| No. 10 Acura and No. 31 Cadillac Battling Nose-to-Tail for DPi Championship November 13, 2021By Mark RobinsonIMSA Wire Service  BRASELTON, Ga. – Juan Pablo Montoya had the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Acura ARX-05 in the Motul Petit Le Mans lead with just two hours remaining Saturday evening in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season finale at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta. Live coverage of the exciting conclusion to the 10-hour race continues through 10:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN, TrackPass on NBC Sports Gold, NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports App, as well as IMSA Radio on IMSA.com, Sirius Channel 202 and Sirius/XM Internet 992. Motul Petit Le Mans: Eight-Hour Results While Montoya was leading overall and in Daytona Prototype international (DPi), the class championship battle was being waged feverishly behind him. Filipe Albuquerque had the No. 10 Konica Minolta Acura in second place, just ahead of Pipo Derani in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R. The No. 10 led the No. 31 by nine points heading into the race, meaning whichever car finishes better captures the championship. Other class leaders after eight hours were: the No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA LMP2 07 in Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2); the No. 74 Riley Motorsports Ligier JS P320 in Le Mans Prototype 3 (LMP3); the No. 4 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C8.R in GT Le Mans (GTLM); and the No. 16 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R in GT Daytona (GTD). Season championships in the LMP3 and GTD classes also still hung in the balance as the final hours of the 2021 season wound down. The complexion of the race changed dramatically when eight cars were eliminated in an incident on a restart from full-course caution with just under six hours remaining. As cars bunched braking into the 90-degree left-hand Turn 10A, several made contact and others were caught in the aftermath. Among those collected was Jordan Taylor, whose No. 3 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C8.R sustained significant front-end damage and couldn’t continue. Fortunately, Taylor and co-driver Antonio Garcia had already clinched the GTLM championship by starting the race. “I don’t know what happened on the restart,” Taylor said. “I came over the hill flat in fifth gear. Everyone was flat out. As soon as we crest the hill, the Porsche that I was battling with went left. It kind of opened up and I saw there was basically three cars stopped in front of us. “It’s unfortunate, but it’s obviously happened a lot in motorsports in the past. Hopefully, we can work on that and clean it up in the future.” Others knocked out of the competition were the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3, No. 19 GTR Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini Huracán GT3, No. 32 Gilbert/Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3, No. 36 Andretti Autosport Ligier JS P320, No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes, No. 70 Inception Racing McLaren 720S GT3 and No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M6 GT3. No drivers were injured but the resulting caution period lasted more than 30 minutes for track clean-up. The Motul Petit Le Mans is also the final round of the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup (IMEC) that consists of the four endurance events on the schedule. IMEC points are awarded at the four-, eight- and 10-hour junctures at Michelin Raceway. IMEC titles in three classes were unofficially clinched at the eight-hour mark by the No. 10 Acura in DPi, No. 4 Corvette in GTLM and No. 16 Porsche in GTD. The only remaining endurance championship up for grabs is in LMP2, where the No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen ORECA leads the No. 8 Tower Motorsport by two points. Stay tuned to IMSA.com for final race and championship results. |
