing the struggling #6 Porsche 963, and also the #11 TDS Oreca 07-Gibson of Mikkel Jensen — which means, due to the car’s later retirement, Jensen and co-driver Steven Thomas lose the championship — put pause on the GTP lead duel, and Deletraz lost the lead to Dixon in the ensuing pit stops.
Dixon then led the race but pitted and swapped with Bourdais. Jack Aitken, in the #31 Action Express Cadillac, sat second, with #60 Meyer Shank Acura ARX-06’s Tom Blomqvist third, before Deletraz took the position to move back into the podium positions.
The most recent yellow was called for Andy Lally’s stricken #44 Magnus Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3, with Lally beaching the car and needing to be pulled out by the marshals. However, Bourdais was able to retain the lead at the subsequent pit stops and restart, and has pulled out a lead of around 4 seconds over Aitken, giving Cadillac a 1-2 with 2 hours remaining.
Deletraz’s teammate Filipe Albuquerque is third in the #10 Acura, just a few tenths behind Aitken.
In LMP2, Alex Quinn leads the #52 PR1 Mathiasen Oreca 07-Gibson, with Nolan Siegel second in the #04 Crowdstrike by APR Oreca. Third is Josh Pierson, on board the #35 TDS Oreca. The #11 TDS’s retirement means Quinn’s teammates, Ben Keating and Paul-Loup Chatin, are on course to win the LMP2 IMSA championship.
Garett Grist leads LMP3 in the #30 Jr III Ligier JS P320-Nissan, with Felipe Fraga second, at the wheel of the #74 Riley Ligier. Third is the first of the Duqueines, the #13 AWA Duqueine D08-Nissan of Lars Kern.
Jordan Pepper is leading the GTD Pro class and the two classes GT overall, in the #63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2. Behind him is the leading GTD car, Mike Skeen in the #32 Korthoff Mercedes-AMG GT3, with Alex Riberas the next GTD Pro, driving the #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3.
Second in GTD and fourth GT overall is Thomas Merrill, in the #97 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3. Third in GTD Pro is #9 Pfaff Porsche 911 GT3 R’s Patrick Pilet. And third in GTD is Gunnar Jeannette in the #80 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R.
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