Renger van der Zande, Sebastien Bourdais, and Scott Dixon have won the 2024 Petit Le Mans for Cadillac, with a Porsche 2-3 completing the podium.
Van der Zande crossed the line in the #01 Cadillac V-Series.R amid late race drama where the car’s headlights failed with 5 minutes to go. The car had had one remaining headlight for the last half hour or so of the race, but if both failed, the team would be required to pit to fix the problem.
Nick Tandy brought the #6 Porsche 963 home, which the Briton drove with Mathieu Jaminet and Kevin Estre. Tandy led the race at the final restart, with 35 minutes to go, after the fifth full course yellow of the race, but van der Zande managed to pass him and pull a small but important gap.
At the line, this gap was 2.948.
Felipe Nasr crossed the line third in the #6 Porsche. The Brazilian drove the car alongside his teammates Dane Cameron and Matt Campbell, and finished 13 seconds off van der Zande. However, Nasr and Cameron also won the IMSA GTP class championship, in a great achievement in only Porsche Penske Motorsports’ second year of operation.
Drama all the way through the race
The #01 Cadillac started fourth in the hands of Sebastien Bourdais, but lost time early on as the Frenchman had to pit the car as it was suffering from overpowering, incurring a black flag and losing a lap in the process. The Chip Ganassi Racing crew fixed the problem, which was due to a faulty sensor.
This dropped them to last in class. However, a conveniently-timed full course caution, the first of the race, meant the team immediately gained the lap they’d lost in the pits. When the race went green again, they were just six seconds off the lead, 11th and last in class.
From then on, van der Zande, Bourdais, and Dixon methodically worked their way back through the field. They had another minor issue as the sensor problem reared its head midway through the second hour, dropping them a lap down again, with the CGR crew again fixing the problem — this time for good.
This sensor issue fix was also done under full course caution, which was caused by the Keating-Andersen-Milner crash at turn 6. However, this time, Bourdais wasn’t as lucky and didn’t immediately gain the lap back that he’d lost while in the pits.
It took the Frenchman, and van der Zabde who replaced him in the car, most of the next few hours to get back onto the lead lap, as the race ran unexpectedly green. At the start of the fourth hour of the race, the Dutchman ran in ninth place overall, but still a lap down on Felipe Nasr, who led at the time.
Through the next few hours, the three diligently worked their way back up the order as other cars dropped out. However, with so much running in green flag conditions, getting the lap back was hard. They ran in sixth for much of the next few hours, keeping their noses clean but still struggling to get back onto the lead lap.
Finally, by the ninth hour, with just a tenth of the race remaining, the trio got back onto the lead lap. However, they were still well over a minute back from the leaders, Nick Tandy in the #6 Porsche and Filipe Albuquerque in the #7 WTRAndretti Acura ARX-06.
But the fifth and final caution of the race gave the Cadillac squad exactly what they needed. A crash at turn 5, after the esses, between Corey Lewis in the #55 Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3 and Jan Heylen in the #120 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R saw Lewis deposited back on track, with no headlights, just after the crest.
While most cars managed to avoid Lewis’s stricken Mustang — some by mere inches — Ricky Taylor, who had replaced Albuquerque in the #10 machine and was in contention for the overall win, could not avoid the Ford.
Taylor’s car sustained major damage to the left-hand side and out of the race.
This caused a full course caution and meant van der Zande was able to close that minute plus gap to mere seconds. At the restart, with just 35 minutes remaining, Tandy led from van der Zande, with Philipp Eng third in the #24 BMW M Hybrid V8.
Van der Zande tried everything to pass Tandy, but the Briton defended well. However, he got caught up in traffic on the downhill run to the final corner, enabling van der Zande to get a good run behind and sweep past into turn 1, divebombing the Porsche and taking the lead of the race — one he would not relinquish.
Eng then tried to pass Tandy for second, but made contact with the Porsche, pushing Tandy momentarily off track and incurring a drive through penalty for the German’s trouble.
However, the drama was not over just yet. With 5 minutes to go, the remaining headlight failed too. Van der Zande managed to get the headlights working again, and although both were failing intermittently, at least one was illuminated at all times.
With this seeming to hold until the flag, the South African crossed the line with a gap just under 3 seconds to Tandy, who had closed up by a couple of seconds amid the drama in the Cadillac cockpit.
It’s a fitting result for the Chip Ganassi Racing-run Cadillac team, as this is Chip Ganassi’s final race with the American manufacturer, before the two go their separate ways for 2025.
Nasr took third, with Eng fourth after taking his drivethrough. Fifth went to Jack Aitken, abd his teammates Pipo Derani and Tom Blomqvist, in the #31 Action Express Cadillac V-Series.R.
TDS Racing victorious in LMP2
Mikkel Jensen took the win for the #11 TDS Racing Oreca 07-Gibson crew, alongside teammates Steven Thomas and Hunter McElrea.
The winning TDS crew drove a near faultless race to take victory, after starting second to Ben Keating in the #2 United Autosports Oreca 07-Gibson.
Keating initially extended a healthy lead of around 10 seconds, although this was wiped out by the first caution period around 20 minutes into the race. When the race resumed, the Texan again extended a lead, up to 12 seconds, but disaster then struck the United Autosports squad.
Keating and Dennis Andersen, in the #20 MDK by High Class Oreca 07-Gibson, collided at the turn 6 right hander. This caused Keating to go off track on drivers’ right, before rejoining at speed at collecting the innocent #3 Corvette Z06 GT3R of Tommy Milner.
After this, the TDS squad was involved in a race-long battle with the #74 Riley Oreca 07-Gibson of Josh Burdon, Gar Robinson, and Felipe Fraga, who eventually crossed the line second, 17 seconds behind Jensen. The #18 Era Motorsport Oreca 07-Gibson squad of Connor Zilisch, Dwight Merriman, and Ryan Dalziel, who took a hard-earned podium after a tough start of the race.
And, the #52 Inter Europol PR1 Mathiasen Oreca 07-Gibson took fourth place and the LMP2 championship, in the hands of Nick Boulle, Tom Dillmann, and Jakub Smiechowski.
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