TRANSCRIPT: Motul Petit Le Mans Post-Race Press Conference

Interviews with Race Winners and Season Champions

Interviews with Renger van der Zande, Sebastien Bourdais, Scott DixonTHE MODERATOR: Good evening, everybody. We are pleased to be joined by the first of many interview subjects this evening.The winners of the 27th annual Motul Petit Le Mans are, from your left to right, Renger van der Zande, Sebastien Bourdais, and Scott Dixon.Congratulations.Renger, why don’t you kick it off. Pretty eventful whole race, but even that last stint. Tell us what was going on with the lights there and anything else that happened in the course of the race.RENGER VAN DER ZANDE: Yeah, super happy to finish this off with a bang because it’s the last race for Chip Ganassi with Cadillac. It’s my last race with Cadillac. I’ve been with Cadillac for seven years now, which makes me very proud in one way, but also sad to leave.Nice things come to an end, and this is the right way to come to an end with Cadillac. You know, the last four years was with Chip Ganassi Racing, and Chip has been so nice to me. Michael, Mike O’Gara, the team.I think this year for the first time really we had what you call team. Everybody was such a good team member, and everybody was working in the same direction.It’s sad that it comes to the an end. We’ve been racing for three years now. I won with Scott a couple — two times Daytona? I think so.We won once at Daytona, and a lot of other races. And then with Seb for the last three years.It feels like brothers. We feel like brothers, I think. It’s nice to finish this one off with a bang. This win was really good.If you look at the race, man, I don’t know, what can I say? We won.THE MODERATOR: We’ll go to Seb. Had a lot to overcome, including a penalty early on that you had to come back from. What did it take to make all that happen?SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: I don’t know even where to begin, to be honest. I think the best way to say is last year we won the race except the last, what, half hour. This year we lost it all race long, and then we won it for the last 30 minutes.We kind of put a race together in two years. Yeah, just crazy. I mean, we had a talk sensor issue in qualifying, at the end of qualifying. Lap three, there we go again.So I did 100 laps with a set of tires and no power. That was very fun. Yeah, it was just what looked like a bit of a lost race, and the guys just managed to get the PPU back under control and give us a chance to be contenders at the end.Just super happy that, like Renger said, to be able to finish on a high like this. It was a big frustration last year to lose it on the strategy call, which really we couldn’t do anything about. We covered just about everybody but the 60, and then they kind of stole it from us.So this time we may have stolen the race from the 6, but that’s only fair I think. We’ll definitely take it. Super happy for all the guys at Chip Ganassi Racing and Cadillac and for my two awesome teammates. Yeah, couldn’t be a better send-off.THE MODERATOR: We’ll go over to Scott. Obviously you’ve been a part of a lot of big wins for Chip Ganassi Racing. Where does this one sit?SCOTT DIXON: It’s pretty far out there. I don’t think I’ve been on an emotional roller coaster as much as today. This is what it’s all about. It’s days like this where I think everybody at GM and Cadillac, Chip Ganassi Racing, within the first five laps, I wasn’t sure that we were going to be able to continue on with the issue that we had.For them to fight through that and continually work on it, and then we had so many other issues throughout the race, but to get back to the lead lap obviously with the late caution, you know, that helped some things.You know, the fantastic and mega move by Renger at the end there was — I was up in my bus chilling out, having some food. I started yelling when I saw that. It was very special. But more so for the team.It’s been a pretty up-and-down kind of episode throughout. It was special, man. Really proud to do it with you two. It’s a lot. It was a special night for sure.THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.Q. The light thing, it was off and back and then off. Did you do anything to get it back on, or was that the car fixing itself?RENGER VAN DER ZANDE: It was a bit of a disco going on. I like this.SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: Then you turned on the rain light.RENGER VAN DER ZANDE: You know, this manual we get from Cadillac is a lot of buttons and a lot of options, so I started to press all kinds of buttons this way, and it was still not good enough. Then it stuck more and more and more, then they told me press the white button. So I pressed the white button, and it worked. So we got the lights back.I don’t know how it was, but we got the lights back, and it was quite — it was more a question of getting a call from inside to come to the pits and change the lights. That was the biggest worry.The vision was still very good. I raced LMPC for a while where the lights are less than — with this car, lights off. But when I was driving on my own, it was kind of hard because you couldn’t see the curb stones sometimes with the lights off.When I had cars around me, they kind of lit up the curbs, and I could see it. But we got lucky there. I think at the end it was okay.Q. We’ve seen moves like that don’t always pay off. It can be risky, but you really went for it. Why there?RENGER VAN DER ZANDE: It was the only move I could make. I was behind Tandy for a while, and he was so fast on the straights. Every time they pulled a gap of like, I don’t know, six, seven car lengths. But in the corners we were very fast. Especially we set up the car a lot for turn one and turn three. That’s where I could really make up a lot of ground.I think you guys too, right?The car was awesome there. And Justin Taylor, our engineer, has been a really good sensor test to see where we can make the car stronger, and it was exactly there.When I made the move on Nick, it’s always a two-way street. I think with high professionals like him, you can do these kind of moves. At the same time it’s risky. I think Scott told me I was locking wheels going in.But, hey, you have to go for it. P2, it doesn’t matter here. We’re here to win. The only thing I thought is that’s not bad for an insurance salesman.Q. It was really a comeback drive in the heat of the day. How did you all maintain composure? I know, Scott, your stint in particular flew under the radar. You were running 12, 13s throughout. How did you stay focused, especially when there was no yellow, to make up the time?THE MODERATOR: Scott?SCOTT DIXON: Yeah, you know, I think you just have to make the most of it. I think that kind of sums up Chip Ganassi Racing. It’s the never-give-up situation. And I know even on the INDYCAR side, we’ve won a lot of races like that, and the same on the IMSA side throughout many years.Yeah, you are never out of it until you’re out of it. You kind of kept waiting for that yellow or that caution that was going to put us right back in the race, but I think we could see throughout the day on any stint with any of the drivers at any point we were making gains on the leaders.We just needed to get to the pointy end of the field, and I knew that we could have a shot.But, again, to pull off a move like that, you have to catch someone a little bit asleep, and Renger did it and pulled it off at the perfect moment.There was definitely a lot of highs throughout the day, but a lot of lows to start as well. Kudos to everybody.Q. Kind of in the same vein, when that yellow didn’t come, we had a long run of green flag running, and you were expecting yellow to be brought back into the fight. What was — Renger, Sebastien, what was going through your mind? What were the emotions when nothing was happening to bring you all back in?RENGER VAN DER ZANDE: At first — he can answer that one.But I have to say everybody was very good on track today, like all the GTs and everybody was very cooperative. There was a good understanding between the drivers I felt more than ever before.SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: Yeah, it was better for sure. I think Scott pretty much said it. We just kept digging. Obviously we — I think with the talk sensor issue, we couldn’t run a really good GPU control, so we were missing quite a bit of top speed. Our only chance was to maximize and use the car handling that we had all day long.That got us back in the fight, but we’re missing quite a bit of top speed. So it was making things very difficult.Yeah, we just kept our heads down and, yeah, no, just tried to stick with the front. I think both Scott, myself, and then Renger, we kind of had some moments and just kind of lost time, but overall we were kind of regaining some time on the leader, whoever that was.It was pretty close with everybody. So we knew we were going to need help, but the goal was to stay in the lead lap at that point and hope that there was going to be a yellow.When is it that there is not a yellow within the last five hours of racing or four hours of racing? You had to just stay in position knowing that it was 99% sure it was going to happen, and then we saved enough tires at that point to have a shot at it, and Renger just executed like he does at the end of the races.FastScripts Transcript by ASAP SportsInterviews with Dane Cameron, Felipe Nasr, Laurin HeinrichTHE MODERATOR: Everybody, as you see here, we’re joined by our 2024 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTP champions. Dane Cameron and Felipe Nasr, left to right, for the team.Dane, start us off. Certainly the season was very, very strong really from the outset obviously with the Rolex 24 at Daytona win. Looked like there were seven podiums in nine races. Obviously this is kind of — you’ve been part of the Penske Championship in the past. The 2019 one was a little reminiscent of this I think. Talk about that and what it means to get another one.DANE CAMERON: Yeah, I started racing the last championship I had with Juan (Pablo Montoya), very kind of similar year. A few race wins, and just the consistency I think that it really takes IMSA to — to deliver a championship, you really need to be there every weekend. Having been in this position, I guess a few times now, I kind of believe in that way of going racing.You know, it is endurance racing, and at the end of the day, it gets more aggressive as it gets more competitive. At the end of the day, if you don’t get to the end of these things, then you don’t score points, and you don’t end up winning a championship.You know, my mindset is willing to give up that individual moment, or whatever it may be, to make sure you get to the end of the day and you kind of win the overall war, let’s say. But yeah, very, very similar.Honestly, to lead the year from start to finish, which I have never done before, and normally I have a pretty crap Daytona and have to dig out of the hole. It’s certainly a bit easier when you lead from the beginning for sure. But really, yeah, just pretty close to perfect, to be honest.I think that’s really what it takes to win these is you need to be top 3, top 5 every single weekend, which we nearly accomplished. You need to win two to three races, which we also did. Kind of winning Daytona was a bonus and is always a goal when, I think, you begin the year. Personally, for me, it was a really big goal, and I think for everybody it’s really the way you start the year is to try to win that race.So, you know, I think the way you start a season in terms of what you want to accomplish, it is really exactly what we did from start to finish. I’m super proud of the effort. Really grateful to be with Felipe. We were competitors for a number of years. He was my replacement when I left to come to Penske the first time. I say he still owes me 15% on his last few years of salary, which I’m still waiting for.After competing against each other, and obviously I have a lot of respect him, and it was great to share a car together and to have him in your corner against you was phenomenal.I think he’s been super successful on his own, so I was really looking forward to sharing a car with him as opposed to having to go against him for sure.Yeah, just really proud of what he was able to accomplish, but what we did as a team I think there was a lot of expectation on this project, which we probably missed last year. To make that jump and be in the position to finish one-two with the 2 car and to win everything is really spectacular.THE MODERATOR: Let’s go over to Felipe. You won a couple of championships with a different team. What’s it like to do one with this team?FELIPE NASR: It feels pretty special, I have to say. Like Dane said, after that victory in Daytona, which in a personal level when you join a program from day one, there’s a lot of responsibility on the line and things that we want to accomplish together.Dane and I were pretty much in a very similar position to that, but as soon as we got Daytona, I feel like that dictated the pace of the season. I could see in everybody’s desire or in the fire to work harder and dedicate more and get the car better. I just could see everything progressing the way, you know — I couldn’t think of a better way progressing.The whole year has been incredible. Super consistent, as Dane said. I have a lot of respect for Dane, for all the years he accomplished here in IMSA, all the championships he has won.Funny enough, we were always fighting against each other on track, and this year we finally got the chance to do it. We executed well. There is no — when I look back, we ticked all the boxes, and when it came to race day, we were there to deliver. We were there to fight for the win many weekends, and here we are.It feels amazing to get a third championship.THE MODERATOR: To Dane’s right, we are also joined by our WeatherTech Championship GTD Pro champion, Laurin Heinrich. Laurin had three wins this season, five podiums.Laurin, congratulations. Probably did not go the way you wanted it to out there today, other than the fact you come away with a championship with narrow, narrow margin, just four points.When you look at pole positions and you look at those types of things that happened over the course of the season, that’s really what made the difference. Just tell us what this one means to you?LAURIN HEINRICH: What a year. In the end, it’s decided by four points. And if I think back throughout the season, what are four points?It’s all these small decisions you take in the qualifying or in the race, and I couldn’t — I can’t thank my team enough and also my teammates. You know, I’ve had plenty of teammates this year. First of all, (indiscernible), he did most races with me. Exceptional driver. Got along with him really well. And then also Michael Christensen, Julien Andlauer, and Klaus Bachler, who are all from the Porsche family.I really appreciate their support because in the end they joined me, and they were not fighting for their own championship, and they were just there to help us the team and me win our championship.I think it really speaks for them. They understood their role, and they didn’t put their own ego in any way into the team. Really, really thankful to share the car and the drives with them.In the end this weekend, I mean, the pole position made the difference at the end. Yesterday when I crossed the line and I saw 17.8, I was, like, okay, this level is special. This must mean something. It better be pole. In the end it was pole, and in the end it decided I was in the championship.You know, after the qualifying for sure we made all these tables. If the 23 finishes P3 or better, we need to finish. I had that all in my mind while I was driving. After the issue in the first hour, yeah, I mean, it was a race where we can’t do anything anymore. We were five laps down. We just had to finish and hope for the best.I think it was a proper test for me and my mind to withstand this because it’s a pure nightmare. It’s horror. You’re just driving the car. You can do nothing. You see, oh, my lap time would have been enough to fight for the win even in PT, but you are five laps down. Then you ask on the radio, where is the 23? 50 minutes ago they told me, yeah, he is half a second behind Serra, and if you don’t take Serra, we lose the championship. I’m, like, this can’t be true.In the end it was enough. I cannot explain what happened inside of that cockpit in the last half an hour. It was crazy.THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.Q. Felipe, can you talk about what this means for Porsche and winning all the titles I think in your class, and then also I think there was nine overall today between the teams and the GTD Pro and what not.FELIPE NASR: It means everything. It means all the effort. It means all the tireless moments we had and hard work. Like I said, on a personal level to me when I joined this program it was, remember, they’re asking me, So why you want to join the program? I said, Well, I want to create history with you guys. I mean, you guys, look at all the statements you made. I want to continue history.Here we are. 2022 was the development. 2023 was a difficult season. Comes ’24, we completely changed the pace of the program and finally getting everything done, winning all the championships possible. That’s exactly what I’m here for and representing such two big names in the sport like Porsche and Penske. For me as a driver and as a person, it’s a unique moment for sure to cherish.Q. For Dane, I think that you guys pitted at one point and changed a fuel flow sensor, is that correct? Was there any scare? Were you scared at all at any point that maybe you were having a bigger issue and dropping back in the running order?DANE CAMERON: I think we were obviously at that point safe with a couple of retirements that had happened. I think for Felipe and I, we were kind of looking forward to — you don’t ever wish something bad to happen to your competitors, but if we were fortunate to have some retirements, then it meant, okay, now that part is closed, and we can just try to win the race.For me I haven’t actually won this race before because you typically come here with the championship in mind, and sometimes you make some different decision to manage that rather than the race. We were both kind of looking forward to hopefully having that done with the margin that we had and just being able to try to go after the race.Some of these issues were hurting us in terms of performance. We had a brake issue at the end. I don’t know where that came from, but we were really wearing the left front rotor at an incredible rate and weren’t sure we were going to have to change it. Again, we were going to be losing track position and things like that.Not really worried in terms of the championship, but trying to figure out what can we do to still try to win the race, but ultimately, we were a little bit lacking in terms of speed there at the end the last few hours of the race.On the one hand it’s okay because we got what we came here for, but on the other hand, yeah, it was a little bit — it’s always a little bittersweet to be out of the fight for the race win. Yeah, I never thought it was anything that was going to cost us the championship on the day. Just more of something that was going to take us out of fighting for victory at the end of the day, unfortunately.Q. You’ve both come into this race in intense fights for the championship, including against each other where whoever finished in front was going to win the championship. How nice was it to relax that a little bit and not have to worry, you know, about a close fight?DANE CAMERON: I would say honestly for me I’ve had one or two years where it’s been, yeah, kind of heads-up like that, but most of the other times I’ve had a little bit of margin where you just sort of need an average day to win it.Yeah, I think this is probably the most margin I’ve ever had, honestly, to be here, which is obviously a really nice feeling at such a chaotic event such as this, especially with the car count we have, which is obviously great for the championship, but very difficult for us on track to manage.You like to have that in your back pocket for a race such as this. You know, if you end on a 2 hour 40 race, it’s a lot simpler deal. To end at this track in particular with this sort of race, you really like to have that sort of padding in your pocket for sure.I would also like to probably use that moment to recognize the efforts of the 6 car. They did have a really good year. They had a good year last year as well, and honestly have been kind of out of contention for things that are outside of the driver’s hands, let’s say.It’s worth recognizing the effort they have. They pushed us the whole way. This year in particular. I wasn’t in IMSA last year, but doing most of the Euros with them last year, I did feel bad for them and obviously two years in a row for some pretty unlucky and, if we’re honest, not performance really DQs that took them out of the championship hunt. It’s pretty hard to digest from a driver’s seat.I do feel for them in a lot of ways. We’ve done a lot of days together. I’ve driven with them. I’ve been teammates. I’ve been obviously on the other side and all that. And, yeah, it’s a tough thing for them for sure. I do feel for them. It’s unfortunate two years in a row for sure.Q. This is a question for Laurin. I want to talk about the points gap at the end. Can you talk about the season as a whole and some of the moments that were crucial in your mind on top of the qualifying for the weekend that made the difference with such a narrow margin today?LAURIN HEINRICH: The IMSA season is long. We did ten races. In the end it came down to four points. I can think of 100 situations where we could have lost the one four points.The margins are so small. In the end you can say the four points came from our pole in Daytona. They came from our pole here in Petit.Some key races for sure. Daytona we finished second straight out of the box. It was the first podium for Rexy. It was the first race for AO Racing at GTP Pro and my first race in IMSA, so that was already crazy.Then winning our first race for the team in Laguna still was super. That must have been one of the best wins I would say. It’s such a great race, and winning in Laguna Seca, the Porsche is just wrapping around this track, and it felt so good coming from the back and driving through the field.Also, two weeks ago our win at Indy from — we qualified on pole, which was amazing. We got disqualified in Tech and then had to start from the very back. To see that, the team effort. When everyone came Sunday morning to the track at Indy, I didn’t see any team member who was still upset about what happened the day before. They were all so motivated and focused that we could score good result still in the race.I never had that before, and I think that really also flipped the switch in me. We shouldn’t give up, and in the end we proved that we won and we were the best on that day.I think that will be the most memorable win in that season and also in my still young racing career.Q. Lastly, obviously you were in the car to cross the line. Can you talk about how special that was knowing you crossed the line, even if it was a few laps down to clinch the championship?LAURIN HEINRICH: Yeah, it was quite special. In the end I could do nothing. I just brought the car home. Actually the last lap I was going so slow and two cars passed because it wouldn’t have made a difference, and I was just constantly asking on the radio where the 23 is and how it’s going to play out? Once I crossed the line, I never saw myself like this, but I completely freaked out. I took the fan in the car, and I shook it so much that it ripped off. Then I had it in my hand. This was crazy.Actually, my engineer was speaking to me in that moment, and he saw it live, and he was, like, Dude, you’re going to pay for that. It was incredible. I completely freaked out.Then it was a — I will always remember that. There was a big cue up the pit lane, and I had to park on top of the hill under the Michelin bridge coming out of 10B, and I could see the fireworks. That was — even if I was alone, it was so romantic, and that was really good.Q. Laurin, were you able to follow the scoring when you weren’t in the car? The championship points, it went back and forth. You were up by four for a time and then down by 16, and then you were up by four and then down by 16. Did you pay attention to that when you weren’t in the car? Were you watching that?LAURIN HEINRICH: Yeah, I mean, I didn’t leave the pit for the whole race because I couldn’t. I was checking our race, which was quite uneventful, checking the race in the front and where the 23 is. That was, for me, probably the hardest part.Being in the car you are focused on driving. You do your job, but you are hitting your marks, but then sitting on the pit stand where you can do nothing but just look at these screens, yeah, that was quite tough. You know, we had our tables. We knew exactly where — it would have been difficult for us to finish higher up than 11th, so we were just relying on the 23 not finishing better than third. In the end that’s what happened.Yeah, you are just sitting there. You can do nothing. It’s quite hard to stay calm. In the end also not give up. I think that’s always the easiest way to say we’re not going to win it anyways. It doesn’t matter anymore.Everyone stayed really focused, and also the team helped me to stay sort of motivated because it was for me quite difficult at that moment.Q. Laurin, how cool is it to be a part of the legend of Rexy?LAURIN HEINRICH: The story is still going on. We’re still writing that, but getting the first victory for Rexy, the first podium in Daytona for Rexy and then winning the championship in Rexy, that’s incredible. The fans, they love it, and I love it and being part of it, and actually driving that car is such an honor.It’s my very first year racing in North America in IMSA. Rexy exists since last year, and I was following obviously, and I got the call. He asked me, Do you want to drive Rexy in GTP Pro? I didn’t have to think twice about it. Obviously I said, Yes.All these people were able to sign the car this weekend before the race and receiving all that support, all these messages even during the race was incredible. I think that gives us drivers also that small boost which can make the difference at the end in terms of motivation and although yesterday at the autograph session so many young kids, and I think that’s really important also.I say it every time, but it’s really important for our sport to get the next generation close to the sport, get them engaged and interested. It’s so cool in less than two years what the team has built.I think I can tell the story. One time I raced in the United States, and I was at passport control, and I told the officer that I’m driving Rexy, and he knew Rexy. He went completely crazy. It’s incredible.Everyone knows Rexy, and everyone loves Rexy. To drive that car, it’s incredible really. My phone is full of Rexy, and I open Instagram, and I only see Rexy. I think my whole life is around Rexy. I sleep in the bed with this, so yeah. I also have Rexy though too.Q. Is Rexy going to have a whole mouth full of gold teeth?LAURIN HEINRICH: It’s not up to me. I think it’s definitely worth the try. I read somewhere that we should give Rexy a platinum tooth, which would be cool. Let’s see what the team will figure out. I’m sure they have — they always have great ideas. I’m sure they will turn over something.FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports Interviews with: Tom Dillmann, Nick Boulle, Jakub Smiechowski, Indy Dontje, Russell Ward, Philip EllisTHE MODERATOR: So from left to right, to identify who we’re looking at here, from LMP2, all the way to the left is Tom Dillmann and Nick Boulle and then Jakub Smiechowski. Then over to GTD we’ve got Indy Dontje, Russell Ward, and Philip Ellis. For LMP2 champions, both Nick and Tom, this is their first championship.Nick, why don’t you start us off? We’ve talked a lot over the last few weeks about what it might be like to win the championship. What is it like now that you are the champion?NICK BOULLE: Certainly surreal. Everybody has worked so hard with Inter Europol and PR1 Motorsports to make this year happen and to do it at such a high level. We were really consistent. Tom has been so helpful to me personally, developing through the year and so has Kuba. Yeah, it’s still — I’ll have to wake up tomorrow to make sure I think I understand it. It’s been really special.THE MODERATOR: Let’s pass the mic over to Tom. Won the race at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. That was kind of the catalyst for this. Let’s talk about what it means for you to get a championship here in the WeatherTech Championship.TOM DILLMANN: It means a lot. It’s my first year in the U.S. to discover all the tracks and all the events, legendary events, which you come to race here. You hope to put one of those races on your CV. That’s awesome year.Yeah, for me personally it was a choice to go to LMP2. I’m fortunate enough to have done that in a really good team. That allowed me to fight for the championship with great teammates. So, yeah, it’s been fantastic.We’ve been very consistent, intelligent. We did this weekend — in particular for me it was — for us it was more of a relief to win the championship because when you come with 100 points lead, you know, you really don’t want to lose because it would have hurt for a long time.I’m really relieved. I think tomorrow when I wake up, I will be really happy. Next week I actually have another championship to win.THE MODERATOR: Go over to Kuba. This partnership with PR1 team just couldn’t have probably gone any better I can’t imagine.JAKUB SMIECHOWSKI: No, no, obviously it was a great partnership, which ended in a great result. Like Tom and Nick said, everyone worked so hard, dedicated so much time to be here and to be part of this amazing win.It’s been a really great year, and I’m really thankful to everyone… engineering, mechanics, all the people that were supporting us throughout the year. It was really fun. Yeah, I hope to do it again next year.THE MODERATOR: We’ll slide down to our GTD champions. We’ll start with Russell first. Not unlike the No. 7 team, you guys took the lead here in the championship standings and took it all the way to the end. How special of a year was this for this team and what does it feel like to finally know that you are the champions?RUSSELL WARD: Yeah, this is the end goal, right? You come here, and you want to win races. You want to be competitive. All of us have eyes on the championship. You know, it’s just an incredible result for the team.A lot of long nights and hard — long, hard nights. It’s just been difficult but exciting at the same time. It’s really good to be able to bring it home.Looking forward to getting back with the crew and going really celebrating this win because those are the guys who get it done. We just come here. As drivers we come here for the interview session, but in reality all the work is done at home, and we show up here and just try to execute, so…THE MODERATOR: Philipp, we’ll slide the mic over to you for your thoughts. What does it mean?PHILIP ELLIS: Obviously, I can just copy what Russell said. I think we have one of the easier jobs on the team as drivers, and the team really made it easy this year.They made such a perfect job. They always had a great car, great strategy in the pit box. We were always one step ahead of the competition. As drivers we just had to bring it home.I think we did the heavy lifting earlier this year and the first part of the season, and we had some more difficult races at the end in Indy and also here.We still kept it together. We didn’t really put a foot wrong and put the championship up.THE MODERATOR: Indy, part of the team for Michelin Endurance Cup. You guys win that as well. Just a really special year.INDY DONTJE: It’s just really cool. If you see where they started seven years ago, and in the end — I think it’s seven years now. In the end winning an IMSA Championship is something special and to be proud of that.I had a small part of it only in the Endurance Cup to win. Also, this championship is for me also something special. It’s actually cool because Tom (Dillmann) coached me in 2014 in Formula 3, pretty cool to sit here with him.THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.Q. For Nick, I believe you join the Jim Trueman Award as well. What does that mean to you, and what about your automatic invite to Le Mans?NICK BOULLE: Yeah, certainly I was paying attention to that as the race wound down. Tom pointed out that potentially could have been more aggressive in taking some risks later in the race with a few minutes to go, and pointed it out that one finishing position — our finishing position guaranteed it two back, and that went away. Yeah, I guess we have a trip to France next year.Q. (Off microphone).NICK BOULLE: I think we have a pretty good idea, yeah.Q. Can you talk about that last stint when really you only had to hold station in order to win the championship and yet, you did pass — I can’t remember who it was that was in front of you, but you did pass them, and then you got — again, you were racing, not just cruising for a championship, I guess.TOM DILLMANN: Yeah, it was not an easy position to be starting the race because we had all to lose basically. We had a few setbacks in the race, and it got us a lap down. The Riley was leading at some points together with the TDS depending on the P sequence. We had some tension there because if Riley wins, we have to finish sixth, and we were between sixth and seventh.Then at the end I knew I just need sixth. I was sixth at the restart, so I just led the other fight on bent wheels. It was kind of crazy to see it. I was just coasting and letting them fight because I didn’t want to take any risk.Then I overtook a couple of cars and was hitting on P4. The podium was really close, but I also decided as a team to not fight for the podium and also validate the Trueman. That’s what went on.FastScripts Transcript by ASAP SportsInterviews with: Cedric Sbirrazzuoli, Albert Costa Balboa, Manny Franco, Mikkel Jensen, Steven Thomas, Hunter McElreaTHE MODERATOR: We’ll bring up our GTD and LMP2 winners together on the stage so we can go through everybody.We have our winners from both GTD and the LMP2 class here at Motul Petit Le Mans. In the GTD class, Cedric Sbirrazzuoli, Albert Costa Balboa, and Manny Franco. Congratulations.Cedric, why don’t you start us off? Tell us about the battle out there and what it means to win a race like this.CEDRIC SBIRRAZZUOLI: For sure. What a good way to end this season. We’ve had ups and downs. It started with an up with a podium in Daytona, and then another podium in Watkins Glen.And then finishing with the first place here is really special. The team did a great job, my teammates as well. Albert was phenomenal in the last part of the race.Really happy, and proud to be here, and proud to be part of the team. So thank you.THE MODERATOR: Let’s send the mic over to Albert. Albert, what did you do to bring this one home? It was pretty chaotic out there, it looked like from up here. I can only imagine what it was like in the seat.ALBERT COSTA BALBOA: First of all, these guys have done a nice job with going to the front, overtaking cars. And they did a fantastic job as well, my team, without mistakes. We were — we had everything on the direction we want, without mistakes. We had some fights on track, especially Manny and myself, that we were pushed out of the track a few times.Yeah, at the end, we took the win. As Cedric said, we were in Daytona and Watkins Glen on the podium, but we were fighting also for the podium in Indianapolis, but we had an issue, different context, penalty that we didn’t make it.But, finally, everything worked on the way that we finish on the top of the podium. So proud of the team and everybody involved.THE MODERATOR: Manny, you worked your way up through the ranks here. What does this mean to you?MANNY FRANCO: For me, from the starting Ferrari Challenge two years ago or so, I’ve only had three years of racing. For me, it’s an important sign. You can work your way up through smaller series here at IMSA.It means a lot for me, and it means a lot for everyone who was involved in the Ferrari Challenge program because they work a lot in improving us as drivers. And Ferrari themselves are very supportive of me as I’ve continued on in my career here.To win here at Petit, I’ve been told already by many people that it’s a huge thing for me, it’s a huge thing for the Conquest Racing team and the guys here.THE MODERATOR: Thanks.Let’s go to our LMP2 winners, Mikkel Jensen, Steven Thomas, and Hunter McElrea.Mikkel, why don’t you start us off? Second LMP2 win in both Motul Petit Le Mans, but I can imagine that winning here never gets old.MIKKEL JENSEN: Yeah, it’s the most crazy race of the season, for sure. The lap is so short, so narrow. The first and second sector, you can barely pass the GTs. There’s 56 or 58 cars this weekend, so it’s just a huge challenge. Even more of a challenge to finish in the dark.It’s all about survival in the beginning, and we also had the task today to try to get the endurance points at four hours and eight hours. So we couldn’t really just care about survival. We also had to get the points and get the car in the lead.But, yeah, we managed to clinch the endurance title, which was the first target, and then we went on to go for the win after that. Everything just went like it should today.THE MODERATOR: We’ll slide over to Steven. Steven, you had a couple of big wins at Indianapolis. This is another big win here tonight, correct?STEVEN THOMAS: Yeah, this one was big because we also won the Endurance Cup, which was my first IMSA season championship. That was big. I was born in Atlanta. So coming home to Atlanta and winning Road Atlanta means a lot to me.I think the traffic here for a bronze is brutal, and it’s like a big puzzle. To me it’s the most fun race of the year because of the traffic. I love it.THE MODERATOR: We’ll go over to Hunter. Second win in a row. Tell us about it from your perspective.HUNTER McELREA: Yeah, it was insane. A lot of people told me, like, I’m still new to endurance racing. So a lot of people told me this is the craziest race of the year, and it definitely was.It had a little bit of everything. I had some not so good moments in my first stint, but luckily we were fast somehow with a spin and a drive-through, we were still in the top three.I knew if we could just survive — Steven, honestly, did a mega job this weekend. He flies here, and he put us in the front row.Yeah, I think we’ve always — pace has probably been our strongest asset as a team, but in IMSA you can’t win on just pace. You have to have strategy and no mistakes. IMSA, you just never know, right?Super happy. Petit Le Mans is a race that I’ve always watched, and I think it’s a race that everyone wants to do. So to win it and to also win an IMSA Endurance Championship in my first year of racing in IMSA is super cool, super special to me.Yeah, awesome to do it with these two guys next to me who I’ve become super close with this year. Yeah, very, very happy.THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.Q. Manny, you’ve had to learn a lot this year. Two years ago was your first big-time GT3 race. This is your first time running multi-class racing certainly at this level. Did you find it difficult to tame that learning curve throughout the course of this year?MANNY FRANCO: I mean, Daytona is a really good place where it’s not super difficult, but it’s a big thing to jump into multi-class.For me I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to do the multi-class very well because to go from challenge cars to GT3s was already a big step. To then just jump straight into multi-class, you kind of just figure it out as you go, and you find out whether or not you can actually do the multi-class as it just — as your brain — whether your brain can even accept all the information all at once to defend, to look at your cameras.For me, I didn’t find it too difficult. I think, as I said, Daytona is a great way to kind of be introduced to it because it’s simple, but I will say Sebring was a bit of a headache as we don’t have a spotter, and you kind of have to do even more of that.I didn’t find it too hard.Q. Talk about that final restart. You just basically drove away from everybody. I think Hunter mentioned that pace isn’t enough, but pace certainly helped there at the end, I would suspect.MIKKEL JENSEN: The restarts, we’re not really allowed to do much of a gap to the GTPs. I mean, I’m driving the hyper car myself and probably see and I know how we struggle on the tires on restarts.So one of the targets being in P2 here at the restart is trying to pass GTP cars because by that you can gap the rest of the P2s. I managed to pass the Lambo in turn one and the Proton in turn seven.Yeah, Felipe Fraga was following me through that. They came back us on the straight, and I actually think we had a three side-by-side battle, two P2s and a GTP, into turn 10.I escaped from that one in first, and then I think Fraga was battling with them four or five laps when I managed to just stay clear, and then eventually they got pace on the tires and passed me then.I already had my gap, and then it was just about managing it. But the restarts are really crazy, especially here when the GTP cars are slower than us.Q. This is for Albert. Can you describe what you saw on the pass on Spinelli, how you set that up?ALBERT COSTA BALBOA: It’s difficult. We were fighting. He was really strong on the last part of the straight and on braking. I knew I had better traction on the last corner. He was fighting, and then I tried to move myself to do to try on the outside in the last chicane on braking.Then he was protecting, and then I saw he was on the right, and then I say, okay, let’s prepare the next exit to the uphill because I think it’s going to stop the car even more than me.So I managed to do it flat. He was protecting. I put half the car on the grass, and then I say, let’s put the elbows like this, that I can protect myself, and then I say, well, I managed, now I need to keep it until the end.When I heard on the radio that was half an hour, and Spinelli is really strong driver, I was a little bit like, whoa, I’m going to sort this one. He was pushing every lap, every corner, trying everything, but at the end we manage it.So I’m very, very happy.Q. Just give me an idea kind of what the key moment was that really brought you into — that put you into position to pass Spinelli?ALBERT COSTA BALBOA: To be honest, when I did the first stint, I was not expecting to win. I was expecting to be maybe top 5, top 4. Maybe if there was a yellow, maybe in the top 3.These guys always manage to move forward. They were overtaking all the time cars on track. They were — we were P6, P7, and they were managing to go P4, P3, P2 even. We keep believing, no, the team has done no mistakes. And at the end, yeah, the car was a rocket, and this, of course, makes your life a little bit easy.So, yeah, we had also to manage a lot of tires because of degradation. In GT it’s quite high. Yeah, the first stint I push a little bit too much. At the end I was struggling. So these two last stints I didn’t push at the limit at the beginning to keep the tires safe. I think it also was one of the keys to manage to protect my — the win for us.Q. For Steven, talk a little bit about — you have won now two big races to finish off the season and, as you said, win your first championship. Talk a little bit about what those accomplishments mean.STEVEN THOMAS: When I first started in IMSA, I think I got into a race car when I was 51, the first time I got in a race car. So the idea that come to someplace like this, and if you go up to turn 3 at night and watch the cars go over the curb there, it’s pretty amazing.I think the accomplishment for me is just the amount of effort it’s taken and work to get to where you can drive on a track like this, at the speeds we go in a P2 car, trying to pass these guys in the GT and not run them off the road and make smart passes.I think it means a lot just because of the amount of work it takes.And I lean a lot on Mikkel and Hunter, who coach me and help me with the data, but when you go to Indianapolis — when I was a kid, I watched the Indianapolis 500. And you win a race, and you come down to my hometown and win a race, it’s a real sense of accomplishment.I appreciate you asking.FastScripts Transcript by ASAP SportsInterviews with Mirko Bortolotti, Jordan Pepper, Franck PereraTHE MODERATOR: We have our GTD Pro winners. From your left to right, Mirko Bortolotti, Jordan Pepper, and Franck Perera. Mirko, why don’t you start us off. Big win for Lamborghini here. It came a year after the last Lamborghini win in the WeatherTech Championship. What is it about this place that seems to connect with Lamborghini, and what does it mean to win again?MIRKO BORTOLOTTI: It’s been amazing. It’s been two tough seasons, tough years for us. I think we’ve been showing good potential, but we never managed to pull it off. Never managed to get the result we got today.I think it’s a proud moment definitely to be back on the top side of the podium in IMSA. It’s a great championship for us. We always enjoy being here. I think it was about time to have a result like this.I’m extremely proud of the job that’s been done this week by the entire team, by Lamborghini. Obviously my teammates, a fantastic drive by them. Just a fantastic way to finish off the 2024 season. Yeah, just super delighted and excited and happy about this result.THE MODERATOR: We’ll slide over to Jordan. First win comes at a pretty big race. What does it mean to you?JORDAN PEPPER: Yeah, I think I had a win for about three hours a couple years back. But, yeah, no, very proud. Obviously, it’s been a long time coming. I think this effort from the team has been amazing obviously. From Lamborghini’s side, it’s been a tough go in IMSA with the EVO2.Obviously last year we were in it right until the end, and unfortunately it didn’t go our way. But, yeah, obviously this place is quite special. I’ve come close to a win here in the past, and it was such a good feeling obviously to close it out this time.Very proud. Just an intense, intense battle out there. All stints, I think there was a point where we were mixing it up with the GTD cars, and I got to the lead, which was quite good.Then again, we had a moment with Daniel. I think it was quite a critical, crucial moment where he got stuck behind a BMW on cold tires where we could regain the lead again. Then it was just head down, full attack, obviously.It seemed like they had the pace over us on one lap, but we seemed very strong over the distance, which I think made the difference today, and what was really impressive was the guys behind the wall that made some good strategy calls.Some risky decisions, but it paid off in the end, and just an incredible job by the team both on the track and off the track today.THE MODERATOR: Let’s scoot over to Franck. As I mentioned, second win. First one since 2018, Daytona. How does it feel to be back on top of the podium here?FRANCK PERERA: I feel great. I think they said quite everything.No, I’m really proud of the team. Like Mirko said, it was not an easy season. But I think everyone gave just a maximum, and we didn’t give up, and we just believed that it was possible.The fight was intense. Yeah, just happy. I think it’s really great to finish the season like this, especially here. It’s just good for Iron and Lamborghini, and the car was just big Iron, and everybody did an amazing job.Just happy, yeah.THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.Q. Mirko, I’ll start with you. You mentioned this has been a top season. If you look at Iron Lynx in general over the last couple of years where the promise was there, but then in the big races something came up, something went wrong. How did you manage to sort of keep it clean today? What does that mean to finally get the big win out of the way in a significant race?MIRKO BORTOLOTTI: Yeah, I think it’s a big relief for the entire team. It’s not a secret that the last two seasons together with Iron Lynx, this is the first win we managed to get in all championships. So it’s definitely a big day for the team.Yeah, I think you summed it up quite well. The potential was there in several occasions. Not only in IMSA, but other championships, and then something went wrong or maybe we made wrong calls or something. Just didn’t work our way, which led to the fact that we never really managed to get the result we deserved.I think from that point of view, for the team it’s a great relief to engagement such a big win. And also on a personal note, I’m really happy to be able to take another really important victory over here in America after winning at Daytona.It means a lot, and yeah, I think as Jordan also said, we are looking at this race. Probably it was not the strongest pace from us today compared to other occasions, but we were even strong on the pace-wise, but we were missing something on other areas.I think today was just simply the perfect race. We made the right calls at the right time, no mistakes, kept it clean. That’s what brought us in the position at the end of the day. Really proud of the performance of the entire Iron Links.Q. First of all, you just mentioned getting the Ferrari getting stuck behind a BMW on cold tires. I’m assuming that was a prototype. Second of all, I think the final restart, when you get everybody so close here, it’s always super important. But you seemed to pull the gap on the Ferrari fairly quickly. Can you talk about that?JORDAN PEPPER: I think there was some key moments. In this championship, if you bide your time a little bit and get stuck behind, especially our car, where we definitely are not the strongest from T7 to T10, the passing zone into T10 is not available for us.But I think use the key moments quite well through the traffic. At one point, when we were behind the GTD cars, really maximized that opportunity when they were all getting stuck into each other, and I could capitalize.Then a bit later on, like I mentioned, with the BMW, this championship is obviously multi-class racing at its finest, and I think that’s what’s so cool about it, all those different elements. I think it’s a lot of up and downs for everyone. I think everyone gains at moments and loses at moments, but obviously we capitalized.We did a good strategy to get us in the fight with them. He just got past me, and then I was able to capitalize and get him back obviously through the traffic. It worked in our favor.Then from there the clean air was really important for us, and yeah, the final restart — obviously I knew when it came down to it, the best we could do was try to open the gap. Obviously I had two cars between us. Managed to open that gap quite strong, and I knew they had the pace over us the first 10, 15 laps. Once that settled down, it seemed like we had the control over them. It was just about getting lucky in the traffic situations.I think he got messed up a little bit. I obviously got a little bit unlucky at points, but I think the gap was pretty much, let’s say, stable around the three, four second mark, which is in motorsport a big enough margin to be comfortable.FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

Interviews with Laurin Heinrich, Scott Andrews and Ben Keating
THE MODERATOR: Let’s get started with our post-qualifying press conference for the 27th annual Motul Petit Le Mans. We have our GTP3 in their respective pole positions. Big step in the pole position today, and you’re vying for the championship. How did it go out there today?
LAURIN HEINRICH: Yeah, I knew about the championship situation before the qualifying. We were 99 points ahead, and the points gap is always in ten steps, so getting that 100 points gap, that mark, was really important for us.
We knew that there’s Martins, which our championship competitors, the 23 car, that they are quite quick around here. I knew they would qualify well so I would just have to be on pole. That would be the solution.
We did that. When I went out of pit lane, it was a red flag as soon as we started pushing. So I could get a feel for the car, which was quite different compared to yesterday.
Yeah, that was I think quite good for me because I could adapt my driving style. I could think about what to do different.
The next push attempt after red flag, then the lap first 18.2, then 17.8, so the tire still came in after the red flag over the multiple laps.